Sperm donors should be banned from fathering hundreds of children around the world, experts say.
Leading fertility scientists have accused the UK regulator of failing to act to protect children conceived through sperm donation, after it emerged some foreign donors had fathered more than a thousand offspring worldwide.
It came against the backdrop of a warning that it could be 'psychologically' damaging for people to be told that they might have vast numbers of half-siblings whom they have never met.
Current rules mean that a single sperm donor in this country can only create ten families, with each family potentially containing several siblings.
But there are no regulations limiting the number of families donors can create abroad – and some foreign centers allow sperm donations from the same person to be used to create 1,000 or more separate families.
People who donated sperm or eggs to help infertile couples have a child could remain completely anonymous for decades. That was until this year, when the first children born from sperm and egg donations will turn 18 and be given information such as their donor's name, date of birth and last known address if they want to track that person down.
Experts warn the issue is becoming urgent as more than half of the donated sperm used in Britain is imported from abroad – and demand for sperm donors is growing due to an increase in the number of single women and female couples from same sex having children.
The number of female same-sex couples undergoing IVF increased by 33 percent between 2019 and 2021, while the number of single women undergoing artificial insemination rose by 26 percent, according to figures from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA). British fertility regulator.
Speaking at the Progress Educational Trust (PET) annual conference earlier this month, Dr Rachel Gregoire, scientific director of the Hewitt Fertility Centre, said the UK's HFEA had to 'go a lot further' to tackle the problem .
Professor Jackson Kirkman-Brown, president of the Association of Reproductive and Clinical Scientists, said it could be “psychologically damaging” for children to discover they have hundreds or even thousands of half-siblings.
He explained, “If you've always thought you have an incredibly special gift, it's a very difficult concept to suddenly discover that there are 300 people who share 50 percent of your DNA.”
Research also shows that donor-conceived people often feel pressure to keep in touch with dozens of half-siblings, but this can be 'almost an impossibility' and cause great stress.
Modern advice is that children should be told from an early age that they are donor conceived and, if they wish, they can legally find out the identity of their donor once they turn 18.
Those conceived after August 1991 can use the HFEA's Donor Sibling Link to find genetic half-siblings.
But the rise of at-home genetic testing kits such as 23andMe and AncestryDNA have made it more likely that younger people will discover the identity of their donor sooner and be able to see how many siblings they have around the world. Social media has also made it much easier for donor siblings to connect.
Dr. Gregoire said fertility clinics were already required to carry out strict checks on imported sperm to ensure it was screened for diseases and that the donor had not received more than allowed.
She wonders why the regulator cannot also require foreign clinics to include information on the number of donations previously made.
She added that the UK limit of ten families 'means nothing when there are ten in Britain and a thousand worldwide – that doesn't make sense'.
Clare Ettinghausen, HFEA director of strategy and corporate affairs, said: 'As the UK regulator of fertility treatments, the HFEA has no powers to extend regulation beyond the UK and there is currently no mechanism to monitor donations on an international basis.
'Clinicians should ensure that patients using an overseas donor are aware that the donor may have been used outside Britain and therefore many more than ten families may have been created.'