A New Banking Crisis Is Looming...

The introduction of these "sperm sharing" could help to end the shortage of donors in Britain, which has led one in 10 clinics to stop offering sperm treatments.

One in seven couples have problems conceiving and in around half of cases the problem is with the man, with many having to resort to using a donor.

However, the number of sperm donors has dropped by a third in a decade.

A minimum of 500 new sperm donors are needed each year in the UK but there were just 307 in 2006.

Many blame the removal of anonymity in April 2005, which means that children can now trace their donor once they turn 18.

A separate study shows that one in three of donor-conceived children want information about their biological father.

Changes in the rules governing sperm donation must be made to keep up with demand, the British Fertility Society (BFS) said.

Dr Mark Hamilton, chairman of the BFS, and Allan Pacey, the organisation's secretary, have called for more "sperm sharing" schemes to be available.

The idea mirrors similar "egg sharing" schemes, which have provoked controversy at the idea of women "selling" eggs.

Although popular, critics claim that they exploit women when they are vulnerable.

Other suggestions put forward by the BFS include raising the limit on the number of families that each donor can father.

Women are allowed to use the same donor if they have already conceived one child with them, so the limit is on the number of families not the number of children.

Currently the limit is ten but this is "arbitrary and not evidence-based", the experts, writing in the British Medical Journal, say.

Dr Hamilton said that in the Netherlands, where the population is one quarter of that in the UK, the upper limit is 25, while in France with a similar population to the UK, it is five.

"It's a matter of cold genetic risk versus society's view of the notion of an individual being associated with more than just a few children.

"We are looking at it through a prism of families today which consist of one or two children but if we look back a few years having a lot of children was the norm."

The article warns: "Currently, many clinics struggle to recruit donors, have long waiting lists for those needing treatment, have high costs, and in some areas have ceased to provide treatment services altogether."

The BFS estimates that around 10 per cent of clinics no longer offer treatments using donor sperm, leaving couples with the choice of abandoning fertility treatment or having to travel often large distances to access it.

Clare Lewis-Jones, chief executive of Infertility Network UK, said: "We know from patients needing donor insemination how devastating it is to not be able to access the treatment they need in order to have a family because of the current shortage of sperm donors, which in some cases is simply because of where they live."

The extent of the desire for children to discover the identify of their biological father has also been disclosed.

The Sperm Bank of Davis, in California, began offering named sperm donation in the 1980s and is the first where donor-conceived children have now reached the age where they are seeking information about their biological father.

Research, presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and carried out by psychologist Dr Joanna Sheib from the University of California Davis, found 30 per cent of donor conceived children, who knew their origins, sought information about their "father".

Women were more likely than men to want details and most contacted the clinic for information as soon as they turned 18.

Six in ten of those who came forward for information planned on contacting their donor, and most said they were "curious" and felt that the information would help them to "learn something about themselves".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...-shortage.html

You know its bad when even sperm banks are feeling the crunch :eek:

Regards,

Lee