A major pharmaceutical company has taken advantage of a legal loophole and, for the first time in Britain, paid women substantial sums to give their eggs for fertility experiments. The 96 women each received £1500, although the company originally wanted to offer £4000.

In the UK it is against the law to pay women more than £15 for donating their eggs, although the donors can also claim “reasonable expenses”. But, because the women’s eggs were never fertilised in the trial, the legislation did not apply.

Now legal and medical experts have called on the government to close the loophole to make sure no similar sales can take place.

“This is certainly paying women for their eggs ,” said Ken Mason, professor of law and medical ethics at Edinburgh University. “I think £1500 is a lot of money. What is unethical about this is that it is going to attract the most impoverished people.

“I do think with £1500 you are inducing someone. You are paying someone for more than the trip into hospital. My view is that £1500 is quite an incentive.

“This highlights the need for comprehensive legislation that covers all human tissue.”

Dr Des Spence, a Glasgow GP, and spokesman for the No Free Lunch movement which monitors the pharmaceutical industry, added: “This is a particular interpretation of the law for commercial purposes. This loophole should be closed.”

The trial took place at Leeds General Infirmary, where the 96 fertile women were obliged to undergo a gruelling IVF cycle even though they had no problems conceiving naturally. This involved taking hormonal drug injections to stimulate the growth of their eggs and having their eggs harvested under anaesthetic.

The doctors then studied different ways of ripening the eggs outside the body to perfect a new, cheaper, form of fertility treatment called in vitro maturation (IVM). The new technique differs from regular in vitro fertilisation (IVF) by ripening the eggs in the laboratory instead of in the ovaries.

The pharmaceutical company sponsoring the trial originally offered to pay the women £4000 each for the discomfort the endured, but the hospital ethics committee ruled that this would be an inducement.

A statement from Leeds Teaching Hospitals said: “It was concluded that a sum of £1500 per patient was appropriate recompense for the inconvenience of participating in the trial, such as having to take time off work in order to attend hospital as well as undergoing an IVF treatment cycle and having their eggs harvested under anaesthetic.”

Egg donation is regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) but, because there were no plans to fertilise the eggs, this trial did not require a licence from the government body.

The HFEA told the Sunday Herald yesterday it would not consider a £1500 payment to be reasonable. A spokeswoman said: “In clinics licensed by the HFEA, women can be paid £15 plus reasonable expenses. It could cover travel or the cost of taking a day off work … but not the kind of figures we are talking about here.

“If it comes under our licence we wouldn’t want to offer a financial inducement.”

Under separate laws, it is also illegal to buy or sell human organs in the UK. It is anticipated that, under a new Human Tissue Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech, and European legislation under discussion, the sale of other forms of flesh may also be outlawed.

The HFEA have also refused to allow a new scheme which would have offered women cheap IVF treatment if they were prepared to donate eggs.

Suzi Leather, HFEA chairman, said: “The HFEA 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.”

Josephine Quintavalle, director of the group Comment on Reproductive Ethics (Core), is one of those who believes the loophole which allowed the Leeds experiment to go ahead should be closed. “This ruthless marketing of ovarian tissue exploits the foolhardy women who are prepared to sell parts of their germ-line in this way. How can you say that this is not payment to egg donors?

“These women are doing this because someone wants their eggs and is prepared to pay for them. This company has managed to get round the law but the law is founded on the principle that we do not buy and sell tissue.”

Anthony Rutherford, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Leeds General Infirmary and one of the doctors leading the trial, which was originally given approval in April 2001, defended the payment yesterday. “In all walks of medical research, volunteers need to be given recompense for testing drugs. In this case, the patients needed to have an invasive procedure.

“We pay people to do that. We pay for their time and hardship. If you don’t have healthy volunteers coming forward to test a drug then we will never have effective new medicines.”