Egg Donations On The Rise Despite Critics Claiming Lax Regulations

Egg donor marketing campaigns aimed at healthy, young women as well as recent technology has created a boom in the fertility industry.

With the help of the Internet and agencies, the $3 billion a year industry connects young, fertile females with couples struggling to conceive. According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies, the most recent statistics show more than 7,000 live births from donor eggs in 2008.

The donor process involves a strict medical regime of daily hormone injections to increase the number of eggs produced and an outpatient surgery -- under sedation -- to retrieve the eggs.

Sean Tipton, the director of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, says it is important to recognize egg donation as a successful treatment option for couples unable to conceive naturally.

Critics of the fertility industry say it's become a global business with little regulatory oversight.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requires fertility clinics and agencies to disclose statistics including birth rates and success rates of In Vitro Fertilization treatments in egg donor recipients. Agencies and clinics that are SART members report similar data but privacy laws prevent donor information from being reported.

Dr. Jennifer Mersereau, a reproductive endocrinologist at N.C. Women's Hospital at UNC Health Care, says it is difficult to know if there are increased long-term risks associated with the fertility drugs because, currently, there is no registry to track a donor's health in the years following a donation cycle.

ASRM recommends guidelines for all parties of the fertility industry, including limiting donors to six donation cycles, but they are not enforced.

Tipton says the fertility drugs used are strong medications that one person should not be exposed to too many times.

“Prudence would suggest that potential egg donors be limited to no more than six attempts at an egg donation cycle…There is some concern that we don’t know definitely if there are some safety risks to [the donor],” Tipton said.

Studies link the use of fertility drugs to the potential development of certain cancers, ovarian hyper stimulation and future fertility problems. However, researchers say more long-term studies are needed for definitive answers because most donors are at least a decade from peak age from associated risks, such as ovarian cancer.

Advertisements in college newspapers nationwide, on websites like Facebook and Craigslist, offer females $2,500 to $10,000 and in some cases more per completed donation cycle.

Angela Nesmith became a donor when she was 21 years old and admits the financial help was a motivating factor in her decision to become a donor. However she says she was also inspired to help infertile couples create a family.

“I woke up from surgery and vomited. It got much worse, I was vomiting, I could not get off of the sofa, I couldn’t move,” said Nesmith, who went in and out of hospitals in Charlotte for a week and eventually lost her job.

On the verge of kidney failure, doctors determined she was suffering from ovarian hyper stimulation. As a result, four pounds was later drained from her abdomen. Doctors told Nesmith she would have died had she not received the necessary help promptly.

Nesmith says doctors never discussed the potential for long-term health risks, such as cancer or future infertility. Despite admitting to clinics she had previously undergone more donation cycles than recommended by ASRM, Nesmith says neither the doctors nor clinics stopped her from proceeding with the donation.

Given the lack of research available Nesmith has unanswered questions regarding her future health.

“Nobody said, ‘If you do this you might get colon cancer in 10 years.’ It’s something I’ve figured out for myself,” she said. “I really wonder, are all of those eggs good? Are you going to run out of them before you are 35? I don’t know. I guess I’ll let you know in five years.”