Human egg 'lottery' sparks protest

AP

BRITISH IVF CHILDREN: An American infertility clinic has sparked protest by offering free human eggs to one British woman for attending an informational seminar.

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An American infertility clinic seeking business in Britain has prompted fierce criticism by offering free eggs from a US woman to one participant in a promotional seminar in London.

The event has sparked a debate in Britain about the ethics of an event that many said violated the spirit, if not the letter, of a European Union law forbidding fertile women from being paid for their eggs.

Eggs donors in the UK cannot be compensated for more than 250 pounds (NZ$536) per month for travel and time off work.

The rule limits the number of donors and makes it very difficult for infertile women to obtain eggs in the UK and much of Europe.

It is not illegal for Europeans to pay for eggs overseas, and for years infertile European women seeking eggs have travelled to other countries like America - where paying for eggs and sperm is common and legal.

As part of a marketing push in the UK, the Virginia-based Genetics and IVF Institute held a free seminar for about 100 British attendants on Wednesday night, where one randomly chosen couple won a free donor egg treatment.

To donate, a woman must undergo a monthlong treatment that involves injecting herself with hormones to stimulate the ovaries and then undergoing a procedure to retrieve several eggs.

The clinic's prize is worth more than NZ$14,000 - with a fee for the donor and medical costs associated with the hormone treatment and egg retrieval.

Other US clinics have been known to pay women up to NZ$49,000 for their eggs.

The Genetics and IVF Institute said its donors were college-educated women between 19 and 32. It has been giving away eggs in similar promotions in the US for more than a year.

Because the winner of Wednesday's lottery would travel to the US to get eggs from a US donor, the company's paying for them does not break any British laws.

But British fertility experts slammed the event as a publicity stunt.

"There's something shocking in the association of a raffle and giving away a human product," said Dr. Francoise Shenfield, a fertility and medical ethics expert at University College London.

"In Europe, we have the general idea that altruism is a good thing, and we don't want to turn human body parts into a commodity."

Shenfield, who has studied Europeans going abroad for fertility treatment, said it was impossible to know how many Britons were going to the US, since they do not have to report it.

Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates fertility treatment, said the US clinic's raffle was inappropriate.

"It trivialises altruistic donation" and runs contrary to regulations "to protect the dignity of donors and recipients," the agency said.

The Genetics and IVF Institute, based in Fairfax, Virginia, countered that it was simply offering a seminar in London commonly held in the US.

- AP