There is a lot of hype out there about embryonic stem cells, true and false.
Much of the negative hype is from “pro lifers” who point out (correctly) that most of the actual stem cell therapies so far have come from adult stem cells.
Indeed, adult stem cells are easier to “match” to the person, are more abundant, and since you start out with a lot more cells they have to divide fewer times to get enough–an important fact since cells seem to start getting into trouble after so many divisions, making them prone to tumors both benign and malignant.
But there is also a lot of hype about the promise of embryonic stem cells from people who dislike “prolife” people, but also from companies who need lots of money for research and want taxpayers to give it to them. Investors of course would put up loads of money and ignore the controversy if it paid dividends, but so far as curing things with stem cells, the adult cells are cheaper and easier, so why invest in a company with more hype than results.
But outside the “life” wars, there are a lot of other problems with using embryonic stem cells. Originally it was thought that you could just unfreeze “left over” embryos, of which there are thousands sitting around, and viola: cheap materia.
But it doesn’t work that way. More modern forms of IVF (i.e. test tube babies) are more successful, so doctors no longer need to make as many extra embryos for extra tries. And then a lot of parents who don’t necessarily want their embryo to become another two year old in diapers nevertheless think maybe later, or get queezy about Junior being used as a guinea pig. I used the word “Junior” deliberately because the comedy of the same name brings up in a benign way many of the non logical emotional issues of fertilized embryos.
Another problem with left over embryos is that many that are donated are “old”, and may not work as well. As a result, most doctors to avoid legal hassles, are paying women to donate eggs.
Now, if you are a twenty something student with blond hair, you can put your way through college selling eggs to infertile couples, five thousand dollars a cycle. But there is a worry that the student might underestimate the health problems, both during the donation and long term, caused by this scheme, which is why buying eggs is illegal in many countries..
Women who donate eggs often mix the need for money with the altruistic reason of helping an infertile couple, so shrug off the risk.
As one girl told the BBC:
“It just sounds a good idea, easy money really, and it helps someone out. Cos I’m not using them, so if someone else can it would be good, and also clear me out of a hole too.”
Yet the shortage of freely donated eggs or students willing to donate with payment in advanced countries can’t meet the demand. As a result, Eastern Europe is filling the gap. And indeed, there is already a large business paying Romanian women to donate eggs for infertile couples, many from the UK, and unlike Boston, they are paid only 150 UKpounds per egg cycle.
Again, this has even more ethical worries, since such women really need the money for their families, so would risk overmedication to produce more and more eggs, which could lead to more medical complications: the medical complication rate of giving medicine to make a woman produce eggs is 20% mild to moderate, 1% severe side effects.
Add to the mix the new “demand” for many more fresh eggs for medical research on “stem cells” and you can see the problem. That is why the US National Academy of Sciences recommendation against the use of purchased eggs for research.
Money is a powerful temptation, and there are many countries where a little money under the table will make regulators look the other way.
This is what worries sociologist Catherine Waldby, who has an article in the journal New Genetics and Society.
In 2004, UK authorities banned the purchase of eggs from the clinic. There were concerns the clinic was not telling women about the risks involved, or looking after them when things went wrong, Waldby says. Removing eggs involves multiple hormone injections and a surgical procedure.
Some of the Romanian women (who donated such eggs) developed ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which involves painful abdominal inflammation, possible renal failure, infertility and cardiovascular problems, says Waldby….(who then goes on..)
“Both China and India have large, impoverished populations, extensive networks of fertility clinics and burgeoning stem cell industries, setting the scene for exploitative forms of oocyte procurement.”
A college student in Boston who develops complications will probably live. A Romanian woman will have access to some medical care. But in many of these poor countries, the possibility for major complications and death by unethical operators is a very real concern.
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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. She writes about medical matters on HeyDoc Xanga Blog
4 users commented in " Exploiting poor women to get eggs for stem cell research "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI would like more info. for my daughter and friends that are thinking about this,what has to be done,how long and for someone who had a hystorectomy also able to do this?
My advice to you: google OHSS — Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome — before you make any commitment to become an egg donor. It is your right to know about this. The health risks are horrendous.
Now, here’s something from the Salon.com website about the egg and embryo industry:
Title: White embryos, good for babies; Black embryos, great for reseach!
OK, what population of young women will be providing eggs for the creation of research embryos? Are we willing to mine the bodies of our poorest female citizens in pursuit of (eventually) better babies through IVF?
Every embryo requires a human egg to be extracted from a young, fertile woman. To produce the many thousands of embryos needed for research, scientists will need thousands of young women to undergo the same complex, painful and risky procedure of egg extraction that IVF patients undergo.
On International Women’s Day this year in March, women’s health advocates held a symposium on the traumatic implications of widespread egg extraction for research. A You Tube video “Trading on the Female Body” (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Fyw3YYejMLg ) summarizes that symposium. One of its most powerful testimonies comes from a woman whose daughter died from Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) while undergoing egg extraction as an IVF patient.
What will happen when ovarian hyperstimulation moves beyond the comparatively small population of women who do it in hope of having a child, to the wider population of women who will endure the ordeal from economic necessity? Where will scientists obtain the eggs for experimentation?
IVF clinics regularly recruit egg donors from college campuses because eggs from young, fertile, white women are what the mostly-white, mostly well-educated, mostly middle-to-upper class women who want an IVF baby are looking for. Young women see their $5000 “stipend” as a good trade-off for the risk of OHSS and the danger to their own future fertility.
But embryo research, unlike IVF, has no requirements for egg donors to be white, long-legged, cute and collegiate. Research only requires that the donors/vendors be young, fertile and willing to undergo hyperstimulation. It is doubtful that experimental scientists will likewise pay $5000 a try to get donor eggs, especially when the embryo will be killed at, say, 14 days.
So where will researchers find a population of young women happy to donate eggs at a cut-rate price? People on both sides of the issue believe that poor and minority women will be a much-desired target population for the harvesting of eggs. Poverty lowers the threshold for selling a precious resource. That’s why paid blood donors are generally from the poorer populations.
If you need thousands of eggs to use and then quickly dispose of, and you can’t pay top dollar because you don’t have desperate, wealthy couples, you only have scarce research money, where will you court egg donors? It’s a no-brainer. You will look for egg donors among the young women who are poorest, most vulnerable, and most willing to undergo the procedure, who don’t know much, if anything, about OHSS, and will not ask complex questions about risks vs. benefits..
Are we willing to look at the race and class implications here? Black embryos (lots of them, and cheap) for research, for the eventual benefit of white embryos (fewer and much more expensive) for IVF?
Are we willing to mine the bodies of the poor in order to perfect our lab techniques for the reproductive ambitions of the rich?
you know something? i am a young,beutiful, blond haired, green eyed women. I am 26 years old and i just would like to say this. THANK YOU for these comments. I myself have been reasearching donating” my” eggs. And reading this passage made me realize that screwing with mother nature just because i’m in a bind is totally not worth it! I would love to help some painful wome who can’t have kds, for whatever reason. But i think what i just read is very sad and very DISGUSTIGLY stupid. And five or ten grand is not worth what i’ve read so far. and i sure don’t want to die. your’s truly kiesha from syracuse!
Shameful! This exploitation must stop.
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