Is Donation Practice Turning Babies Into Commodity?
http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/health/2667719/detail.html
Over the past decade, egg donation programs have become mainstream [in the
USA]. They offer an option for interfile couples, most of whom waited too
long to have children. But with criteria like 1400 SAT scores, athletic
build and beauty, some people worry the practice is turning babies into a
commodity. Advertisements are popping up in college newspapers across the
country that offer $20,000 or more to young, attractive, healthy, smart
women willing to donate their eggs. While infertile couples consider it
their best chance for a child, others worry it is turning babies into a
business.
.
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Owor Kipenji <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote :
Sperm bank in fresh appeal for donorsBy Obote AkokoThe country’s first sperm bank, based at Kenyatta National Hospital, has sent a fresh appeal for donors to service a growing clientele.
Project head, Prof Christine Kigondu, said the project is recruiting at least 100 regular sperm donors. "We have many clients on the waiting list and so our objective is to recruit and maintain a regular brigade of top quality donors."
The project, she told Horizon, has been receiving many inquiries about their services, hence the fresh appeal for volunteer sperm donors.
However, she was categorical that the University of Nairobi- KNH joint initiative does not purchase or trade in sperms but banks them for use in treatment of women unable to conceive.
A close collaboration between the sperm bank is being forged with the recently acquired test-tube baby making technology at the Kenya Medical Research Institute.
According Prof. Kigondu, the demand for infertility treatment using donated stored sperms has significantly increased in the country since her project was launched early last year.
"Observations from our fertility clinics indicate that many couples need help because of male partners whom for one reason or another cannot sire children," she said.
One segment that could benefit from the facility, she said, are Kenyan soldiers proceeding on foreign peace keeping missions. "They could take advantage to deposit their reproductive health seeds in the bank," she said.
Before the US marines left for the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003, many banked their sperms together with their wills - just in case!
Studies done at KNH a few years ago under the auspices of the World Health Organisation showed that the male factor was responsible for infertility in 30 per cent of the couples.
Apart from genetic causes, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), environmental and other factors affect the ability of men to produce healthy sperms and in enough numbers to fertilise eggs produced by their wives.
Affected men either produce very few or no sperms at all. Semen carrying sperms may also fail to deliver the male fertility seeds to cause pregnancy in a woman due to obstruction of the sperm duct.
Men producing the so-called lazy sperms, deformed or abnormally shaped sperms also have reduced chances of impregnating women, hence the need to assist their partners sire babies using high quality donated sperms.
"Even men who produce fewer numbers of sperms can benefit by donating their own sperms to be concentrated (or pooled), washed and then given to their wives without relying on other males," says Prof Kigondu.
According to the University of Nairobi gynaecology professor, people with certain diseases like cancer can donate their sperms for storage before undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy to reduce the chances of destroying their reproductive health seeds.
Such sperms are frozen in liquid nitrogen tanks for years until required by the donors’ partners. For this and other noble causes, many public and private sperm banks today exist in developed countries. Only wills are written to specify how the donated/stored sperms can be used or destroyed much later.
During an interview recently, the KNH sperm bank boss said the younger men today suffer from infertility yet they neither go for medical check-ups nor seek help to enable their wives bear children.
"In the majority of cases, men, more in rural areas, still blame women for childlessness when in fact they (the men) sometimes acquire infertility right from childhood," she said.
She cautioned that early childhood diseases like mumps, coupled with STIs later in life, destroy the male reproductive germ cells, leading to infertility in men.
"Screening of donors is a very expensive and rigorous exercise because we want recipients to reap maximum benefits," she emphasized. It costs about Sh8,000 to screen one person through to the final stage of accepting the sperms for banking.
Recognising reproductive health as a component of Kenya’s essential health packages, the WHO Human Reproduction Programme in Geneva funded the establishment of the Kenyan facility for research and clinical services.
Since then, the facility has not received any funding either externally or from the government hence according to Prof Kigondu, it is facing a cash crunch
Couples with fertility problems undergo check-ups at no cost to determine who may be responsible for their childless state. In case the man is the problem, such a couple is put on the waiting list for treatment using donated sperms.
Potential sperm donors first undergo physical examination and psychological counselling after filling questionnaires for the purposes of family and own health history.
They then produce blood and semen samples to be tested for organ functions and STIs, including HIV. Once the quality of sperms is top-rated and confirmed to be free of disease, it’s kept for a second testing after six months.
If after the stored and second samples produced three months later are confirmed safe or healthy six months thereafter, donors sign declaration forms and finally are enrolled to donate sperms for banking.
Donors undertake not to lay claims on children sired from their sperms. The recipients will remain unidentified while sperms from one individual can only be used to produce not more than ten children.
Reproductive health experts draw parallels with funding of the Kenya National Blood Transfusion Services. The country recruits blood donors, screens and banks donated blood for use in treating anaemia and surgery cases.
The experts argue that since there is scientific capacity in the country to carry out these reproductive functions, there’s not only a need for a national reproductive health policy but also adequate public financing of these services.
In Prof. Kigondu’s words, "stocks of sperms are needed all the time" to benefit the affected younger generations now and in the future.
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