"When the woman's phone began to ring one morning in June, she did not know that the news she would receive would hurtle her and her teenage daughter into a "tunnel" of medical appointments, tests and fear. On the other end of the line, she said, was the head of the fertility department at a Belgian clinic she had visited in 2011 to undergo fertility treatment, which at the time was not available to would-be single mothers in France."
"The caller told her that the sperm donor she had used to conceive her daughter carried a rare genetic mutation of the TP53 gene, which suppresses cancerous growth. The mutation is linked to a heightened and lifelong risk of multiple cancers many of which can develop at a very early age. The caller said her daughter had a 50% chance of inheriting the mutation, for which there is no cure or treatment."
"In fact, after the mutation was detected in his samples, the donor had been permanently blocked in October 2023 by the European Sperm Bank (ESB), which had sold the sperm. Though the clinic maintains that it contacted the woman "as soon as possible," it told her she received the call a year and a half after the ESB discovered the mutation because it had migrated its computer system and initially lost her contact details."
A woman who used donor sperm was contacted years later by a Belgian clinic about a TP53 gene mutation carried by the donor. The TP53 mutation suppresses cancerous growth and is linked to a heightened, lifelong risk of multiple cancers, many of which can develop at an early age. Her daughter had a 50% chance of inheriting the mutation and was urged to be screened; testing confirmed inheritance. The donor was permanently blocked by the European Sperm Bank in October 2023. An investigation found the donor's sperm had been sold across at least 14 countries for more than 15 years.
Read at www.dw.com
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