{"id":339638,"date":"2025-12-10T15:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T15:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339638\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T15:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T15:12:10","slug":"nearly-200-children-conceived-from-sperm-donor-with-increased-cancer-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339638\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 200 children conceived from sperm donor with increased cancer risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sperm donor, who is an asymptomatic carrier of a genetic mutation increasing the risk of cancer, has been used to conceive nearly 200 children worldwide, Denmark’s public broadcaster has revealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“At least 197 children were born thanks to the sperm of an anonymous Danish donor using the alias Kjeld before the sperm bank discovered a serious genetic abnormality,” public broadcaster DR reported.<\/p>\n

According to DR, Denmark’s European Sperm Bank, one of the largest in the world, was alerted in April 2020 that a child conceived via donation and diagnosed with cancer carried a genetic mutation.<\/p>\n

It then tested a sample of the donor’s sperm, but the screening did not detect the rare TP53 mutation.<\/p>\n

Sales of the sperm, which had been suspended during testing, then resumed.<\/p>\n

Calls to regulate ‘wild west’ of online sperm donation<\/a><\/p>\n

A leading Australian fertility lawyer is urging governments to regulate the “wild west” of online semen donation.<\/p>\n

Three years later, the sperm bank was informed of at least one other child conceived from a donation with the mutation that had developed cancer.<\/p>\n

It then tested several samples, which showed that the donor carried the gene, though he was healthy. The use of his sperm was then blocked in late October 2023.<\/p>\n

Between 2006 and 2022, the man’s sperm was sold to 67 clinics in 14 countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Denmark alone, 99 children were fathered by the donor.<\/p>\n

“The specific mutation is a rare and previously undescribed TP53 mutation that is only found in a small part of the donor’s sperm cells and not in the rest of the body, as the donor himself is not affected,” the sperm bank said in a statement.<\/p>\n

It could not be detected by prior genetic screening, and not all children conceived from the donor have the mutation, the company insisted.<\/p>\n

The company said it had been involved in the births of more than 70,000 children worldwide over two decades.<\/p>\n

Many European countries have regulations limiting the number of children per donor, but there are no international regulations governing the number of children a donor can father across borders.<\/p>\n

At the end of 2022, the European Sperm Bank set a maximum of 75 families per donor.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sperm donor, who is an asymptomatic carrier of a genetic mutation increasing the risk of cancer, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,1617,502,103585,188756,137,89203],"class_list":["post-339638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cancer","tag-children","tag-donor","tag-european-sperm-bank","tag-health","tag-sperm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}