Source:
Los Angeles Times Troubled by the health history and backgrounds of some anonymous egg and sperm donors, leaders in the fertility industry have said in recent weeks that they would create a national registry to track donors and birth outcomes.
In response to a Dec. 9 article in The Times about a child born with a terminal genetic disease, representatives from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, a fertility industry organization, said they intend to record the histories of donors and surrogate mothers to help prevent such tragedies.
The Times article was about a girl from Rancho Mirage, conceived with the help of an anonymous egg donor, who was born with Tay-Sachs. She is nearly 2, and the neurological disease probably will kill her before she turns 5.
The gay couple who chose the donor did not know that she was a carrier of the Tay-Sachs mutation, nor did the donor herself. For a child to get the disease, both biological parents must be Tay-Sachs carriers. One of the men, whose sperm was used to fertilize the donor's egg, also carried the mutation but was unaware that he did.
After learning about the child with Tay-Sachs, neither the egg donor nor the agency that hired her attempted to contact the other families and agencies that used the donor's eggs. Some families may have embryos not yet implanted.
Read more:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-me-eggs3jan03,1,4469202.story?coll=la-headlines-health&track=crosspromo