Open Letter to All Sperm Banks and Clinics-Donor Health Alerts

By admin on November 02, 2009

Sent to Biogenetics, Follas/Genome Resources, Zygen, Idant Laboratories, California Cryobank, Fairfax Cryobank, Xytex, New England Cryogenic, Northwest Cryogenic, The Sperm Bank of California, Pacific Reproductive Services, and other sperm banks and clinics:

Donor Sibling Registry Health Alerts

In the wake of the recent serious health issue passed along by a PRS donor, the DSR would like to invite you (and all sperm banks) to report health issues to the Donor Sibling Registry so that we can send members to their respective sperm banks for updated information. On more than one occasion, the banks were not aware of all families that needed to be notified in regards to a serious health issue or even after the death of a donor. Many times, families “lurk” on the DSR, as they have not posted, nor have they reported their births to the sperm banks. It is crucial that we reach these families.  We do not want any children to be born with health issues that could have been prevented by a simple reporting system.

We have thousands of members who are already in touch with each other to share and update vital health information. Several sperm banks already alert us when their is a serious medical  issue or the death of a donor, but we would would like to invite all banks to participate in this sharing of information.

When a Health Alert is sent to the DSR by a sperm bank, we will promptly alert all members that have posted for that donor, as well as the ones we keep track of (thousands) who have not posted, or removed their postings. We will also alert members on our website and Yahoo Group. With hundreds of thousands of visitors to the DSR each year, we can reach a lot of people that might have used the affected donors.

We see this reporting as a necessary public service- and one that can be initiated immediately.

Sincerely,

Wendy Kramer