Leiden hospital can't identify sperm donor for 80 children; 9 donors fathered over 400

The administration of the Leiden University Medical Center’s (LUMC) sperm bank, which closed in 2004, is in shambles. The university hospitaln is unable to identify the donor for 80 of the 1,141 children conceived through the sperm bank. It also found nine donors who fathered over 400 children in total - far above the 25 per donor limit. Almost 90 children were conceived with the sperm from one donor.

The hospital asked mothers and offspring linked to the sperm donor bank, active between 1977 and 2004, to report to them.

The Netherlands implemented the rule that sperm donors can father no more than 25 children, divided among 12 women, in 1992 to prevent incest and inbreeding. Half-siblings having children together significantly increases the chances of heredity defects.

The chance of that is “certainly not zero” in this case, Martin Schalij, a member of the LUMC’s board of directors, told NOS. The women who used the sperm donor bank almost all came from the west of the country, in the postcode areas 2000 to 3000. As a result, their children aren’t sufficiently spread geographically to prevent half-siblings from having romantic relationships.

This issue is not isolated to the LUMC. In recent years, multiple examples emerged of other clinics where the administration was a mess or doctors using their own sperm for insemination. The most recent example is a laboratory worker at the Leiden fertility clinic Medical Center for Birth Control Foundation (SMCG) who fathered at least 11 children with his own sperm between 1979 and 1984. He wasn’t even registered as a sperm donor.

Fertility doctor Jan Karbaat fathered around 80 children using his own sperm in treatments without the mothers knowing about it. Gynecologist Jan Wildschut fathered 60 donor children in this way.

Schalij urged all other fertility clinics to jointly investigate their records and administration like the LUMC has done. “It may be that all other sperm banks had everything in order in detail, but I would not be surprised if more questions arise,” he told NOS. “I think it would be good to make a clean sweep in one go.”

Ties van der Meer of Stichting Donorkind, the foundation that fights for the interest of people conceived through sperm donation, would welcome such a study. “What we see so far is the tip of the iceberg. We know that files and archives are also not in order at many other hospitals,” he told the broadcaster.