HANDSOFF MESSAGE:
Hands Off Our Ovaries in Action:
HandsOffOurOvaries Directors have participated in three US Congressional briefings on Capital Hill since last year. These briefings, which have received bi-partisan support, call for legislation to mandate tracking the health of all women who undergo hyperstimulation for egg harvesting. Most recently, HandsOff directors, Jennifer Schneider, M.D. and Jennifer Lahl, briefed members of Congress on International Women's Day, March 6, 2008. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) has served as sponsor of all three of these briefings.
In February, HandsOff Directors Diane Beeson and Tina Stevens lectured on
“The New Eugenics, Stem Cell Research, and Cloning: What the Public Doesn't Know,” for the Alameda Public Affairs Forum, Alameda, CA. In March, they presented a lecture on the same topic for the Women and the World Seminar in the Liberal Studies Program at San Francisco State University.
For several days in March students helped to raise awareness about the health risks of egg harvesting by distributing information and “tabling” the issues on the campus of San Francisco State University. They are planning more such events for April and May.
NEWS:
When a disease is donated Mom's quest to warn daughter's offspring goes to the heart of a thorny debate on sperm, egg donors, by Judith Graham, Tribune reporter, 11:43 PM CDT, March 26, 2008
NOTE: This news item opens by referencing HandsOffOurOvaries director, Dr. Jennifer Schneider:
Dr. Jennifer Schneider pleaded to be allowed to contact the families whose children were conceived through her daughter's donated eggs. Her daughter had died of colon cancer, she said, and the parents deserved to know.
But the agency her daughter had worked with said it could not help because the paperwork had been disposed of, Schneider said. Such brokers place a high premium on protecting the privacy of donors, who usually are promised their identities will not be disclosed without their express permission.
These conflicting priorities will be on the agenda Friday in Chicago at the first national conference devoted to exploring the creation of a U.S. registry of egg and sperm donors. The discussion promises to be heated as participants debate what data should be included in a registry, who should have access and how it should be managed.
Although Australia, Britain, Sweden and a few other countries maintain such registries, U.S. organizations dealing with egg and sperm donors operate with little oversight or coordination of policies. Not all keep good records of who donates to whom. Some will help donors and families make contact upon request; others won't.
For full story visit:
ChicagoTribune.com TOP
Suspected human egg brokers arrested:
March 21, 2008: Police arrested two men Thursday on suspicion of procuring human eggs
through the Internet in violation of the South Korean law that bans
commercial trade in eggs or sperm. Because the country has no law on
commercial surrogacy, the brokers could not be punished for arranging
surrogate mothers, which was their main task, said officers at the Chungnam
Provincial Police Agency's cyber-investigation unit.
Through an Internet cafe they opened in late 2005, the two men, whose names
were withheld because the probe is underway, gathered egg donors, surrogate
candidates and infertile couples and arranged the trade for premiums, the
police said. Each couple paid their donor 3-5 million won (US $3,000-5,000)
and an additional 1million to the brokers. The men earned 2 million won from
two egg deals and 120 million won from (US $120,000) about 50 surrogacy
deals over the past two years, but the latter was not subject to punishment,
the police said. "The life and ethics law has no articles about surrogate
mothers. It only governs the egg and sperm trade."
South Korea banned the commercial egg trade in late 2005 following a
controversy over the disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk. Hwang, who
in 2004 made a now-discredited claim to have created cloned human embryos
for the first time in the world, prompted an ethical dispute after his lab
was found to have used eggs from paid donors and junior researchers on his
team.
Egg trade could lead to the exploitation of low-income women who could risk
their health by selling their eggs for money, women activists say. They also
call for a ban on commercial surrogacy, and such bills are still pending in
the National Assembly. "Some people say 'unselfish' surrogacy should be
allowed between family members, but the reality is, for a woman, it's just
hard to refuse a request to be a surrogate mother from her family members,
while her human rights and her right to health are neglected," Korean
Womenlink said.
For full story visit:
tradingmarkets.com TOP
Developing Countries 'to get $200 IVF', By Michael Hopkin
A task force has been established to provide infertile couples in poor countries with access to affordable reproductive treatments such as IVF, a European group of fertility experts announced today. They are aiming to roll out a network of cheap clinics that could offer IVF, for example, for as little as US$200 a time.
For full story visit:
nature.com TOP
HANDSOFF REMINDER:
Tell us your Story
What was your experience with egg "donation"? Was it problem free? Have you experienced any of the following symptoms since donating?
Weight gain, Extreme PMS, Hemorraging, Hormonal imbalance, Migranes, Memory Loss, Ovarian cysts
Whatever your experience, we would appreciate hearing your story. If you know others who have undergone egg harvesting for fertility or research we would appreciate hearing their story, too.
Contact us to talk
