HFEA issues guidance on egg giving
01 December 2003
Following a review, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has decided to write to all licensed clinics telling them not to practise egg giving. The review was in response to a number of enquiries and expressions of concern from patients and clinics.
Egg giving is an arrangement whereby a person seeking IVF treatment agrees at the outset to go through one treatment cycle in which all the eggs collected are donated to a second person, followed by a further IVF cycle for their own treatment at reduced cost.
Egg giving exposes women unnecessarily to two treatment cycles with all the inherent medical risks. Of particular concern to the HFEA was the extra risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). Although the risk to IVF patients of suffering OHSS is low, about 1%, patients taking part in egg giving programmes run this risk twice because they have to have two cycles of treatment.
Suzi Leather, Chair said:
"There is a shortage of donor eggs in the UK and the distress of women who face long waiting lists for treatment is very real. But the HFEA cannot allow clinics to offer a treatment where a woman, for no other reason than financial inducement, subjects herself to an unnecessary and possibly risky procedure."
Egg sharing is already regulated in the UK and involves collecting eggs from one IVF cycle and donating a proportion of those eggs to another patient. The woman donating her eggs receives a reduction in the cost of her treatment. This announcement today does not affect this treatment, nor does it affect altruistic egg donation where a woman donates all of her eggs to someone else without undergoing fertility treatment herself.
Ends
Notes to editors
The review of egg giving started in July 2003.
The HFEA produced guidelines on the practice of egg sharing in December 1998.
The HFEA was set up in August 1991 as part of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The HFEA's principal tasks are to license and monitor clinics that carry out in vitro fertilisation (IVF), donor insemination (DI) and human embryo research. The HFEA also regulates the storage of gametes (eggs and sperm) and embryos.
Page last updated: 12 March 2009