that her biological father is, in fact, former Duke
\nUniversity Hospital Fertility Doctor Charles Peete<\/a>, and that she
\nhad more than 20 other half siblings, mostly in North Carolina.\u00a0<\/p>\nHer mother, a Fayetteville resident, had gone to Peete for
\nfertility treatments decades ago. The results seemed to show that Peete had
\nused his own sperm in the procedures again and again, without permission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t even know I was a sperm donor baby, much less finding
\nout at the exact same time that, you know, the doctor\u2026had used his sperm and
\nthat I was a product of a crime,\u201d said McKesson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, a year and a half after finding out about her true father,
\nMcKesson is focused on getting her story out to as many people as possible, and
\ntrying to make sure what happened to her family doesn\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mothers deserve to know that this happened to them. And the
\nchildren, all of the half-siblings, deserve to know their medical history,\u201d she
\nsaid. \u201cOur intent was just to do the right thing and make a difference and try
\nto help save a life, especially with my genetic issues.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Charles Pete died in 2013. WRAL reached out to Duke Health,
\nasking if the hospital system has done anything to reach out to Peete\u2019s former
\npatients, and what\u2019s being done to ensure patient safety and transparency at
\nthe fertility clinic now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Duke Health released a statement in response. Officials said they
\nwere not able to comment on individual patients, but assured Duke Health is a \u201cpremier
\ncenter of excellence for reproductive healthcare and is committed to providing
\nthe best fertility care for people who are seeking to build a family.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been made aware of unacceptable actions by an
\nindividual that occurred in our program in the early days of fertility care
\nduring the late 1970s and early 1980s. The unacceptable actions could not
\nhappen today at Duke Health and should never have happened,\u201d the statement read
\nin part.<\/p>\n
McKesson said she doesn\u2019t know how big her biological family may
\nultimately be, but her research suggests this could be just the beginning. In
\nother cases of so-called \u2018fertility fraud,\u00a0 doctors have illicitly
\nfathered dozens of children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is one that [spans across] 15 years,\u201d said McKesson, \u201cand
\nthey have over 100 half siblings. And our story so far is 21 years that it
\nspans across.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just in the last week, her family circle has gotten bigger. A new
\nhalf-sibling was added to her family tree, one she hopes to talk to, to walk
\nhim through his new reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remembered how I felt on that day, and I want to be able to
\nsupport anyone else who joins the same way that I was supported, and really, I
\nmean, just guide him through it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
McKesson said she also wants to push North Carolina\u2019s state
\nlegislature to take action – both to hold doctors like her biological father
\naccountable, and to protect kids like her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got a couple of contacts that want to help us do that and
\njust really push that forward,\u201d said McKesson. \u201cWe all just shouldn\u2019t say, \u2018Oh,
\nit’ll never happen again.\u2019 I think that we still need to do our due diligence
\nand protect patients.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Summer McKesson, the last three years have been head spinning.\u00a0 First, she was diagnosed with a pair…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":335405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[115239,210,1141,1142,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-335404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-duke-health","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115444482327234777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}