Around 6,000
babies a year are born through IVF
|
A Welsh medical consultant
has welcomed the new ban on donating human eggs for
commercial reasons.
Mr Peter Bowen-Simpkins, of the
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said
he was 100% behind the ban imposed by the Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HEFA).
It stops women going through
more than one medical procedure in order to donate eggs
to someone else in exchange for subsidising her own
treatment.
Mr Bowen-Simpkins, who is also
director of the IVF Unit at Swansea's Singleton
Hospital, said: "I am delighted at the decision."
Potential dangers
Because of the commercial
transaction reasons associated with women selling their
eggs and the potential dangers to health associated with
it, the Royal College was 100% against the procedure.
The HEFA have banned a scheme
allowing women to have cheap IVF treatment if they are
prepared to go through the fertility treatment twice and
donate half their eggs.
The ban does not affect
"altruistic" egg giving, in which a woman gives up her
eggs willingly when she does not undergo fertility
treatment herself.
Mr Bowen-Simpkins said that this
procedure had been taking place at his unit in Swansea
for the past four years.
He said: "This (egg sharing) is
a very popular procedure and can help women in their 40s
conceive and also helps when there is a great need to
avoid genetic diseases."
He added that it differed from
the now banned "egg giving" is that it did not have the
same health risks associated with it. Unlike "egg
giving" donors had to go through the procedure twice.
Repeating the procedure had its
danger, the consultant said, including the inherent
risks of using a needle on multiple occasions to
retrieve eggs but also the possible long-term danger
which slightly increased the risk of ovarian cancer.
In imposing the ban the HEFA was
responding to fears from members of the public and
clinics that egg giving plans were unethical.
At the moment a single treatment
cycle of IVF costs between £2,000 and £4,000, and more
than one is usually required.
There is a nationwide shortage
of donor eggs which help women who have none of their
own.
A human egg - but
"egg giving" is now officially banned in the UK
|
To solve this option some
clinics were offering couples who could not afford to
pay for IVF the option of cheaper treatment if they gave
up some of their eggs.
While the HEFA says that this is
acceptable if the woman agrees to give up some of the
eggs from each subsidised cycle she gets, it now will
not be allowed if the scheme involves the woman
undergoing extra cycles in order to yield donor eggs.
This extra procedure, for
commercial reasons, is where the additional health risks
are introduced.
Suzi Leather, chairman of the
HFEA, said: "We cannot allow clinics to offer a
treatment where a woman, for no other reason than
financial inducement, subjects herself to an unnecessary
and possibly risky procedure."
Mr Bowen-Simpkins said that in
countries such as Canada, Denmark and Israel, the egg
sharing option with its lower risks was the only
procedure allowed.
