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NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 08:03
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Sander Zurhake
health editor
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Sander Zurhake
health editor
The administration of the sperm donor bank of Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), which was closed in 2004, was very inadequate. For 80 of the 1,141 registered descendants it is not possible to establish who the donor is because the registration data is missing. This is evident from internal hospital research.
The research also shows that sperm from nine donors was used much more often than the maximum of 25 times allowed by the guidelines. These nine donors have fathered more than 400 children, according to Martin Schalij, a member of the board of directors. Nearly 90 children have been conceived with donor sperm. “We find that to be very concerning.”
The hospital invites mothers and children who have family ties to the sperm donor bank to come forward.
The rule according to which sperm donors can father a maximum of 25 children in the Netherlands, divided between twelve women, came into force in 1992. For example, incest and inbreeding must be prevented. If half-brothers and half-sisters have children together, the risk of hereditary defects is greater.
“And this possibility is certainly not zero,” says Schalij. The women who used the sperm donor bank at the time almost all came from the west of the country, in the 2000-3000 postcode areas. As a result, the offspring are not sufficiently distributed geographically and there is a real risk that half-sisters and half-brothers will start a relationship with each other.
The LUMC case should not be confused with recent news about another fertility clinic in Leiden. Last week it emerged that a laboratory technician at the Medical Center for Birth Control (SMCG) had at least eleven children conceived with his own sperm in the years 1979-1984. This clinic was also located in Leiden, but has nothing to do with the LUMC. The lab technician in question was not registered as a sperm donor.
The case of LUMC, which was still called AZL when the sperm donor bank was founded in 1977, is no coincidence. In recent years, more and more examples have emerged of other clinics where the administration was also a disaster. There were also doctors who used their own sperm as donor sperm, without the women or couples knowing.
Cesspool
Jan Karbaat is one of the most infamous. As far as we know he has around 80 donor children of which he is the biological father.
A more recent case is that of the gynecologist Jan Wildschut. He has fathered at least 60 children from donors with his own sperm at the Sophia hospital in Zwolle. Wildschut was one of the founders of LUMC’s sperm donor bank. However, he is said to have left before the donor bank became operational in 1977.
According to Schalij, no indication was found that Wildschut also used his own sperm in Leiden. This is confirmed by a group of Wildschut donor children who conducted their own research.
Clean house
Schalij calls on all other clinics to conduct a joint investigation, as LUMC did. “Maybe all the other sperm banks had everything in order in detail, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more questions arise. I think it would be good to clean up in one go.”
Ties van der Meer of the Donor Child Foundation encourages such research. “What we see so far is the tip of the iceberg. We know that in many other hospitals the files and archives are also not in order.”
Family secret
At Fiom, the center of expertise in matters of kinship, this news is expected to cause some discomfort, among donor children and donors, but also among parents. “Children often don’t know that they were conceived with donor sperm, this is a big family secret,” says Janneke Maas, donor conception specialist at Fiom. “It is important for parents to be open with their children, even if they are thirty or forty years old”
Both Fiom and the Donor Child Foundation help parents and donor children to have this dialogue. They also teach people how to deal with the news that they have dozens of half-sisters and half-brothers, for example. “We have a whole network of experienced experts who are also professional support providers,” says Van der Meer. “We are always available for parents, donor children and donors.”
2024-01-16 07:03:53
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