The Daily Mail this week shared news that some UK fertility clinics began trials for importing eggs from the US, to help UK recipients have children.
Using donors from the US adds complication to an already complex process. First, there’s the issue of ‘egg miles’. Eggs would need to be frozen due to the time and distance they need to travel, meaning fresh transfers aren’t possible. Despite how far technology has come in the last few years, pregnancy rates from frozen eggs or embryos are still not as high as pregnancy rates from fresh embryos.
Then there’s the issue of recruiting donors in a country where vast amounts of money are paid to donors for their eggs. To donate to British couples, donors would have to abide by UK law and accept no more than £250 in reimbursement for loss of earnings.
Looking to the future, it’s also important to recognise how much harder it might be for a donor-conceived person to trace a biological parent who lives outside the UK.
It must have cost a large sum of money to set up and run these trials. Given this, and the greater success rates from treatment with fresh eggs ‘sourced locally’, how many home-grown donors could have been recruited in the UK if the money had been spent on advertising and donor care instead?
Tags: egg donation, imported eggs, sustainability, US donors
