Egg Donation and Surrogacy

Today on Boston.com:
“Yes, top students reap rich rewards, even as egg donors”

Here is one response to the Hastings Center Report that studied advertisements for egg donors.

People with access to expensive IVF treatments tend to be more educated, and are typically looking for donors similar to them. The SAT is the handiest objective barometer of intellectual abilities, so scores can be an important search criterion for some prospective parents.

However,  there is no concrete evidence that egg donors with high SAT scores produce smarter children. Furthermore, there is no evidence that egg donors with high SAT scores have better cycles (resulting in live births) than women with average scores.

Offering more than the ASRM-established limit of $10,000 is not only unethical but a waste of money. As IVF patients come to realize the hard way, paying more does not always mean getting more. These outrageous offers can only provoke unwanted government regulation. They are bad for individual patients as well as for the industry as a whole, and should be discouraged by all ASRM members (doctors, lawyers, agencies).

The following is a response to “The Human Egg Trade (How Canada’s Fertility Laws are failing donors, doctors, and parents)”.

The situation in Canada demonstrates how a lack of clear regulations for egg donation has a ripple effect of deviance from standard protocols in other parts of the process. The egg donation arrangement where a young woman was coerced to donate for an unofficial compensation even after having a failed cycle which produced no viable embryos and caused her painful hyperstimulation, was handled badly at every step, starting with egg donor/recipient relations to the medical procedure. What doctor would agree to cycle an egg donor after her last retrieval was so poor?

Doctors in the US scrupulously pore over egg donors’ records, and if there are any concerns she would not be allowed to donate again. Perhaps it is the ready availability of so many good candidates in the US that allows American doctors to be so picky. Doctors also have their own success rates at stake, which they need to maintain to attract patients.

The egg donation business in the US shows how a sensibly regulated free market works to the advantage of all, especially compared with Canada’s grey market or the UK, where they are so skittish that compensated donation is completely banned.

Last week we announced the launch of four new locations for NAFG, in Atlanta, Dallas, Miami and Washington, DC.

We believe that by expanding our pool of egg donors, gestational carriers, and clients, it will be even easier for donors, recipients, gestational carriers and intended parents to take advantage of our services.  Press releases are linked below:

• Washington, DC
• Atlanta
• Miami
• Dallas

“Our new locations will offer the opportunity for our egg donors, gestational carriers, and intended parents to work locally, or take advantage of our recruitment efforts in other cities across the country. This makes NAFG unique among surrogacy and egg donation programs.”  – Sanford Benardo, Founder and President, Northeast Assisted Fertility Group

A story ran on Tuesday about a panel at Barnard College which sought to raise questions about the cost and benefit in ongoing debates over egg donation.

Unless these quotations are wrong (and they may indeed be, if Barnard’s student journalism is as poorly researched as this panel discussion), these Barnard gals don’t really understand egg donation.

According to the panel’s organizer, who is apparently a student in her junior year: “Donors typically receive anywhere from $4,000 to $25,000 per egg.” This shows complete ignorance of the process, in which eggs are retrieved in numbers ranging from 5 to 20 or more at a time (no doctor would retrieve just one egg!). The donor gets paid per retrieval, not per egg. Her compensation does not depend on the number of eggs retrieved, but is a fixed amount agreed upon before the donation process starts. The compensation limit is $10,000 per retrieval, but these panel participants quote higher compensation fees throughout to make egg donation seem exploitive.

They also mention that egg donor advertisements do not include the risks. This is generally true, but although anyone can apply, only a small percentage of applicants actually go through with it (most do not qualify). Women who do donate are given extensive information about the risks. Most women who donate choose to do it again, and find it a very positive experience.

The panel discussion did not include any actual egg donors or anyone who conceived a child through egg donation: perhaps their participation would have injected some reality.

Northeast Assisted Fertility Group has been featured in a front page story in the Boston Globe, dated April 7, 2009.  This is just the latest in what has been an ongoing public dialogue about the “surge” in egg donation.

Boston Globe: “Recession spurs egg and sperm donations”

“What we’ve seen is that the economy seems to have inspired more people to look at alternative ways to earning money,” said Sanford M. Benardo, president of Northeast Assisted Fertility Group, a company that recruits, screens, and matches women who want to become egg donors or surrogate mothers. “We’re seeing people who might not otherwise do this but for their economic condition.”

Discussing Madonna’s adoption of another child from Malawi with Jane Velez-Mitchell, around 7:25 PM.

Go to CNN.com for a transcript.

See the article, “Egg donors rise as U.S economy falls“.

“Remember that egg donation helps a lot of people; it is safe if done by a professional, medically-ethical clinic.  It helps the donor, and it helps the recipients have a child.”
- Kathy Benardo, Northeast Assisted Fertility Group

CNN has run an article, “Six embryos?! How to avoid a fertility fiasco” which spotlights the birth of octuplets to Nadya Suleman last month, and the picture this has painted of fertility clinics.

This article demonstrates how important the ASRM’s guidelines are in keeping fertility treatment safe as well as free of government intervention. Make sure your clinic and/or egg donation agency is a member of ASRM and follows its recommendations.

It was a shock to learn that “Octo Mom” got pregnant with all those babies through IVF (in vitro fertilization) rather than just IUI (intrauterine insemination): what doctor would transfer all those embryos? Unfortunately, there are a few unethical doctors out there who make the industry look like a freak show.

An excellent article in today’s New York Times (”Birth of Octuplets Puts Focus on Fertility Clinics“) explains the issues very accurately: the ASRM’s recommended limit on the number of embryos transferred, versus the financial pressure to keep the number of transfers low (and therefore the number of embryos transferred high).

This story gets to the bottom of the conflict: the need for better insurance coverage for infertility treatment.

Saturday’s feature of Northeast Assisted Fertility Group’s egg donation program on CBS’ The Early Show (”As Economy Falls, Egg Donations Rise“) was not unlike other coverage we’ve seen about the “surge” in egg donation… the faltering economy compels more and more young women to consider becoming egg donors – and as the manager of the egg donation program, I remind them of the other realities involved:

“There’s definitely an increase in the number of people interested in donation, but most people aren’t qualified. Of course the economy has spurred people to be interested, but also it’s an expensive undertaking for the recipients, and keep in mind this is a treatment for infertility; it’s not just about making money for women.” – Katherine Benardo

Read the full article here.