The Daily Mail has published a story under the headlines “Fertility firm offers Cambridge girls £750 for eggs” (newspaper) and “£750 for your eggs: Fertility firm targets Cambridge Uni girls as critics blast company for exploiting ‘financially vulnerable’ students” (website)

Refutation

The implication from this story is that Altrui has been offering money or using a monetary incentive to entice students into donating their eggs. Altrui totally refutes this allegation and completely stands by its ethical standards and the highest levels of professionalism within a legal framework laid down by the HFEA.

Important Points

We would like to make the following points in response, the following bullet points may be attributed as quotes to Alison Bagshawe, Altrui

In relation to Cambridge University Students:

• Altrui helps individual clients find an altruistic egg donor to enable them to start a family. These leaflets were placed by one of our clients as part of their effort to find an altruistic donor.
• This was a personal appeal from them, which was officially approved by the University.
• The leaflets were distributed to mature students and final year students only, not to undergraduates as a whole.
• In order to preserve both the donor’s and the couple’s confidentiality and to provide relevant background information to those considering egg donation Altrui’s contact details are on the flyer.
• At no time was any money mentioned in any of the material (see the leaflet below).
• The implication from the Daily Mail article is that Altrui is a money-making, exploitative business. In reality, we are a small 2 person business, using our expertise, to try and help couples in the face of continuing negativity. The NHS will not fund this service, and no charity would be able to raise the money to help these couples proactively. Hence the only other option was to form a small private company and charge for our services

How Altrui works:

• 1 in 6 couples are struggling to start a family. Last year Altrui helped approximately 50 couples find an egg donor.
• We make no offer of any money to any donor at any time, and emphasise throughout that this is an altruistic donation
• We do inform potential donors of their rights under the law. The HFEA has stated that egg donors are entitled to £750 compensation to cover all their expenses, child care cover, loss of earnings etc. This is not payment but compensation set up by the government.
• Altrui do not entice or induce someone to be a donor. Our role is to raise awareness and offer them the opportunity to become an altruistic egg donor in this country under full UK protection and regulation.
• We offer full information, guidance and support for anyone wishing to be a donor but we do not encourage anyone to continue if they are in any way uncertain or doubtful.
• Altrui works under formal agreements with a selected number of Licensed Treatment Centres in UK and everything is done under the full regulations of the HFEA.

Potential Egg Donors:

• All potential donors are offered counselling by independent qualified counsellors to discuss any concerns and to assess their suitability.
• All potential donors are absolutely free to withdraw at any stage without any pressure.
• Whilst we do not make judgements about the monetary motives of donors, we do not encourage people to do it for money and constantly emphasise the altruistic nature of donation.
• All potential donors are carefully screened medically at the Licensed Treatment Centres before being allowed to proceed. If there are any doubts about their suitability or safety, the doctors will not permit them to proceed.

Who are the egg donors?

• Altrui agrees that no vulnerable groups should ever be exploited, particularly by offering money. This was not done.
• The law states that egg donors should be between the ages of 18 and 35. Whilst approaches from younger donors may need to be handled sensitively and carefully, they are still old enough to be married, raise their own family, vote and generally make important adult decisions. In this case leaflets were only distributed to mature students and final year students.
• In our experience most egg donors are mums, who have already had children and wish to help others also have this experience.

About Altrui

Altrui was started by Alison who is a renowned fertility expert who spent 20 years supporting couples through assisted conception. She provides practical help to couples in the UK who need a donor. She also works hard to raise awareness of the issues surrounding egg donation in an effort to encourage more women to become altruistic donors.
Prior to Altrui being set up in 2010 there was no mechanism in the UK for couples to find altruistic donors. Their only other alternative was to go abroad where they are not protected under UK legislation and regulation.

Contact

If you would like further information please visit our website at www.altrui.co.uk or to contact Alison, please email her on alison@altrui.co.uk

We think that this is a great step forward and could be a real opportunity to make things better for egg donors and for those who need donated eggs. Our whole ethos has always been to make egg donation as easy, pleasurable and as smooth as possible for donors, since we believe that it is such a wonderful thing that they are doing that they deserve the very best – see our ‘About Us’ page.

It is really encouraging that the Government Regulators (HFEA) are taking egg donation so seriously and looking at ways that they can raise the level of care for donors to the highest standards. They plan to have the group up and running in June, so we will be watching carefully to see who is part of the group and how it develops over time and what ideas and strategies it comes up with, and, most importantly, whether those plans translate into definite actions.

We will naturally keep you informed here as soon as we have the latest news for you. If at any time you have some thoughts and ideas about this we would love to hear them, so please leave a comment below.

