Eastern Europe ED - 'The misery behind the baby trade'

[sarahstarfish]

Hey

We were talking about overseas ED in another thread...


Egg donation: Eastern Europe - 'The misery behind the baby trade'

The misery behind the baby trade
Britain's oldest mother fell pregnant using a donated egg from Eastern
Europe. Now the Mail reveals the terrible human cost to the donors who
damage their fertility for a few pounds
By Fran Abrams, Daily Mail. 17th July 2006
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=3962
20&in_page_id=1879&in_a_source=

Earlier this month, 62-year-old Patti Farrant posed delightedly with her new
son JJ, hours after becoming Britain's oldest mother after undergoing
several courses of fertility treatment. It was a picture of glowing
contentedness; the miraculous gift of birth when once upon a time her age
would have made it impossible.

Unpick the details of her story, though, and something else begins to
emerge. Like a growing number of other British women who cannot conceive
naturally, she had to travel to Eastern Europe to receive a donor egg. In
short, she had submitted her hopes and dreams to the mercies of the
international egg donation trade.

In the West, this trade goes by the innocent-sounding name of 'fertility
tourism'. Women like Dr Patricia Rashbrook (Patti Farrant's professional
name), a child psychiatrist, pay up to £11,000 [US $20,000] for treatment
abroad in order to sidestep a British law which bans payment for egg
donations. They are treated in smart, modern clinics with sleek furnishings
and potted plants, and their donors are paid £150-300 [US $275-550] for
their trouble.

But the business has a disreputable underbelly - one which is causing the
authorities in this country grave concern. This lucrative trade thrives on
the desires of vulnerable women in Britain and in other Western countries,
desperate to fulfil their dreams of a family. But it thrives, too, on the
vulnerability of other desperate women in poor countries who sell their
eggs.

Those who come in search of a child are not told about the terrible risks
imposed on egg donors - and even more scandalously, in some cases neither
are the donors themselves. Too often, those women are left damaged by the
procedures they undergo - and a growing number have been robbed, as a
result, of the chance to have families of their own.

They include women such as Alina Ionescu from Romania, whom I met in the
grim post-communist centre of Bucharest. In so many ways, Alina is just like
any young bride. At just 20 years old and married for nine months, she
dreams of a future in which she and her husband, Nicu, will watch their
children grow.

But Alina may never have children. Two years ago, when she was saving to get
married, a friend told her of an easy way to make money - she could donate
her eggs at one of the many Eastern European clinics to which British women
travel for fertility treatment. The doctors at the Romanian clinic where
Alina was paid £150 [US $275] for her eggs - a clinic which had links with a
leading London fertility centre - left her ovaries so damaged and scarred
that she is now infertile.

Alina's story is not unique. Egg donation is a risky business, which causes
side effects in one in five women who go through it. One in every 100 - and
there are many hundreds each year - has her life and her fertility put in
jeopardy, as Alina did.

Alina tells her story in a quiet, steady voice, but the constant twisting of
her fingers in her lap betrays her distress. How does she feel, then, about
the British women who travel abroad to buy the eggs of young women like
herself? Alina's reaction is heart-warming and yet at the same time
terribly, terribly sad. "I would wish those women luck," she says. "Because
right now I can understand how they feel. I have to keep believing that one
day I will have children." Her voice drops almost to a whisper as she goes
on: "Because I can't have children either."

Continued next post...

[sarahstarfish]

Continued....

Alina was earning just £55 [US $100] a month in a Romanian mattress factory
when a friend told her she had discovered an easy way to make money - the
GlobalART clinic in Bucharest, which at the time was providing donor eggs to
a London clinic, would be happy to hear from her. All she would have to do
was attend the clinic for injections to help her produce as many as 20 eggs,
and then undergo a procedure in which these eggs would be extracted from her
ovaries.

The injections made Alina feel sick, dizzy and weak. The doctors at the
clinic told her not to worry - her reaction was normal. But after the
extraction, her stomach swelled up, an infection took hold and she was
admitted to hospital, gravely ill. Alina had fallen prey to Ovarian
Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome - a common condition caused by the drugs she was
given to make her produce more eggs. That in itself could have left her
infertile. But when doctors at the hospital examined her, they found her
ovaries had been repeatedly punctured as the clinic had prodded and probed
to remove the eggs for donation.

