article_snippet.sent: A British mother is among nearly 100 women who have had babies by a Danish sperm donor who has triggered an international scare over the spread of an incurable genetic disease.
article_snippet.sent: With demand for Danish sperm soaring, a Danish sperm donor who has triggered an international scare over the spread of an incurable genetic disease is understood to have fathered 99 ‘
article_snippet.sent: Now four families are suing the sperm bank and the case has raised questions among fertility experts about ’s booming, and unregulated, sperm export trade.
article_snippet.sent: Laura Witjens, from the National Gamete Donation Trust (NGDT), said: ‘The distribution and use of Danish and American sperm donors is not regulated or monitored, but patients are not told this.
article_snippet.sent: The British mother was one of 20 women treated at an IVF clinic in Belgium who conceived using the rogue sperm, the Belgian federal health authority revealed.
article_snippet.sent: But reports from a variety of countries show this prolific Danish donor has fathered many more children – 99 in total, including the ones on Belgium, along with 44 across Scandinavia, 34 in America and one in Iceland.
article_snippet.sent: ’s illness, claims whose daughter was contacted by as many as 17 women with his children who had the condition.
article_snippet.sent: ’s sperm was also exported to a closely associated centre in America – the California Cryobank.
article_snippet.sent: The shock discovery was made when a baby conceived with Ms Witjens sperm in Belgium was diagnosed with the condition.
article_snippet.sent: The donor has fathered many more children – 99 in total, including the ones on Belgium, along with 44 across Scandinavia, 34 in America and one in Iceland.
article_snippet.sent: There are no rules that say you must be told how many children these donors make and the sperm banks will not tell you.
article_snippet.sent: Clinics are currently allowed to sell sperm from a donor to thousands of women around the world, raising fears of an ‘incest timebomb’.
article_snippet.sent: Dr Jackson Kirkman-Brown, the fertility expert who led the research at Birmingham University, said: ‘What is clear when buying sperm from abroad is that although the number of families a donor is allowed to father in the UK is capped, it could be hundreds elsewhere.
highlights_snippet.sent: Four families are suing the Nordic Cryobank that supplied the sperm .