Medical scandal rocks Europe: Danish donor fathers 67 children and passes on a cancer-causing gene
The Guardian newspaper revealed a worrying case involving the use of sperm from a Danish donor in artificial insemination procedures in Belgium and Europe, which resulted in the birth of 67 children in 46 European families, including 52 children in Belgium alone, all born from a single donor carrying a gene linked to multiple types of cancer.
The donor, who was described as being in “good health” and not suffering from cancerous diseases, was later found to carry a gene mutation associated with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a rare genetic condition that greatly increases the risk of developing multiple cancers, most notably brain, breast and bone cancer.
Through the European Sperm Bank, a private center based in Copenhagen, sperm was exported to 14 medical centers in Belgium. At 12 of these centers, the samples were used in insemination procedures that resulted in the birth of children. According to Hughes Mallon, Director General of the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products, these births occurred between 2008 and 2017 and involved 37 Belgian women.
Mandatory medical examinations
While ten cases of cancer have been diagnosed so far in Europe linked to this issue, Belgian authorities refuse to disclose the number of cases among children born in Belgium.
Although Belgian law has mandated medical testing for donors since 2007 to ensure they are free of common genetic diseases, this case revealed a serious gap in oversight and enforcement. The law explicitly states that a donor cannot be used to inseminate more than six women, but one Belgian center used the Danish donor with nine women, in clear violation of the legislation.
Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke acknowledged the problem, saying: “Since 2007 we have had a law limiting the number of women who can be inseminated from a single donor, but we have never put in place a real system to monitor and enforce this law.”
He continued angrily: “I was only informed of this case on Monday. It is unacceptable that I have not been aware of it for a year and a half.”
The minister acknowledged that the absence of a national database of donations allowed for crossing boundaries without the knowledge of the centers, as no center had a way of knowing whether the same donor had been used in other centers.
Today, more than a decade later, a national database to track donations was launched, becoming effective from January 1, 2024. But the minister does not hide his regret: “We are 14 years late. We should have done it in 2007.”
Source: Euronews and local media
