Egg Harvesting a Risky Business, Group Warns
| March 09, 2007 | Monisha Bansal
On International Women's Day, an advocacy group warned women Thursday about the health risks of egg (oocyte) harvesting for donation, in vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research and cloning.
"Current practices follow a historical pattern of exposing women to risks that prove ultimately unacceptable," Diane Beeson, chair of the group Hands Off Our Ovaries, said at a Capitol Hill press conference.
"The harvesting of multiple eggs often involves the administration of drugs that have not been approved for this purpose," she said. "Also these drugs have not been adequately studied for their long-term effects on women despite research providing some evidence of significant harm to women in both the short term and long term."
Beeson noted that there are no registries which track the health of women who undergo IVF treatment, even though there could be long term risks of ovarian, uterine, vaginal and breast cancer associated with the drugs used to boost egg production.
"Egg harvesting is taking place in a research climate marked by conflicts of interest, the misleading use of language to describe research goals, and a commercial push that may lead to the exploitation of young women," she argued.
Sean Tipton, director of public affairs at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said donors are given counseling.
"There are some risks to every medical procedure and ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval are no exception," he told Cybercast News Service .
"Women considering undergoing these procedures are provided comprehensive information and counseling."
Despite informed consent, Beeson said "women don't consider that things can go wrong."
She pointed to complications associated with Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) - where too many eggs are produced at once, which can be fatal - and to possible infertility if a woman does not have many eggs.
Dr. Mark Perloe, medical director at Georgia Reproductive Specialists, told Cybercast News Service , "All our patients undergo extensive counseling discussing risks including OHSS. Doses are reduced for these patients."
Taking part in the press conference, Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, a public interest group focusing on assisted reproduction, said egg harvesting should focus more on the "health of women, not just pregnancy rates."
"Inevitably, women who are in this process of selling their eggs, or even if it's an altruistic donation, are not going to be given the same protection that the IVF patient will be provided with," she said.
"Can we endorse an awful, potentially harmful protocol for non-patients in order to satisfy the demands of the biotech lobby who want to have the largest possible amount of available eggs?"
Quintavalle said that 70 percent of eggs harvested have abnormalities, which may be caused by the fertility drugs.
"Young, healthy women have the most adverse reactions," she said, and they are the women usually sought for donation.
"Egg donation is an important therapeutic option that has helped thousands of families have children," argued Tipton.
"Any reputable, non-ideological review of the medical literature would tell you that ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval, whether for egg donation or for direct infertility therapy, are safe procedures performed thousands of time a year in this country," he added.
"I would urge patients, policy makers and the public to seek their information on medical issues from medical experts, not political ones like the sponsors of this workshop," Tipton said.
