It is three years since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority reviewed its guidelines for sperm, egg and embryo donation in the appropriately acronymed SEED report. But reproductive medicine has moved on so swiftly that Professor Lisa Jardine, who took over last April as the authority’s chairman, believes that it is time to return to the issue. In an interview with The Times she called for a fresh debate on two of the most controversial aspects of donation. First on her agenda is the question of when family members should be allowed to donate to one another. She is concerned about intergenerational donation, such as in two cases in 2007. In one, a Briton aged 72 provided sperm to his daughter-in-law, while in the other a Canadian, Melanie Boivin, froze eggs for her daughter, Flavie, 7, who has Turner syndrome and will become infertile.
The government says it will ban all private transplants of organs from dead donors in the UK. The move comes after media reports of overseas patients paying to get onto the waiting list for organs donated by British people. An independent report said organs were scarce and no one should be able to pay for transplants, to ensure NHS patients did not miss out. Surgeons said it should reassure people organs went to those in most need.
The government has announced a ban on patients paying for private transplant surgery using organs donated within the NHS. Ministers have accepted the recommendations of an independent report commissioned by the government after concerns that foreign patients were bypassing lengthy NHS waiting lists by paying up to £75 000 ({euro}90 000; $130 000) for a transplantation. Earlier this year it was revealed that the livers of 50 British NHS donors were transplanted into foreign patients over a two year period, with the bulk of the operations taking place in London at King’s College Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital.
Ask a couple struggling to conceive what they would want most in life and "a child" is the obvious answer. They want something money can't buy, even with all the money in the world. For a couple needing egg or sperm donation this reality might change. Money could buy at least the chance of a child if donors were to be paid, if that's one of the outcomes of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) donation review. Various issues are being reviewed in the HFEA public consultation, but payment of egg and sperm donors is high on the agenda.
Compensation paid to egg and sperm donors in the United Kingdom could be increased to include a payment for inconvenience, in a bid to tackle an acute shortage of donated gametes. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates infertility treatment, raises the possibility in a review of its policies on egg and sperm donation launched on 17 January. European law bans payment for donated gametes but allows donors to be compensated for expenses, loss of earnings, and inconvenience. Current HFEA rules allow egg donors to be reimbursed for loss of earnings and expenses, such as travel costs, up to a maximum of £250 (€300; $400). But nothing can be claimed for the physical inconvenience that gamete donors experience, even though egg donation is invasive and sperm donation time consuming.
A serving High Court judge has told the BBC that he is approving commercial surrogacy agreements made by British couples abroad. Laws in the UK are designed to try to prevent such arrangements, but Mr Justice Hedley said his paramount concern was the welfare of the child. The most recent case the judge approved was last month, involving a baby born to a surrogate in the Ukraine. The judge said he was "extremely anxious" about the current situation. In Britain, the judge said, the only payment allowed to a surrogate mother was one of "reasonable expenses". However, he has agreed to give retrospective approval for commercial surrogacy on at least four occasions.