W.E.E.P. News
Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution News
24 August 2010
FERTILITY CRISIS IN THE UK
Egg and sperm donors may get thousands of pounds in fertility plan
Significant shift in policy aims to stop more childless couples seeking treatment abroad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/22/fertility-eggs-sperm-donors
- Denis Campbell, health correspondent
- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 August 2010 22.59 BST
Donor-assisted conception is to be made easier by reducing the chronic shortages of donated eggs and sperm. Photograph: ZEPHYR/SPL/Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF
Britain's fertility regulator is planning big changes to the strict rules governing egg and sperm donation in order to try to stop more childless couples from seeking treatment abroad.
The sweeping liberalisation would see the most significant shift in policy governing sperm and egg donation since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) was established.
The changes could see the amount paid to women who donate eggs rise from £250 to several thousand pounds – but experts have warned the move would see women donating eggs purely for money.
Donated sperm could also be used to start as many as 20 families rather than the current limit of 10, despite fears such a move would increase the risk of half-siblings unwittingly marrying or having children together.
The HFEA intends to make donor-assisted conception easier by reducing the chronic shortages of donated eggs and sperm. Many fertility clinics have waiting lists of two years, and one in seven couples faces fertility problems.
"We want to remove obstacles to donation," an HFEA spokeswoman said. "There are waiting lists of various lengths for people wanting to get access to treatment with donor eggs or sperm. We want to see if our policies are contributing to an unnecessary delay."
The number of Britons opting to go to countries such as Spain and Cyprus to obtain eggs or sperm has persuaded the authority to consider how well the current system is working, she added. Experts fear some fertility centres overseas may offer substandard treatment, and the HFEA is worried that some people are turning to the internet in their desperation to acquire sperm, which may not have been screened to exclude the risk of genetic diseases.
HFEA members and leading fertility doctors agree that an overhaul is necessary, but are divided about what to do. At the moment, paying egg and sperm donors is banned, and they can only receive £250 in lieu of loss of earnings for their action.
Some argue the sum should be doubled, and others that Britain should copy the system in Spain, where women are paid €900 (£740) for each cycle of eggs.
But the HFEA is also examining whether women should be paid several thousand pounds in order to increase the number of egg donors from the current figure of about 1,200 a year. Fertility experts say that is far too few to satisfy the growing demand for eggs, and is forcing more Britons to seek treatment abroad.
The HFEA is looking into whether compensation should be closer to, or even the same as, the sums a woman can receive as a benefit in kind when she takes part in an egg sharing scheme – where a donor gives half her eggs to the fertility clinic and in return gets her own treatment free or at a big discount.
The HFEA spokeswoman said: "Because of the cost of IVF treatment, the discount that someone might receive as a result of egg sharing could be worth several thousand pounds. There is a comparison between the two practices [the two different forms of egg donation], so should they be equalised? Should we bring some parity between egg donors and egg sharers?"
Dr Tony Rutherford, chair of the British Fertility Society, which represents doctors in NHS and private clinics, said the £250 limit was too low to lure donors, but warned that allowing compensation to rise to several thousand pounds would see altruism lost in a rush for cash.
"The principle of paying women to donate eggs for research is established in the UK, with approximately £1,500 being given per cycle. The issue here is that you are potentially straying into territory where the financial inducement becomes the principal reason for donation. You are then accepting that it is morally and ethically right to 'sell' gametes, and if that is the case, why put an artificial limit on the price and [instead] pay the going rate?" said Rutherford, a fertility doctor in Leeds. "Clearly there is a need to redress the balance, as £250 compensation is too low. What society needs to debate is where that limit should be to protect the integrity of donation."
Professor Allan Pacey, a male-fertility expert at Sheffield University, said: "I think the 10 families rule should stay as it is and that the £250 should be increased a bit – maybe doubled – but not reach the sums we see in America, where it gets dirty. Over there, people get thousands of dollars for donating eggs or sperm, and there are greater premiums for good looks, which makes me feel very uncomfortable.
"The payment ceiling could be raised a bit without opening the door to American-style commercialism."
The Catholic church said that it would oppose either larger payments or the 10 families per sperm donation limit being increased. Professor David Jones, director of the church's Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford, and an adviser to the bishops of England and Wales on fertility issues, said: "The church finds IVF ethically problematic and donor conception is worse … because it means the mother and father of the child won't be its biological parents.
So when you start to pay people for it, it's even worse because you are encouraging, in the crudest kind of way, people who aren't going to be involved in the rearing of children to donate sperm or eggs. It's not just the church – a lot of people find the idea of payment problematic, because it's demeaning to procreation, that you should pay someone to take their child from them biologically."
Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, a socially conservative campaign group, said: "We would be absolutely outraged if the HFEA increases the payment limits above £250.
It's totally looking at the issue from the perspective of infertile couples who need eggs and will pay anything for them, and not from the perspective of the healthy woman they are trying to persuade to donate her eggs, and the risks she would incur by donating."
The HFEA's chairwoman, Professor Lisa Jardine, said today that a move towards the Spanish system was being considered. A report is due to go to the HFEA executive early next month, and public consultation will follow.
The trend towards older motherhood is raising demand for donor gametes as some women do not confront fertility problems until they try to conceive for the first time in their 30s or 40s, said Rutherford.
Susan Seenan of Infertility Network UK, which helps infertile couples, said it was right that the question of payments and the 10 families rule were revisited.
"Many patients are travelling abroad for treatment, often because of the severe lack of sperm and egg donors in the UK. Although many patients do receive a high standard of care abroad, this is not ideal."
Dr Jennifer Speirs, a donation expert at Edinburgh University, said: "On the number of families, the battleline is drawn mainly between the private clinics, who pooh-pooh the idea that unwitting incest between people who are actually half-siblings is a problem, and the psychosocial experts who believe that in our culture the idea of being one of 15 siblings is uncomfortable and that the views of donor-conceived children must take priority."
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The real question that needs to be asked about the above problem is,
Why are these people infertile?
This video may help to explain why (electro magnetic radiation)
Wireless Networks - Genetic Mutations (1:25 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ao4Z5-RYTQ&feature=related
Come and see Barrie Trower speak at 155 College St, Room 610,
University of Toronto, Tuesday August 24th (today)
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August 23, 2010: Pick of the Week #7 (Hazards of Microwave Radiations – A review) gives us some insights into what was known 50 years ago (1960).
This document, written 50 years ago, discusses the hazards associated with relatively high levels of microwave exposure that might be experienced by those who work near radar installations, as radio frequency heat sealers, or with medical diathermy machines. Note this also applies to those who repair both broadcast and cell phone antennas.
To read more, visit www.magdahavas.com
Dr Magda Havas
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Broadband over Power Lines (Wireless) wipes out CB Radio channels in UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBmk41EGKqg
(Horrible Noises)
Robert R
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Wireless Technology Health Risks
According to the group, their "BioInitiative Report is an examination of the controversial health risks of electromagnetic fields and radiofrequency radiation." It appears as if the main idea behind the report, however, is to point out ...
http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Networking-Hardware/Wireless-Technology-Health-Risks/
Web site www.weepinitiative.org e-mail contactweep@weepinitiative.org
To sign up for WEEP News: newssignup@weepinitiative.org (provide name and e-mail address)
W.E.E.P. – The Canadian initiative to stop Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution
