Cruel cost of the human egg trade

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_ne...764680,00.html

Cruel cost of the human egg trade


British women who desperately want to have babies are being sent to
eastern Europe and Cyprus. There, clinics are thriving on the profits
of fertility tourism. But donors in this egg harvest run hidden health
risks. Report by Antony Barnett in Kiev and Helena Smith in Larnaca,
Cyprus

Sunday April 30, 2006
The Observer


Svetlana has a big family secret: she sold her eggs for US dollars.
Svetlana did not tell her husband what she was doing because she knew
he would be furious. Nor did she tell her mother or her two young
children. Every day after lunch this 27-year-old unemployed cook would
sneak out of her cramped, Soviet-era tower block on the outskirts of
the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to go for hormone injections that would
stimulate her ovaries into producing dozens of eggs. Each one of these
had the potential of becoming a relative that her family would never
know about.

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Desperate for money after the birth of her second child, Svetlana had
applied for work in the canteen of one of Kiev's growing number of
fertility clinics that charge infertile women from Britain thousands
of pounds for help in getting them pregnant. Svetlana didn't get the
job, but was told that if she needed cash she could sell her eggs. She
was told that the process was straightforward and that she would be
given $300 - more if she was a good donor and produced lots of eggs.
For Svetlana, like a growing number of Eastern European women, it was
too good an opportunity to pass up. Since the birth of her second
child she had been surviving on less than $15 a month. She turned out
to be an excellent donor. By the time of her fifth donation, her
ovaries, stimulated by the injection of a hormone, produced a batch of
40 healthy eggs. This is four times more eggs than a woman undergoing
IVF would produce.

The medical staff gave Svetlana an extra $200 as a reward. For the
clinic, Svetlana was a cash cow, a woman whose eggs could be sold for
profit. Older women from Britain, the US and other Western countries
whose ovaries can no longer produce healthy eggs are happy to pay more
than £3,000 for donor eggs that could be fertilised into an embryo.
The hope is that, once implanted back into the woman, they will
conceive the 'miracle' baby that has so far eluded them.

Yet what Svetlana didn't know is that donating eggs is not a
straightforward matter like donating sperm. It can be a lengthy,
painful and potentially dangerous procedure involving the injection of
a powerful drug known as follicle stimulating hormone, or FSH. Medical
experts believe 1 per cent of women undergoing this can suffer serious
side-effects know as ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome (OHSS) that in
extreme cases can prove fatal.

One leading British fertility expert, Adam Balen, Professor of
Reproductive Medicine at Leeds General Hospital, believes the fact
that Svetlana produced 40 eggs is evidence that she was being
hyper-stimulated by the clinic and her health was being put at risk.
At no time did the medical staff at the Kiev clinic explain anything
to Svetlana or give her any counselling on the psychological impact of
donating eggs. Svetlana found out she was being injected with hormones
only when, on the fourth time, she had to be put on a drip. She was
told the injections were to 'clean her blood'. Other complications
included missing her period for two months and stomach pains.

A year after her last donation, Svetlana meets at a secret location to
tell her story. She is scared of being seen speaking to a journalist
near her home. She has had no lasting physical problems, but is
affected psychologically. 'I feel like I sold part of my body,' she
explains. What did she think about the possibility that she may have
children in London and her son may have a half-brother? 'They will be
two now, but I try not to think about it. Hopefully they don't look
like me. My two children look like their father, so I hope that is the
case.'

She has kept her egg donation a secret from most people: 'I don't want
anybody to know; for me it's unpleasant that I have sold a part of
myself. That I have sold myself for money. Many people wouldn't
understand it.'

An investigation by The Observer has revealed a burgeoning global
trade in women's eggs where infertile British women who cannot find a
donor in the UK will pay thousands of pounds for the chance of finding
one overseas.

Svetlana is typical of dozens of young Ukrainian women desperate for
cash having to sell their eggs to make ends meet. While most sell them
in Kiev, others are sent by Ukrainian clinics to Cyprus or even
Belize. Their Caucasian appearance is turning young East European
women into a source for one of the continent's most prized
commodities: human eggs.

It is a trade conducted in the utmost secrecy, with donors' identity
strictly protected. Yet The Observer tracked down several other egg
donors in Kiev who, like Svetlana, have sold eggs to clinics that
helped British women to conceive. Some of the girls are unemployed or
working in low-paid menial jobs, others are former graduates now
earning good salaries; some are blonde, while others are brown-haired
with dark eyes. But all the donors we spoke to have one thing in
common: they all sold their eggs for the money, all have regrets about
what they did, and none would do it again.

'We only did it for the money,' says Erena, who donated four times and
knows more than 20 donors who gave eggs to one of the city's clinics.
She claims that one young girl she knew donated nearly 20 times and
none of the girls was given any psychological counselling. She said
they were given more money the more eggs they produced.

Erena recalls that once she was injected with five ampoules of FSH.
Each capsule contained 75 units of the hormone, so she received 375
units. According to Balen, this is a potentially dangerous amount that
could spark OHSS. 'For a young woman with healthy ovaries, I would use
no more than 150 units of FSH or you run the risk of OHSS. Although
serious complications are rare, they can be extremely serious and even
fatal.' Balen was particularly concerned at the sliding scale of fees
paid which would encourage donors to accept more hormones in the hope
of more money. 'It sounds more like egg farming to me than egg
donation,' he said. Erena says she felt she was treated like a
'milking cow'.

In today's global market, a healthy human egg from a young white
European woman is more valuable than gold. Under British law any
fertility clinic that wants to import or export embryos fertilised by
donor eggs must obtain a special licence from the Human Fertilisation
and Embryology Authority (HFEA). In January, using the Freedom of
Information Act, The Observer asked the HFEA for a list of all the
special licences it approved last year.

The details, revealed here for the first time, give an insight into
the role Britain is playing in the growing global trade of babymaking.
It shows that more than 400 human embryos were either imported to, or
exported from, Britain last year as part of fertility treatment, with
the booming trade stretching from London, Kiev and Warsaw to Limassol,
Chicago and Sydney. Yet these figures underestimate the scale of the
trade. Many women go 'freelance', using internet chatrooms to locate
clinics across East Europe and elsewhere which promise to find them
donors quickly and cheaply. These women who have embryos implanted
overseas and return home are not covered by UK regulations, so would
not be in the HFEA dossier. Nor would it catch British clinics sending
women overseas to have an embryo implanted.

In the UK there is an acute shortage of donor eggs and the wait can be
more than two years - if one comes along at all. Fertility doctors
believe that last year's change in the law removing anonymity from
donors has made the shortage of donors even more acute. Clinics in
Britain are forbidden to pay donors anything other than a nominal sum
of about £15, so there is no financial incentive. Any woman who wants
to donate eggs must have a psychological assessment and free
counselling. It is not surprising that some would-be mothers see the
quick, relatively cheap supply of eggs from East Europe as a solution
difficult to ignore.

British clinics which send infertile women to Kiev say they have
rigorous procedures to ensure that the Ukrainian clinics are operated
to the highest standards. Adverts in women's magazines sell the dream
to women that a short trip abroad could answer their prayers. They are
often charged hundreds of pounds to join lists of hopeful recipients,
and it is estimated that the cost of using overseas egg donation could
be between £7,900 and £11,000 before travel and other costs. Some
clinics claim a pregnancy success rate of 'almost 50 per cent'.

Professor Gedos Grudzinskas, medical director of the Bridge Centre in
London which does send people abroad, defends the practice. 'Would it
be preferable if a British woman who needs a donor egg does not need
to travel abroad? Yes, of course. But fertility is the Cinderella
service in the NHS, and for some women it is the best option.'
Grudzinskas stresses that his clinic does thorough 'due diligence' on
the centres it uses overseas.'We work entirely in accordance with the
best practice laid down by the HFEA.'

