Doctor Who Used Animal Catheters To Inseminate Women Gets License Back

SKOKIE, IL — A local fertility doctor who pleaded guilty to using veterinary catheters on human patients has gotten his medical license back on a probationary basis last month, records show.

Dr. Joel Brasch, 64, of Skokie, is the owner and medical director of Chicago IVF, a Skokie-based company he founded in 1997 with clinics in Orland Park, Warrenville and St. Charles, as well as Valparaiso and Munster, Indiana.

By 2011 at the latest, Brasch had begun telling his staff to buy catheters — single-use, flexible plastic tubes used to inseminate female patients seeking to become pregnant — that were made for animals and were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, according to his plea agreement.

"Brasch acknowledges that these veterinary catheters were adulterated within the meaning of [federal law], in that the FDA had not approved them for human use and had not cleared them for human use," it said.

Brasch's use of animal catheters for intrauterine inseminations, or IUI, continued until October 2018, according to his guilty plea.

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“In procedures such as IUI, every step should strictly follow protocols in order to protect the patient’s health and safety and ensure the efficacy of the procedure,” Lynda Burdelik, special agent-in-charge of the FDA's Chicago office, said in a statement announcing the charge. “Utilizing instruments designed for animal use in humans can put patients at risk. We will continue to investigate and bring to justice those who use unapproved devices on their human patients.”

Prosecutors charged Brasch with one misdemeanor count of receipt in interstate commerce and delivery of an adulterated device in December 2021, bypassing a grand jury and filing the charge via a "criminal information," as is commonly done in anticipation of a swift guilty plea.

Brasch pleaded guilty in January 2022, admitting to the allegations and agreeing to forfeit more than $133,500 of his business's money seized by federal authorities.

The offense carries a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison followed by a year of supervised release.

In May 2022, U.S. District Judge Susan Cox sentenced Brasch to two years of probation and assessed a $100,000 fine, the maximum fine permitted.

After serving about three-quarters of his probation, Brasch asked a judge to end it early. Magistrate Judge Keri Holleb Hotaling granted his request in November 2023, noting that he had paid all the fines required and "poses no apparent danger to the public."

His probation complete, Brasch was then disciplined by Illinois state medical regulators earlier this year.

Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, or IDFPR, officials suspended Brasch's physician and surgeon's license for 30 days and fined him $75,000. His license was also placed on at least two years of indefinite probation.

Brasch's suspension ended April 14, according to IDFPR. His spokesperson, Chicago IVF Practice Manager Natalie Reynolds, said he stopped using veterinary catheters six years ago and is now in full compliance with all FDA regulations and guidelines.

"The IVF industry was born out of veterinary medicine and several practices and devices, including the Tomcat IUI catheter, were used safely for decades throughout the United States and are still employed today to benefit men and women seeking fertility treatment," Reynolds told Patch.

Reynolds said Brasch's practice has been lobbying FDA officials to permit more use of veterinary catheters, which she said offer benefits including availability, reliability and comfort.

"Dr. Brasch spent years objecting to and contesting these allegations. Ultimately it was in the best interests of his patients to resolve this matter by accepting a brief suspension of his license," Reynolds said. "During these conversations with the FDA his license was valid and he was practicing medicine, as he is today."

After Brasch pleaded guilty, a series of websites were registered using his name. These sites contain a series of posts attributed to Dr. Joel Brasch about various subjects unconnected to obstetrics and gynecology.

However, these posts — with titles like "Tackling Homelessness: Strategies for Community Support and Solutions" and "Empowering Youth Leadership: Investing in the Future of Communities" — appear to be completely generated by an artificial intelligence chatbot, as does the rest of the content on his websites, according to the AI detector GPTZero.

Through his spokesperson, Brasch did not address written questions about the proliferation AI-generated content under his byline since June 2023.

But Reynolds told Patch that Brasch has returned to seeing patients in Illinois since his license was reinstated last month, "and, by all accounts, they are delighted to have him back."

Earlier: Skokie Doctor Used Veterinary Catheters To Inseminate Women, Feds Say