Rizzo’s children, ages 7 and 6, were at the center of one of the most ethically complex legal cases in the modern-day fertility industry. Three years ago, while researching treatment options for her sons, Rizzo says she made an extraordinary discovery: The boys are part of an autism cluster involving at least a dozen children scattered across the United States, Canada and Europe, all conceived with sperm from the same donor. Many of the children have secondary diagnoses of ADHD, dyslexia, mood disorders, epilepsy and other developmental and learning disabilities...
When she first found out about their many half-siblings, she consulted a genetic counselor, who she says told her the odds of so many blood-related children with autism occurring spontaneously was akin to all the mothers “opening up a dictionary and pointing to the same letter of the same word on the same page at the same time.”..
The Food and Drug Administration told her its oversight of the sperm-donor industry is limited to screening for sexually transmitted diseases. So, after a year of fruitless phone calls and letters, she sued...Donor H898 from Idant Laboratories looked like a winner. He was blond and blue-eyed, 6-foot-1, 240 pounds, and appeared to be smart and accomplished. His profile said he had a master’s degree and was working as a medical photographer. His hobbies included long-distance running, reading and art. And most important, Rizzo says, he had a clean bill of health, according to his profile — having scribbled “NA” and a strikethrough line on all but one of the more than 100 medical questions, including mental health ones, posed by sperm banks...Donor H898’s sperm was offered through multiple sources. According to the mothers, court documents and genetic testing through 23andMe and Ancestry.com, he sold anonymously to at least four sperm banks (which typically pay about $100 per visit), donated to a high-end agency that matches parents with donors they can meet face-to-face, and offered his sperm for a low fee or even free on sites such as KnownDonorRegistry.com or privately...As of August, Repro Lab was still selling vials, priced at $450-$525, from the donor.
More details at The Washington Post.
Wait! I can be paid $100 to...donate?
ReplyDeleteWoot! One of the upshots of the CD28 Northwick Park cytokine-storm drugs trial in 2006 which caused horrendous physiological damage to 6 young men [https://www.bbc.com/news/health-22556736] was that the publicity resulted in a significant uptick in the rate of trial volunteers. "What? They pay'll pay me $800 to hang out for a weekend while they inject me with random drugs, I'll have some of that"
DeleteAutism is not a mental illness. It is a Developmental Disability
ReplyDelete