Alina refuses to give up hope. "I am left speechless," she says. "I don't
want to think about what happened. Now I am having treatment for my
condition, and I try to stay strong. I have to keep believing that one day I
will have children."

Her friend, Raluca, who is 25, is already married with a little girl. But
she, too, suffered from dizziness and a swollen stomach after giving three
egg donations, and she, too, fears she may now be infertile. "I can
understand why women so desperately want to be mothers, and I can't
criticise them," she says. "Sometimes, I think about the children that might
have been born using my eggs. I hope they will be happy. I hope they are not
living a life like the one I live here. But the doctor who did this to me -
I would like to tell her she ruined my life. She should have told me what
might happen."

A Romanian solicitor has taken up Alina's and Raluca's cases and hopes to
win compensation for them. But it is hard to see how any amount of cash
could compensate for what they have lost.

I came to meet Alina and Raluca because for two months I have investigated
the international egg trade back to its source in Eastern Europe and beyond
- the same trade which underpins the system Dr Patricia Rashbrook chose to
use when she had another woman's eggs implanted in her womb.

A flier, posted on the internet by The Bridge Centre - which was buying eggs
from GlobalART - had caught my eye. It boasted that it was "bringing an end
to the egg donation crisis". It added: "We have established a special egg
donation team to work with would-be recipients, and members of our medical
team have travelled widely to assess the treatment opportunities available
in other countries."

The flier explained that because of a change in the law in Britain last
year, under which egg donors could no longer remain anonymous, there was a
grave shortage of women coming forward to offer their help. British couples
were now waiting up to two years for treatment. But by going abroad, they
could have a child much sooner.

The Bridge Centre did not add, though it could have done, that it was
allowing couples to get round the law - partly because donors cannot be paid
in Britain, but also because a child born in this way does not have the
right, as British IVF babies now do, to know the name of its genetic mother.

I contacted The Bridge Centre, posing as a childless woman in need of
treatment. Over the weeks that followed, I would be shocked by how easy it
was to access this treatment and how few checks were made by the clinic to
protect both me and the woman who would be offered as my egg donor.

On my first visit I met Sharon, a pleasant young woman who told me The
Bridge Centre had now moved its operations from Bucharest to a clinic called
Isida in Kiev, in the Ukraine. On a simple down-payment of £250 [US $450], I
would be put on a list to await egg donation. My donor, who would be
allocated within a few months, would probably be a graduate or a member of
the medical profession - a very different story from the one told by Raluca,
who passed word of the trade to Alina in their Romanian factory.

Sharon promised me that for a total fee of £7,000-11,000 [US $12,750-20,000]
I would be guaranteed at least 7 viable embryos that could be implanted into
my womb. This worried me, because in order to produce large numbers of eggs
it is necessary to give the donor drugs to stimulate her ovaries. It was
this Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome which caused Raluca and Alina such
pain and anguish.

Sharon told me I would be able to choose my donor's eye and hair colour,
skin tone, height, weight and even education. But when I began to question
her more closely about how the donors were recruited, she became vague.
Donors were recruited by word of mouth, she said, and were usually medical
staff from the Isida clinic. But I was already beginning to feel concerned.
How could I know I was being told the truth about my donor? And how could I
be sure she had been warned of the risks?

I booked a further appointment at The Bridge Centre, with a Dr Susan Smith.
At this appointment, which cost £150 [US 275], I was told I would have to
give a full medical history and undergo a physical examination. In the
event, there was no physical examination. I spent about half an hour with Dr
Smith, and although she asked for details of my medical history she did not
want to examine me. She told me that because of my age - I am 43 - I would
definitely need an egg donor if I was to have IVF, and she seemed to foresee
no problems in making that happen. Before I had time to draw breath I was
being booked in for an ultrasound scan

I then asked if it was possible to visit the Isida clinic in Kiev, where The
Bridge Centre now runs its overseas programme. Sorry, but no, I was told.
When I pushed them for a reason, I was told that none of the permanent staff
at the clinic spoke English. But when I later phoned the Isida clinic I was
immediately put through to Larisa, who carries out liaison with foreign
patients on behalf of Isida's own programme, which it offers via the web.
She spoke perfect English and immediately agreed to meet me. And so I
travelled to Kiev.

