My friend, and Ruth Institute Board member, Jennifer Lahl pointed me to this article by the mother of a woman who died of colon cancer at the age of 31. Colon cancer in a person this young, with no family history of colon cancer, is most unusual. The mother’s hypothesis? I’ll let her tell:
As a physician, I have found another way to bring meaning to my daughter’s death. In the absence of a family history of colon cancer, this disease in a young person is extremely uncommon. Jessica was an egg donor for in vitro fertilization (IVF) for infertile couples several years before becoming ill. Egg donation involves repeated self-injection of female hormones in order to stimulate the production of multiple eggs (instead of the usual one), which are then retrieved and used to produce an embryo. Many young women in the United States earn extra money in this way. (Selling eggs is not permitted in many European countries.)
When I looked for a possible link between egg donation and colon cancer, I learned to my amazement that nothing is known about this. Once a young woman walks out of the IVF clinic, no one keeps track of her health, and therefore, the long-term risks of this procedure are unknown. Before beginning the egg-retrieval process, a young woman signs a consent form which says she understands the risks. Young women don’t usually realize the difference between, “There are no known risks,” which is what they may have been told, and, “There are no risks,” and often assume that the process has been shown to be safe. It has not.
To educate Congress on the absence of information about the risks and the need for follow-up with the donors, I conducted two congressional briefings in the past couple of years in an attempt to promote the creation of egg-donor registries, which will provide the possibility of doing research on risks. Until IVF clinics begin to keep track of egg donors and are able to learn from them about their health over the next dozen years, the long-term risks will remain unknown. Cancer and infertility have been reported, but a cause-and-effect relationship is yet unproven. Young women will continue to sell their eggs and possibly risk their health and their lives.
This is another “low-hanging fruit” project for family policy advocates. Get your state legislature to require egg-donor registries, so that it is at least possible to do follow up research on the long-run health impact of egg donation. Heck, while you’re at it, you might require the fertility industry to actually follow up on the egg donors and check on their health once in a while.