Altrui was started to address just such issues. We know that donors need a lot more support and care than just being left to ‘get on with it’ in an environment that is frequently well out of their normal experience and not designed and organised for altruistic donors. Lisa Jardine is right; this is just what is needed. However there are two major considerations not addressed here:

Firstly, neither egg nor sperm donation is anything like giving blood for most people. There may be a small number who view it as such, but they are not the majority. It has far, far, greater implications than giving blood, entails serious responsibility and commitment and is medically a great deal more intrusive, especially for egg donors. These factors alone make it quite different and not something that can be talked through in a ‘pub’ with the idea that, having done so, they can then pop along and donate.

Secondly, almost nobody has any idea about the amount of work needed to recruit and look after donors properly. We spend hours with donors, making sure that they know exactly what is involved and that they feel comfortable with every aspect of the donation process, and even more with clinics trying to make sure that these donors are not then left without contact for too long and are fully supported on their journey. The man hours needed are extensive and until clinics have efficient structures in place for dealing with donors, altruistic donation will not flourish, no matter how much it is opened up and discussed in the public domain.

We recognised that donors were not being properly cared for and set out to redress this imbalance and, from the start, intended to change the impersonality of donation and provide a really good service for both donors and recipients. But it is obvious, and such a shame, that these amazing and generous women who work with us, still find it difficult to discuss donation with others.

As for the centres who work with donors, they MUST recognise that altruistic donors are not patients, have busy lives, don’t want to be put out with changed or inconvenient appointments and deserve the respect of everyone who looks after them. So many things to change!

It has always been thought that women were born with their full complement of potential eggs in their ovaries and that these steadily declined throughout life until falling to zero at the menopause. However, researchers in USA have shown that it is possible to find stem cells in adult women which can produce egg cells in the laboratory.

Reproductive biologist Jonathan Tilly of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston reported isolating rare cells in ovarian tissue from adult women that can grow in laboratory dishes and form immature oocytes (egg cells). The potential egg stem cells could help scientists devise new ways to help rescue the fertility of women who have to undergo cancer treatments or who suffer from premature menopause.

There is still a massively long way to go before this discovery can be translated into definite clinical treatments, but it is exciting that it holds out the potential of innovative new possibilities particularly for young women facing sterilising treatment such as chemotherapy.

Read more in ‘The Telegraph’ or at the ‘BBC’ or in ‘Science Now’.

To find us we are at stand F10 and we’re ready to tell you all about egg donation if you haven’t yet been an egg donor, and to gently encourage and support you on your journey if you’re just starting out. There are lots of couples who need women like you, so come along and find out what is involved and talk to others who have already been on this journey and donated eggs. We’d love to meet you and look forward to seeing you there.

The fantastic aspect of this for our altruistic egg donors is that mums, students, and people not in work will be allowed this compensation, which was not the case before. It really recognises that all egg donors have to go through the same rigorous screening and treatment procedures and although this in no way reflects the enormity of the donation itself, it might help make up for some of the inconvenience.

If you are thinking about becoming an egg donor and are reading this, these changes will affect you and you will be starting under this new scheme now.

I’m sure you can imagine that Christmas is a very difficult time for couples battling fertility problems and that’s even more so for couples who need an egg donor to make their journey possible because they are totally reliant upon someone other than themselves to make the magic happen. And this Christmas, we can’t believe just how many Altrui couples have been given such a massive amount of hope about what next year has in store for them, whether it is because someone amazing like you is prepared to give them a gift of eggs next year or that they have benefited from your donation. Whether your couple’s journey has gone on to result in a successful pregnancy or not, your amazing gift remains the same: inspiring, generous and selfless.

It is truly an honour for us to work with and to get know someone like you who will consider giving this gift, and very humbling to have contact with such an amazing woman who will go on to make the most significant difference possible, in the lives of a couple longing for a child.

From the bottom of our hearts and the hearts of the couple you are giving hope to, thank you so SO much.

We hope that 2012 is a fantastic year for you and that you have the good fortune you justly deserve.

Happy Christmas from us at Altrui

In fact Alison was in popular demand on Wednesday because she was also asked to talk on BBC Radio York, BBC Radio London and BBC Radio Kent (click the links to listen) and to give her thoughts about the changes. In brief the HFEA announced that they are going to raise cap the compensation for egg donors to £750.00. This might seem a great hike from the current £250.00 for loss of earnings, but actually it isn’t as big a change as it might sound. We manage the expenses for donors at Guy’s and at the moment most egg donors incur about £550.00 in total expenses going through a cycle. This is definitely NOT payment -merely reimbursement for travelling and expenses.

The great news for egg donors is that this compensation will apply to everyone – not just those in work, which is the case at the moment. This is in recognition of the commitment and disruption that is usually involved when going through an egg donation treatment cycle. The changes will not come into effect until April 2012. Please don’t let this put you off and delay things, because it usually takes 4-6 months to work up and into a treatment cycle, by the time we have matched you and you have had all the necessary appointments.

