A British embryologist who worked for the doctor whose fertility treatment led to the birth of octuplets said yesterday that she was shocked to discover he was still running the clinic she walked out on 13 years ago.

Shantal Rajah, 51, told The Times that she left Michael Kamrava’s clinic in the United States after three weeks, such was her concern at his personal attitude. She said that she found his behaviour impossible, including the secretive way that he ran the West Coast IVF Clinic. She successfully sued him for back pay and damages, receiving a substantial sum in 2003.

Describing Dr Kamrava, 57, as “extremely difficult”, Dr Rajah said that he had misled her about the clinic to encourage her to move from Britain and had refused to listen to questions she raised about the way the clinic operated.

“The level of regulation I was used to just wasn’t there,” Dr Rajah said. “His practice was all a very secretive issue. He didn’t tell anyone what he was up to – he would do things that he said would work, but you didn’t get any sense of what he was doing or what was the outcome.

“I saw details emerge [of the clinic] and I thought of him – frankly I am shocked he’s still in business.”

Dr Kamrava was revealed on Monday as the man who gave IVF to Nadya Suleman, 33, for all of her 14 babies. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine said yesterday that it was investigating whether he followed guidelines by implanting six embryos into each of Ms Suleman’s six pregnancies, resulting in four single births, a set of twins and the octuplets. The Medical Board of California is also looking into the pregnancy.

Even twin and triplet pregnancies have considerably raised risks to health, including stillbirth, prematurity and cerebral palsy for the babies, and preeclampsia and death for their mothers. In bigger multiple pregnancies, these hazards grow almost exponentially.

Fertility experts and medical ethicists in the United States, who have been highly critical of the octuplets’ birth, said that no more than three embryos were considered appropriate for a woman of Ms Suleman’s age. British IVF clinics are generally forbidden from transferring more than two embryos at once, and they are encouraged to use only one.

Ms Suleman, who has a history of miscarriages and scarred Fallopian tubes, defended Dr Kamrava, describing her treatment as “very appropriate”.

Dr Kamrava, who has described himself as a medical pioneer, is known in Southern California for promoting techniques to improve pregnancy success rates, including placing newly created embryos in a capsule and cultivating them inside the vagina for a few days before transferring them to the uterus in hopes of achieving a pregnancy.

Federal records suggest that his clinic in Beverly Hills has a low success rate. Of the 61 procedures Dr Kamrava conducted in 2006, there have been only five pregnancies and two births.

In a research paper published this month, Dr Rajah, who works at the Brent-wood Fertility Centre at Essex Nuffield Hospital, questions whether a single embryo transfer policy is the best approach to IVF. She said yesterday that she nevertheless felt that the implanting of more than two embryos should not be carried out.

Describing her time with Dr Kamrava, she added: “I had to do the work – whatever he instructed I did. He did not have a modernised heated microscope [for cell study], which is what I was used to. But he really wasn’t receptive to changes to the way he did things. He had a very bad temper.”

Dr Rajah sued Dr Kamrava for her relocation expenses and back pay. Court papers cite how they had strong disagreements over the proper heating of embryos. They also state that Dr Kamrava has been named in at least five medical malpractice lawsuits since 1991.

Another former employee, Shirin Afshar, the office administrator, took legal action against Dr Kamrava over financial irregularities. The suit appeared to have been settled in 1999, shortly before it went to trial.

Dr Kamrava did not return calls from The Times. When confronted by reporters earlier in the week, he said that he had granted a television interview.

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