The Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands (LUMC) believes there is credible new evidence that anonymous unregistered clinic workers had been donating their own sperm, raising yet more questions for families affected by the beleaguered sperm bank.
This news comes on the heels of a November 19 report detailing the failures in registration of sperm donors at the Leiden Academic Hospital (AZL) sperm bank connected to the LUMC fertility clinic. In January, the clinic initiated an investigation when the latest scandal came to light with the inability to identify the donor for 80 children due to anonymous, unregistered donors. This left the children without accurate genetic health information, calling into question the entire industry’s reliability.
However, despite the November report finding that no clinic workers used their own sperm to impregnate patients, as Omroep West reports, the hospital recently had to backtrack after a known donor unearthed an article written by Boudewijn Büch in 1980. In his article, Büch indicated that unregistered clinic workers at the AZL semen bank did donate their own sperm.
This finding triggered the hospital to open another investigation days later, on November 22, issuing a statement inviting anyone who may have been affected to reach out for further information. According to the Irish Times, some of the clinic’s records have been destroyed, which inhibited the hospital’s ability to contact previous patients.
“We are extremely shocked by this new information. We shared the findings from the report with everyone involved on Monday evening and now we have to confront them again with a painful message. We realize that this is impactful for those involved,” said Martin Schalij of the LUMC Board of Directors in the hospital’s statement.
In a shocking admission from the 1980 article, while describing how donation does (and sometimes doesn’t) work, Büch stated, “The male staff of the clinic also provide sperm. But not all of them. Of course, it can hardly be made mandatory.”
In its statement, the hospital described Büch’s article as “a reflection of the zeitgeist of 1980” that emphasized secrecy and anonymity around fertility treatments. Büch described the struggle to find donors for the fertility clinic as he paid a visit to the clinic and interviewed Dr. Gerda Van Dijk, where she had described the clinic’s need bluntly: “We are in dire need of a vat of new sperm,” adding, “The donors are, so to speak, the invisible lynchpin of this company.”
As Live Action News has reported, the fertility industry is poorly-regulated in most countries worldwide, and has historically trampled on the rights of donor-conceived individuals in the favor of the desires of adults. The incident with AZL sperm bank in the Netherlands is just the latest in a seemingly never-ending tide of scandals, including:
- A lab tech with a genetic disease illegally used his own sperm to father 11 children; he was unregistered, so affected children and families did not know about his heritable disease.
- Jonathan Meijer, a serial donor, fathered over 500 children and was ordered to stop by a dutch court. He is the subject of a Netflix documentary.
- LUMC’s report that nine donors fathered over 400 children each; out of over 1100 children, over 400 have more than 25 half-siblings.
- A number of infamous Dutch doctors used their own sperm instead of anonymous donors, or other promised sperm. At least 10 others have not received major media attention.
- Dr Jan Karbaat, a fertility doctor, has reportedly fathered upwards of 100 children.
On November 23, a donor-whistleblower reached out to the Donor Child Foundation, a Dutch organization that provides counseling and support for donor-conceived children. Foundation chairman Ties van der Meer expressed gratitude that the hospital was making a good-faith effort to reach out to children and their mothers who may have been affected by this news, but expressed skepticism about the ability of LUMC’s newest investigation to ascertain the information it needs. He told Omroep West that he thought it unlikely former sperm bank employees would give DNA samples.
Omroep West reports that according to LUMC, attempts to track down former AZL sperm bank employees for more information are underway. However, a former LUMC employee, a key individual in this case, is unable to be located, and has not responded to attempts to contact him and may be out of the country.
In the meantime, Schalij has repeated his calls for an independent national inquiry into every fertility clinic and sperm bank in the nation. “Maybe you find things that are not nice, but then you get rid of them and it provides clarity,” he said.
Call on President Trump to pardon the FACE Act prisoners on his first day in office.