Secondly, the fact that this opportunity was given to us by an anonymous, altruistic egg donor makes it the most precious and powerful gift we will ever receive. I don’t think many donor recipients can ever reach the stage of seeking treatment without experiencing quite devastating disappointments over a journey that may have lasted several years. For me this meant that I approached my treatment with a fair degree of fear. My donor’s enthusiasm and bright positivity, her total commitment and unfailing responsibility to the treatment was something that lifted us up through the weeks. The fact that we had to trust a complete stranger implicitly and that she never let us down will have a lasting effect on me, quite beyond any matter of a successful outcome.

Her kind and good actions have affected me deeply and I can quite honestly say that I look at the world around me, and the strangers that I encounter every day, in a quite different light because of what our egg donor has done for us”.

Virtually all our egg donors have said that they get a real high in becoming a donor, which reflects the contents of this article, and surprisingly many have stated that they feel really well and happy afterwards. On becoming an egg donor one has said, “It was the right decision for me, as I’m sure it would be for many other women, if they only know that they can do it and what they would feel if they did”. So what a great thing to do!

We have a few egg donors at the moment who, off their own bat, are in the process of losing massive amounts of weight to get below the BMI of 30 that is necessary to be a donor – for someone they don’t even know and are not yet matched with! This is such a hugely staggering commitment to becoming an egg donor that they deserve every possible benefit of this altruism – from better health to the absolute right to feel good about themselves in becoming an altruistic egg donor.

Altruistic egg donors really encapsulate the best in people. Not only are they kind; they are selfless, committed and really extraordinarily special. Who else would subject themselves to such inconvenience and submit to becoming a patient for the duration? They have their privacy invaded, their motivation questioned and frequently have to wait patiently for appointments.

At Altrui we try to make this whole experience very positive, where the clinics who we work with understand that these really are very special women. We also have pro-active systems in place to support egg donors going through the treatment cycles. We try to ensure that they go through egg donation with minimal inconvenience, receiving the greatest of medical care. Appreciation for being an egg donor needs to come from everyone – the clinical staff, the admin team, and the recipients. Unless we all make it easy for egg donors, and respect and acknowledge their contribution for the selfless act that it is, we are never going to make headway in enabling couples who long for a family of their own achieve this through egg donation in the UK, and it will continue to be an uphill battle.

But interestingly, although having been in working in fertility for 20 years or so, I really had no idea what the fundamental reasons were why egg donors were so difficult to find. But having been doing this now for 9 months (the time it takes to go through a pregnancy) I find that I am at the labour stage of Altrui. I’ve had the congratulations (as in a pregnancy), I’ve watched this baby grow and I’ve given it everything I can and nourished it, and now I am in labour. There are so many good reasons for being an egg donor, but also so many reasons why people feel that they can’t or don’t know that they can.

Funnily enough the first real live Altrui baby is due in a couple of week’s time, and he was the one who was ultimately responsible for starting Altrui – finding completely the right match in a donor for the couple. The absolute pleasure that I know will come from seeing this little one arrive in the world after so much heartache and despair will make this all worthwhile and will make the labour of Altrui reason enough to keep pushing ahead. It is now time to bring this child up.

This study looked at the number of eggs collected from cycles of treatment to the outcome of live births and found that the ideal number of eggs to collect is between 10- 15. This gives the recipient couple the greatest chance of a live birth and a family.

All the Altrui egg donors who have undergone IVF cycles to date have produced the ideal number of eggs and the donors have not found any problems with producing this number. Each ovary contains about 500,000 eggs and any egg donation leaves the donor with many more for future children for themselves.

These studies used various ways of measuring treatment outcome against levels of anxiety or depression. Understandably, stress and anxiety is a state of being for most people going through treatment cycles when they desperately want to achieve a pregnancy. However, the one major factor that has always been in this IVF equation is that medication given during the treatment cycle is designed to override the body’s own hormonal responses with increased doses of synthetic hormones. I believe that it is the combination and cocktail of these drugs, along with the heightened emotions which gives these women the bad time that is so often reported as being stressful.

Stress is not a factor for egg donors

For egg donors, who are well prepared and not attaching the same degree of emotional investment in the treatment outcome, it is not and should not be the stressful experience so often reported.

You may have read in the press that there is a current debate underway about various aspects of donation, but in particular whether egg donors should be paid for their donation and, if so, how much and for exactly what. We thought that you might well have an opinion one way or the other about this issue and would therefore like to make your thoughts known to those who are in the position to take your views into account.

The HFEA website can be found at http://www.hfea.gov.uk . If you click on the link “Donating sperm and eggs: have your say” it will take you through to the relevant section where you can find out more about what is currently under review. There are 4 main areas which they are asking about and to participate in the consultation, you need to complete the on-line questionnaire.