Isida is a big, bright, modern building on the outskirts of the city, with
pale woodwork and charming pictures of toddlers on its walls. But what
happened after I walked through its sliding glass doors came as a shock. I
had expected a vague chat about egg donation and then to be given time to
reflect before making a decision, but Larisa and the clinic's medical
director, Victor Zinchenko - who also spoke good English - seemed determined
I should start treatment straight away.

Before I had time to draw breath - or to tell Dr Zinchenko more than the
barest details of my medical history - I was being booked in for an
ultrasound scan. There would be no problem at all in finding donors, Dr
Zinchenko said. They were waiting. And in just six weeks I could be pregnant
with a baby whose genetic mother had been plucked from the streets of Kiev.

Contrary to what The Bridge Centre had told me, the clinic did not recruit
donors - either for its own programme or the one operated within its walls
by Bridge Centre doctors - from the medical staff at the clinic, I was told.
Rather, the clinic advertised in local newspapers, the only restriction
being that donors should be healthy, aged 28 or less and have 'proven
fertility' - that is to say, they should have been pregnant before.

Dr Zinchenko said I could not be told whether my donor - the genetic mother
of my child - was well educated. And he also said The Bridge Centre was
wrong to have told me it could give me this information, because Isida
recruited the donors and it did not give out such details. But, confusingly,
Larisa later took me to one side and promised to give me more information on
an off-the-record basis. She would not tell me what donors were paid, but
she promised they were "very well rewarded" for their trouble. Many women
came back time and again to sell their eggs, she said.

By now, I had begun to feel as if I was being sold a second-hand car rather
than a precious chance to conceive. Who was I supposed to believe? The
Bridge Centre? Isida's medical director? Larisa? All were telling me
different stories.

Continued next post...

[sarahstarfish]

Continued...

And while my 'IVF tourism' would cost up to £11,000 [US $20,000] if it was
organised through The Bridge Centre, it would cost less than £6,000 [US
$11,000] if I dealt directly with the Ukrainian clinic.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority hopes new European rules on
the trade, due to come into force next year, will help to control its worst
excesses. But however concerned the authority might be, it is powerless to
stop it.

After visiting Kiev and meeting Alina and Raluca in Bucharest, I contacted
the medical director of The Bridge Centre, Professor Gedis Grudzinskas. He
told me he believed the international egg trade was growing because of, not
despite, the strict British law on anonymity and on payments. He believed
women should be paid £3,000-4,000 [US $5,500-7,300] to donate their eggs, he
said, adding that it was 'perfectly safe' to guarantee a donor would produce
7-8 eggs.

He told me The Bridge Centre had no record of Alina or Raluca having donated
eggs to its programmes - indeed, the women told me they were never told to
which of GlobalART's overseas clients their eggs were being sent. "It is
always a concern when anybody has complications from a fertility procedure,"
Prof Grudzinskas told me. "It is common advice to take aspirin or panadol,
but there should also be advice that if things don't settle down, to get
back in touch. It seems as if that didn't occur here."

He also said the staff I met at the Isida clinic in Kiev were not involved
in carrying out treatments for The Bridge Clinic. That was done by an
Israeli doctor who had also been involved in its operations in Bucharest.

When I asked why Sharon told me that donors would be medical staff from the
clinic, he said: "I have absolutely no idea why she would have said that to
you. That is not correct." Later, he issued a statement saying he was "still
trying to establish" exactly how donors were recruited for his Kiev
programme, but that some had been recruited by word of mouth and some had
been medical staff. Not exactly reassuring, you might think.

The truth is that the egg trade will go on for as long as there are
childless couples with money and desperation enough to put themselves
through these uncertain procedures. And as long as it does go on, British
women will continue to pay for the goods it offers. And young women like
Alina and Raluca will continue to sacrifice their future happiness on its
altar.

NOTE: Comments can be posted at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=396220&in_page_id=1879#StartComments

END

[xkwzit]

Hey Cindy

Thanks so much for posting that, we only see the news about the birth of the donor child and never hear anything about these women who pay a staggering price to create that child.

How do you recompense a woman for the loss of her future children?

[sarahstarfish]

I agree - why Australian clinics prefer donors to have completed their families, in case that tiny risk becomes a cruel reality. Although the level of care here is light years beyond what these poor women recieved.

Love

Cindy