The Institute of Reproductive Medicine which sits in the grounds of
Kiev's main city hospital, is a modern clinic with all the latest
technology. Oleg Kucherenko, the institute's marketing manager,
confirmed it had treated several British women. He insists the
institute operates to the highest international standards.

He said: 'Is it normal for a British woman to travel to Kiev, or
Russia, or Poland to have a baby? I don't think so, but why are they
coming? That is not for me to say. Is it a result of the rules in the
UK that force them to come or for other reasons? We are here to help
any women, whatever country they come from, who want a child but
cannot have one.' Kucherenko insists they 'fully respect' the rights
of donors: 'We don't pay for their eggs, we pay $300 compensation for
their time.' One of the most popular Kiev clinics used by British
women seeking donors is the Isida. Its directors also stressed that it
did not exploit donors. Both clinics, however, were unwilling to allow
The Observer to contact any donors even if we guaranteed
confidentiality.

As The Observer reveals today, a trade that can fulfil the dream of a
British couple can be a hidden nightmare for the donor. While there is
no denying the joy of an infertile woman who has been able to have a
baby using an overseas donor, there can be an unsavoury underside to
the process where poor young women are exploited, injected with
potentially dangerous hormones and treated like 'battery hens' being
farmed for their eggs. These are women who are the secret mothers of
British children, parents who will never know their genetic children.
It is what the chair of the HFEA, Suzi Leather, has called a
'profoundly exploitative and unethical trade'.

Should the rights of a British woman desperate for a family supersede
the rights of a poor East European forced to sell her eggs for cash?
If the foreign clinics can assure that donors are not exploited, is
there a problem? Are the strict British regulations helping to create
an unsavoury market in human eggs?

Leather said: 'The market in babymaking is now global and these
problems have to be tackled internationally. This compelling testimony
shows the nasty underside of a global market in babymaking and should
act as a wake-up call.'

Near the little fishing village of Sygi on Cyprus sits an unassuming
stone building surrounded by palm trees and with its own private
beach. In the past year, hundreds of women referred by fertility
doctors in Britain have checked in here. This is the Petra Health
Clinic, an offshoot of the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago.
The Observer has been told that it was its offices in Kiev that paid
Ukrainian girls $500 to fly to this clinic and donate eggs. In its
waiting room, couples are usually met by Galina Ivanovina, the
clinic's resident Russian director.

Treatment for multi-embryo implants involving an egg donor from the
clinic costs $5,000. Ivanovina claims they do not pay donors. 'We put
them up in flats and give them a free holiday, but now, it seems, they
feel they can pay for their own. If you wish you can pay them too.'
Ivanovina says the waiting list is only two months' long, which gives
clients time to think about the perfect 'donor match'.

'Do you want a baby that looks like you, a little bit Slavic?' she
asks an undercover Observer reporter who inquired about the
possibility of donor egg and donor sperm. On request she produces an
itemised description of a woman who donated eggs at the clinic.
'Nationality, Russian; height, 1.69m; weight, 55 kilos; blood type,
ABIV+; hair colour, brown; eye colour, brown; education, higher
technical college; occupation, engineer.'

Ivanovina says: 'This would be a typical donor. All of our donors are
from Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine.'

Dr Vasillis Thanos, the Israeli-trained gynaecologist who oversees
embryo transfers at the clinic, says female donors get 'free of
charge' gynaecological treatment throughout their lives. 'These ladies
are very well selected; they approach doctors who give them all the
information about the whole procedure. They do it for altruistic
reasons. So far, not one of these ladies has ever had any somatic or
psychological problems,' he insists. 'They are absolutely from good
families; they have children. They are checked in Russia for genetic
diseases and psychiatric diseases.'

