 News
20th February 2007
Egg donation for medical research allowed
The UK's fertility regulator has announced that women may donate their
eggs to medical research.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) says that although
the donations would be altruistic, women will be able to claim £250
in expenses.
They have also said that women should be allowed to donate their eggs
in return for cut-price IVF.
Before this ruling, only women undergoing fertility treatment have been
able to donate spare eggs.
And while critics say egg donation involves potential risks,
scientists in favour of the scheme say that egg donation is needed to
create embryos from which stem cells can be acheived.
Angela McNab, chief executive of the HFEA, said, "The Authority
has decided that women will be allowed to donate their eggs to research,
both as an altruistic donor or in conjunction with their own IVF treatment.
"Given that the medical risks for donating for research
are no higher than for treatment, we have concluded that it is not for
us to remove a woman's choice of how her donated eggs should be used."
Professor Peter Braude, director of the Centre for Preimplantation
Genetic Diagnosis at Guy's and St Thomas' Foundation Trust, said, "Women
have been donating eggs for more than 20 years, usually those undergoing
sterilisation where the eggs would be used to study early embryonic development.
"The difference now is that women are being asked as volunteers
where their ovaries would be stimulated to develop eggs specifically and
solely for research. I do not see a problem with that."
However, some experts believe the ruling has been made too
soon and that using human eggs is still in its infancy.
Dr Stephen Minger, an expert in stem cell research at King's
College London, says, "Many of us have said lets perfect this technology
using alternative sources of eggs, such as cow eggs, until it does become
justified to look for altruistic donation of eggs for these procedures.
"I think it is just to early for us to be encouraging this
to happen."
He added that the method to retrieve eggs included the use
of powerful hormones. Josephine Quintavalle, director of the campaign
group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: "Risks associated with egg
harvesting are widely acknowledged, particularly in response to ovarian
hyperstimulation."
And fertility expert, Lord Robert Winston, expressed concern
over women receiving free IVF treatment in return for donating their eggs.
He said, "Women have been paying for eggs in Britain for
a very long time, because there is egg sharing, a trade in eggs, which
is really quite worrying and the HFEA have sanctioned that."
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