Cecil Byran Jacobson (October 2, 1936 – March 5, 2021[1]) was an American former fertility doctor who used his own sperm to impregnate his patients without informing them.
One form of treatment was to inject patients, before and after conception, with the hormone hCG (commonly used as a parenteral fertility medication and a hormone normally released during pregnancy), and patients who had been unable to conceive with other treatments reported success under Jacobson's care.
During Jacobson's criminal trial, experts examined the ultrasound photographs, and reported that the purported "fetuses" were actually nearby organs or fecal matter.
[citation needed] In 1989, suspicious former patients tipped off a local television station, which investigated and reported on the false pregnancies.
Federal prosecutors charged Jacobson with perjury (for false testimony during the civil proceedings) and mail and wire fraud (for the use of the letters and the telephone system as part of his fraudulent practice).
He was well aware that injected hCG could trigger a false positive on a pregnancy test, but thought that the dosages he administered were too low to have that effect.
He acknowledged using his own sperm on some occasions, when donors failed to show up when needed, and a patient was about to miss a window of opportunity to become pregnant.
He could not account for the incident in which his own sperm was used in place of the patient's husband's, other than to suggest cross-contamination in the laboratory.