According to the information obtained by The Observer under FOI one
British clinic that has been sending several couples to Cyprus is the
fertility centre at the private Cromwell Hospital, the exclusive
private hospital in Central London. Dr Kamal Ahuja, who runs it, says
that the Petra Clinic operates to the highest international standards
and has an impressive donor-screening programme.

An estimated 30,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union live in
Cyprus, even if only half are legally registered with the authorities.
Local Russian-language newspapers often place advertisements seeking
'young healthy girls for egg donation'. Women from the community
tracked down by The Observer suggested that 'one in four' of their
peers had, at some point in their twenties, donated eggs. Women from
Russia and Ukraine fly in just to donate eggs. Most desperately needed
the money for rent and utility bills.

Larissa Kovoritsa, a nurse who mediates between Russian donors and a
fertility clinic in Nicosia, told The Observer that some women viewed
egg donation as their main source of income, going through the process
of being injected with hormones at least five times a year. The going
rate, she said, was 350 Cyprus pounds (£420) for a cycle in which a
woman produced 12 eggs; £500 Cyprus if she produced more. 'For them
it's like giving blood, you give and then you forget,' said Tatjana, a
28-year-old tour representative who is from Minsk, Belarus. 'They just
give their eggs and get the money, it's a pure transaction.'

Although Tatjana says she has never been a donor herself, she came
close to being one eight years ago when she moved to the island and
knows many girls who have been donors. Two things stopped her: fear of
side-effects and 'it just felt very strange to think that there would
be a piece of me, some little Tatjana, out there in the world'.

Meeting at a secret location for fear her Greek Cypriot husband might
discover the nature of our discussion, she said many women came to
Cyprus from the states of 'new Europe - Poland, Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia. 'They work the cabarets, they'll sleep with men, they'll sell
their eggs, and then they go back again.'

Two of her four friends spoke to The Observer on a confidential basis.
They admitted they had never been pregnant before, in contravention of
UK regulations. 'I was never told I would have to go through
psychological tests,' said 33-year-old Yelena from Moscow, who was a
donor in her mid-twenties. 'The only paper I was made to sign was one
saying I gave up all my rights to the child, which was OK because now
I have two of my own and really don't want to think about the past.
That was then, when I was hungry and desperate.' But Tatjana agreed
that the fees were still 'very attractive ... In Russia you can live
off $1,000 for an entire year.'

And would there be no curiosity about the child? 'You know, you can
play with your own psychology,' she says. 'In Russia when they execute
somebody there is always one soldier who doesn't have a bullet, so in
the end nobody is really sure who shot the man. It's a bit like that
here. Not all embryo [implants] are successful. In the end, you can
never be guaranteed that it was your egg that was the one that was
used.'

· Special contribution: Irina Sandul and Pavel Terekhov of
Korrespondent magazine, Kiev.
· Some names were changed to protect identities

The misery behind the baby trade
By FRAN ABRAMS, Daily Mail


'Fertility tourist': Patti Farrant with her newborn son, JJ

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 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 between £150 and £300 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 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."

Alina was earning just £55 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, 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 between £7,000 and £11,000,
I would be guaranteed at least seven 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, 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.

And while my 'IVF tourism' would cost up to £11,000 if it was
organised through The Bridge Centre, it would cost less than £6,000 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 between £3,000 and £4,000 to donate
their eggs, he said, adding that it was 'perfectly safe' to guarantee
a donor would produce seven or eight 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.

In article <5btcm250gd65gn58agfh5p2i7curfb1mlj@4ax.com>,
Anonymous Loser <hellhole@hotzone.org> wrote:

> British women who desperately want to have babies are being sent to
> eastern Europe and Cyprus. There, clinics are thriving on the profits
> of fertility tourism. But donors in this egg harvest run hidden health
> risks. Report by Antony Barnett in Kiev and Helena Smith in Larnaca,
> Cyprus

Make sure you get those Grade A eggs.