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.
المتبرع، الذي وُصف بأنه في “صحة جيدة” ولا يعاني من أمراض سرطانية، تبيّن لاحقًا أنه يحمل طفرة جينية ترتبط بمتلازمة Li-Fraumeni، وهي حالة وراثية نادرة تزيد بشكل كبير من خطر الإصابة بسرطانات متعددة، أبرزها سرطان الدماغ والثدي والعظام.
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.
وأقر وزير الصحة الفيدرالي، فرانك فاندنبروك، بالمشكلة قائلاً: “منذ 2007 لدينا قانون يحدّ من عدد النساء اللواتي يمكن تلقيحهن من متبرع واحد، لكن لم نضع أبدًا نظامًا حقيقيًا لمتابعة وتنفيذ هذا القانون.”
وتابع بغضب: “أُبلغت بهذه القضية يوم الإثنين فقط. من غير المقبول ألا أكون على علم بها منذ عام ونصف.”
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.
اليوم، وبعد مرور أكثر من عقد، تم إطلاق قاعدة بيانات وطنية لتتبع التبرعات، أصبحت فعالة منذ الأول من كانون الثاني/ يناير 2024. لكن الوزير لا يخفي أسفه: “تأخرنا 14 عامًا. كان ينبغي علينا فعل ذلك في 2007.”
Source: Euronews and local media
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