Woman claims infected chicken destroyed her IVF hopes
Lisa Fessey says she miscarried her implanted embryos when she contracted food poisoning from a pre-cooked chicken bought at Tesco
A woman who claims Tesco ruined her chances of starting a family by giving her food poisoning is now suing the supermarket giant.
Lisa Fessey alleges she caught campylobacter gastroenteritis from a pre-cooked chicken bought by her husband from a rotisserie at Tesco. She says the illness caused her IVF treatment to fail.
The 41-year-old had been successfully implanted with 2 embryos when she was struck by the illness that she says caused her to miscarry.
Lisa has used both of the free IVF cycles offered on the NHS and is now unable to afford private treatment.
Talking to the Metro, she said: “We had suffered years of heartache and frustration and believed we would finally be able to start a family of our own.
“It was such a crushing blow for us as realistically it was our last chance. We are no longer entitled to IVF on the NHS and we cannot afford to pay for it privately, so we hoped Tesco would help but they turned us down.”
Tesco has admitted liability for the food poisoning last summer but not for Lisa’s miscarriage.
According to an NHS consultant gynaecologist who was speaking to The Daily Mail, it's not possible to prove a direct link between the food poisoning and the failure of the pregnancy, at such an early IVF stage. As Lisa is 41, there's only a 20-25% chance of having a positive pregnancy test following IVF implantation.
Lisa's solicitor Jane Cooper has argued that her hopes for a baby ‘were cruelly destroyed by Tesco’s simple failure to follow straightforward food hygiene requirements.’
Tesco said it was working to resolve Lisa's complaint and ‘took urgent action to check our hygiene and cleaning routines'.
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