Calls to restrict the number of births one donor's sperm can be used to produce have followed the revelation that 10 of 67 children in Europe fathered by a man with a rare mutation have cancer. The problem was discovered when two families separately contacted their fertility clinics after their children were diagnosed with cancers that appeared to be linked to a rare genetic variant, the Guardian reports. Scientists and academics have warned before of potential social and psychological dangers from creating many children in multiple countries from the sperm of one donor.
The variant was found in 23 of the children, 10 of whom have cancer including leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Tracing the children, who in this case were born between 2008 and 2015, when a medical issue like this one surfaces becomes complicated. "We can't do whole-genome sequencing for all sperm donors," said Edwige Kasper, a biologist in France who presented the case to the European Society of Human Genetics in Milan. "But this is the abnormal dissemination of genetic disease," she added. "Not every man has 75 children across Europe." When the sperm was donated in 2008, the variant had not been linked to cancer, and the usual screening procedures would not have detected the issue.
But Kasper's lab found that the mutation is likely to lead to Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a severe inherited predisposition to cancer, per the Guardian. The European Sperm Bank confirmed that the variant, TP53, was present in the sperm it supplied, though it tested the man. The organization said that more than 67 children were conceived with the donor's sperm and that it has its own limit of 75. A spokesperson said all the clinics involved have been notified of the issue. "At the very least we need better systems for tracking donor usage and of informing recipients of this," said Nicky Hudson, a UK professor. (More sperm donors stories.)
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