Lab worker at Leiden fertility clinic used own sperm to conceive at least 11 children

An employee of the SMCG fertility clinic in Leiden used his own sperm to impregnate women between 1979 and 1985. He was not registered as a donor and later turned out to have a genetic condition, Omroep West reports.

The clinic no longer exists. The Medisch Centrum Kinderwens (MCK), which manages the SMCG clinic’s archives, is trying to reach women who were treated there, possible descendants of the man, and former clinic employees. According to the center, he conceived at least 11 children.

The case came to light last year when two donor children who should be related on paper turned out not to have a DNA match. They checked their DNA on the international database MyHeritage, and one of the women turned out to be related to two other donor children. These two already tracked down the lab worker in question in 2017. All three of their mothers were treated in Leiden at Stichting Medisch Centrum voor Geboorteregeling (SMCG).

According to Omroep West, the laboratory worker admitted to using his own sperm in fertility programs to the two children who tracked him down in 2017. He used another man’s donor registration number on the admin.

In 2015, a hereditary disease was diagnosed in the lab worker, MCK director Arne van Heusden told Omroep West. For privacy reasons, he would not say what condition, only that “it is not a life-threatening disease.” But it does make finding the children conceived with the man’s sperm extra urgent. “It is a genetic abnormality that is passed on to the next generation in 50 percent of cases,” Van Heusden said. “People simply have the right to know this.”

Van Heusden said that the lab worker in question is still alive but refusing to cooperate in the current investigation. “We hope that the former employee will feel a little bit of responsibility and decide to share things with us,” the MCK director said, calling the man’s silence frustrating. The investigators also tracked down some of the man’s colleagues, but they also did not want to cooperate.

The doctor who performed most of the treatments at SMCG told investigators that he knew nothing about the illegal donations until 2017. That year, the lab worker called him to tell him about the two children who tracked him down and confessed to supplying his own sperm. The doctor failed to report that to the authorities.

Emeritus professor Didi Braat is surprised by the “misplaced loyalty” that is keeping the former SMCG employees silent. She previously investigated similar irregularities with donor sperm at the Alrijne Hospital in Leiderdorp and the Isala Hospital in Zwolle. “What is striking was that former employees were extremely willing to tell anything to find out what had happened in the past. What is now happening here is something we have never seen before as a committee,” she told the broadcaster. “The loyalty should lie with the affected parents and children.”