Published 29 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2620
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2620

News

Experts suggest ways to tackle shortage of sperm donors

Clare Dyer

1 BMJ

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Pilots are to be run in two areas of England to test the feasibility of a national sperm donation service in an effort to tackle the shortage of sperm donors. The Department of Health is to seek bids for the trial runs. Mark Hamilton, the consultant gynaecologist who chaired the working party of the British Fertility Society that recommended a national hub and spoke service last year, said, "We desperately need a national service framework. The closest analogy is the blood service. A very similar system could be put in place for sperm."

The number of men volunteering to donate sperm in the United Kingdom has fallen after a change in the law in 2005 removed donor anonymity. Only 307 donors were registered in 2006, 60% as many as in 1991.

A constant supply of new donors is needed because the rules in the UK limit the number of families . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