We believe that you are definitely the most appropriate people of all to answer these questions, as either donor or recipient you are the ones most affected by the donation process. We would like to encourage you to put your view forwards so that those who make the rules base them on relevant information.

For people who have endured many cycles of IVF it might be of interest to look into this before giving up hope. It might in any case be worth bringing to the attention of their clinician in case they can benefit from the help it might potentially offer.

Read the full article in the Daily Telegraph.

The last few days have been quite strange as the fate of my eggs is out of my hands. I no longer have to do anything. No more injections, appointments or phone calls to the hospital.

It’s really odd, but nice, to be back to normality and I suppose it’s now I realise how much I was doing.

I think I have taken it all in my stride but I now realise how much I need to be thankful to my family for making my life easier throughout for childcare, cooking me meals, running me hot baths and generally being positive towards the situation.

I feel like it’s been a little team effort from my family and close friends – their reaction to the news the implant of the two eggs has so far been successful just goes to show we are all so delighted and excited for someone none of us have any idea about.

I think this is great and a testimony to how great my family and close friends are, but also to how egg donation is such a positive thing to bring people together.

My Mum picked me up this morning and we took the train together to London. It’s great to have some moral support but also essential to have someone there for the return journey where you may experience side effects from the anaesthetic. I felt very sick on the way home but you can also feel dizzy and disorientated.

We arrived at the hospital and after being shown to my cubicle the Anaesthetist came round to formally explain the procedure, check how I was feeling and verify my medical history to eliminate any complications. Very shortly afterwards after changing into a stylish robe and slippers(!) I was wheeled off for the op. The nurses are lovely – so happy, friendly and reassuring they did a final confirmation of who I was and made sure I was comfortable and …..zonk.

I woke up in the cubicle with my mum sat next to me and a nurse stood at the end of the bed with a cup of tea and a biscuit. Apparently I’d already come round enough to say “milk, no sugar” but have no recollection of it! I felt a bit woosy but fine. The nurse asked me if I wanted to know how many eggs they’s got…Of course I did, “22” I was elated!! It had all been worth it. I’d managed to do my bit.

After a short rest, a trip to the loo (essential before they let you home) and a blood pressure check I was discharged. We took the journey home slowly and carefully and I got home at 6:00pm where I had a lovely bath, cuddle from my son and went to bed. It had been an exhausting day.

I had my last scan yesterday which showed I had lots of healthy eggs ready for collection. I have got one final injection to make at midnight tonight of Ovitrelle which is a final boost of hormones to release the eggs. It’s important it’s taken at the right time for the best possible result – it also means I can have a final snack and drink of water before bed as I’m nil by mouth as of now…

There are lots of women in the UK who could have the baby they long for with the help of an egg donor but there are too few women coming forward to help them. The shortage of egg donors is leaving many couples with a long and anxious wait and some may never become parents because that wait will be too long.

So why are so few women becoming egg donors? One reason is that they don’t know they can. Many people we’ve met hadn’t realised it was something they could do and were unaware of the need for more egg donors. Others know about it but have concerns.

Here are five of the most common questions people ask us:

1. Will I be anonymous as an egg donor?

As far as the recipient couple are concerned, if you decide to become an Altrui egg donor then you can be assured that we will only disclose to the recipients the information that you want us to. Occasionally both sides like to know who the other is, but this information is only given with the consent and agreement of everyone involved.

As far as any children that may result from egg donation are concerned, they do have the right once they are 18 to contact the HFEA to request details of their donor. See the page ‘Egg Donor Privacy‘ for further information.

2. Will donating my eggs affect my own fertility?

It is very unlikely that becoming an egg donor will affect your future plans for your own family or your health. Altrui donors are given the best information and care every step of the way and any concerns specific to you can be discussed with our fertility experts before and during treatment. See the page ‘Does egg donation affect fertility‘ for further information.

3. How will my eggs be used?

Altrui is unique because your eggs will be used exclusively by one recipient. They will not be shared between several women. Altrui’s service is extremely personal and individual. You will be matched with someone very similar to you and the fact that your eggs are going to one recipient gives them the best chance of success.See the page ‘Matching donors with recipients‘ for further information.

4. Isn’t IVF a stressful procedure to undergo?

Women who go through IVF treatment because they have had problems conceiving are already under enormous emotional pressure and much of the stress involved is a result of the desire to have a successful outcome. This will not be the case for you. See out post on ‘Stress does not affect IVF outcome‘

5. Wouldn’t I be giving away my baby?

IVF is a process and your eggs, instead of being naturally lost each month, become part of this fertility process. Any baby that results from the IVF will have been fertilised by dad and grown by mum. The donor is an amazing, essential and yet temporary part of this process. See the page, ‘Eggs are eggs‘ for more about this.