In an underregulated industry, its critical that clinics step up to ensure their practices are ethical
This News Digest Is Paid Sponsored Content From
The World Egg & Sperm Bank
BY: Rachel Leland
While human trafficking for sexual exploitation is widely acknowledged, exploitation in the fertility industry lurks under the radar.
In August, Greek authorities arrested eight suspects connected with a Crete fertility clinic for allegedly exploiting vulnerable foreign women who were used as egg donors and surrogate mothers.
Allegedly the directors of the clinic recruited brokers to locate and extract consent from vulnerable foreign women to transport them inside Greece where they were subjected to substandard treatment, and in some cases had their eggs harvested before becoming surrogate mothers according to a Greek police news release.
Between 2015 and 2018, Indiana University Ph.D student Polina Vlasenko studied Ukraine’s ova market as part of her dissertation, interviewing over 100 egg donors, surrogates, medical professionals and fertility brokers. One egg donor admitted to donating 24 times across India, Georgia, Cyprus and Ukraine!
More concerning, some U.S. fertility clinics and egg banks may be selling eggs retrieved from exploited donors in developing countries, without patient knowledge, Diana Thomas, Founder and CEO of The World Egg & Sperm Bank said.
Thomas said what first set off the alarm that stateside practitioners were entering foreign data into their CDC records that showed egg retrievals were not from U.S. donors.
“It just struck me that this is rampant and it’s not being disclosed to potential parents, to doctors, to embryologists,” Thomas said. “You have these arrests going on around the world where they're walking into clinics and arresting the secretary, the embryologist, the doctor and then the organized criminals who are brokering the donors to get them there.”
Thomas performed an informal survey of 185 embryologists and asked them if they knew the origin of the eggs they were warming in the lab. Only half of respondents said they knew.
When it comes to accountability, the waters are murky. The FDA’s regulation of human tissues has a loophole that is widely abused in the industry according to Thomas. While the regulation requires foreign establishments that import human tissue register and list with the FDA, registration is not the same as pre-market review.
Still, regulators are stepping up and industry professionals should take notice, Thomas said.
Clinics risk a huge financial loss in potentially using trafficked eggs. The U.S. ratified the UN’s human trafficking protocol which demands repatriation of profits made from human trafficking.
In addition, to legal accountability the reputational consequences for a clinic that uses human trafficked eggs will be catastrophic.
Though Thomas feels that the industry is not currently regulated sufficiently, she believes that individual egg banks and fertility clinics can take steps to ensure they aren’t using eggs from trafficked victims. At The World Egg & Sperm Bank all donors must provide two forms of ID, undergo internal and independent psychological and medical interviews and be a U.S. resident.
“We’ve got to do something to save this industry,” Thomas said. “If we're labeled as human traffickers, we are going to start having all of this regulation come down and nobody really wants that when we can self regulate right now.”
This News Digest Story is paid featured sponsor content, where the Advertiser has editorial control. They do not reflect the views of Inside Reproductive Health.
Protect Your IVF Program from Human Traffickers
Your practice and patients are vulnerable to using eggs from victims of human trafficking.
Without proper safeguards, fertility clinics like yours may unknowingly be selling the eggs of these trafficked victims, exposing your patients and your clinic to legal complications.
There are precautions you can take to minimize your risk. The World Egg & Sperm Bank has created a free due diligence checklist that you can download now to ensure that your clinic only sells eggs from donors who have been safely and ethically protected.
This comprehensive checklist will help you determine the source, procurement process, and traceability of biological materials while also creating higher quality best practices for your patients in egg and sperm selection.
Protect your patients. Protect your practice. Protect the future of fertility by grabbing a copy of TWESB’s due diligence checklist today!
This News Digest Is Paid Sponsored Content From
The World Egg & Sperm Bank
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