Young Women Exploited In Egg Donation Process, Bioethecist Says
By Mark Ellis
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
TIBURON, CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- Stanford University student Calla Papademus answered an ad offering $50,000 for egg ?donation? that sounded like easy money. She didn?t realize the risks of egg harvesting, suffered a stroke, and spent more than six weeks in a coma. Having survived a narrow brush with death, she now regrets her ill-informed decision.
?They?re targeting young women,? says Jennifer Lahl, founder of the Center for Bioethics and Culture. ?Young women assume when they go into a medical clinic to donate their eggs, the clinic has their best interests at heart,? she says. ?But young women are not being informed of the risks.? Harvested eggs from young collegiates?especially those with high SAT scores and the right skin color?sell for a premium to wealthy infertile couples as well as human cloning researchers. Women often receive more than $5,000 per donation.
At puberty, girls have a finite supply of eggs?anywhere from 400-500 will be available during their reproductive life span which are slowly depleted during the natural aging process. Egg harvesting removes up to 40 eggs at a time. Some young women?motivated by financial need?undergo the procedure multiple times, which places themselves at risk of infertility later in life.
Currently, there is no monitoring or regulation of the number of times a woman may donate eggs. ?An egg donor walks out of a clinic and falls off the face of the earth,? Lahl notes. One woman?Julia Derek, admitted to donating eggs 12 times in her book ?Confessions of a Serial Egg Donor.?
To harvest the eggs, women go through a procedure known as ovarian hyperstimulation. For two weeks, women inject themselves with fertility drugs such as Lupron or Pergonal daily. Extracting the eggs involves a surgical procedure at a clinic, where an ultrasound probe guides a 12-inch needle into each ovary. There is a risk of puncturing or lacerating surrounding tissues, which can lead to acute ovarian trauma, infection, infertility, and vaginal bleeding.
Surprisingly, the drugs used in ovarian hyperstimulation procedures are not approved by the FDA for this use. ?Lupron, the drug most commonly used for ovarian hyperstimulation, is FDA approved for prostate cancer,? according to Lahl, but not for ovarian hyperstimulation. ?Women are having strokes and organ failures and dying,? she says. ?Maybe we should stop and see what?s going on here.?
Complications of the procedure are known as Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS).
In testimony before the Massachusetts State Legislature last year, Dr. Pia de Solenni, Ph.D. outlined the risks: ?Complications from the procedure include a potential link to ovarian cysts and cancers, severe pelvic pain, rupture of the ovaries, stroke, possible negative effects on future fertility, and even death.?
A 32-year-old Irish woman died in February 2003 from complications of OHSS. Two other women in the UK had severe complications. One collapsed and died at a bus stop while undergoing ovarian hyperstimulation. The other had several strokes which left her brain damaged and in need of long-term care.
?In clinical studies using Pergonal for ovarian hyperstimulation, 2.4-5.5 percent of women developed complications,? noted Dr. de Solenni in her testimony. ?Similarly, the FDA?s data on Lupron, another drug used for ovarian hyperstimulation, records a death rate of .5 percent.?
Lahl argues these percentages?even if small?merit further investigation. ?It?s not a common occurrence that women die from this,? she notes. ?But we need to understand the short and long-term risk.?
?How many times can a woman do this?every single month?? she asks. ?We?re playing with fire here. We don?t have to agree on the rights of the unborn, but we do need to be mindful of women?s health and safety.?
Egg donation is practiced safely in South Africa where a donor is stimulated for only 7 eggs. I have an egg donor program and will not recruit donors in the USA where the mentality of "more is better" exists. South Africa also has regulations on number of donations allowed. As an egg donor program we discourage donors after 3 or earlier, depending on how they do. South African clinics have success rates similar to USA. Some clinics in Venezuela and Canada also practice safe stimulation of the donor.
These donors are altruistic as their reimbursement for time and discomfort is capped by the government and very low.($750) We help them to understand what a Gift of Life they have given long after the procedure is over. They are not dropped.
I wish this article had reported all the facts of these tragic donations, as they make it appear as if egg donation in general is unsafe, which is not true.
Kind regards, Robin Newman
www.renewfertilty.com
I was thinking about donating my eggs , but after reading your article it makes me think twice about even doing it. I have all the children I plan on having, one girl and twin boys. i wanted to help others have the opportunity that God gave me. I would still like to help others, but I sure do not want to have any negative side effects, to put it lightly. Is there a trust worthy place in the US or even California, where I live? Thank you for opening my eyes to what could have been a potentially deadly experience. Every woman thinking about donating for money is doing it for the wrong reasons, they need to read this eye opening article. Thank you again.