Danish Health Minister Ida Auken says she will propose new legislation to tighten oversight of sperm banks, after DR revealed that European Sperm Bank used donors for more children than the law allows.
Auken, of the Social Democrats, announced the plan on September 16. In an interview with DR, she said there must be better supervision and much more control of how many children are created with the same donor. She also said there must be sanctions when the law is broken.
According to DR, the minister will call the parties’ health spokespeople to negotiations within the next month. Her aim is to send a bill out for public consultation before Christmas. Auken said the rules will be tightened all the way around.
DR reported last week that European Sperm Bank had sold sperm from 186 donors to more Danish women than permitted under Danish law or official recommendations. In one case, a single donor became the biological father of 110 Danish children.
The revelations also concern the Danish Patient Safety Authority, which has supervised the area for ten years without detecting the breaches. The authority previously told DR it had used spot checks to verify the limit on how many women a donor may be used for. It now says it can neither confirm nor deny that this control was carried out, which several experts criticize.
The legal limit is 12 women
As reported by Ekstra Bladet, DR has documented that sperm from 81 European Sperm Bank donors has been used beyond the legal limit since 2013. In one of those cases, a donor helped make 30 Danish women pregnant, resulting in 35 children. The sperm bank broke Danish law for 81 donors in that period.
Under Danish rules, sperm from one donor may be used to treat a maximum of 12 women. Per Dinavis, the cap exists to reduce the risk of inbreeding and of undetected hereditary diseases spreading to many children.
The Patient Safety Authority has reported the sperm bank to the police over the breaches, according to Dinavis, which also notes that the authority is carrying out a broader review of the sector. European Sperm Bank is one of the world’s largest sperm banks.
Asked by DR whether anyone had been monitoring the sperm banks, Auken said it does not look like anyone in the past kept a serious eye on a sperm bank able to exceed the limits so far. She said supervision is one of the areas she intends to tighten.
