HeyReprotech's summer 2023 roundup

Read, listen, attend, participate...

News

A surrogacy, egg donation, human trafficking and adoption scandal in Greece:

"Major human trafficking and baby adoption ring dismantled in Chania, Greece." Neos Kosmos. 14 Aug 2023.

David Cook. "Greek surrogacy scandal." Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 24 Aug 2023.

"In Greece a number of Australians have found themselves in a nightmare situation, following the sudden closure of a surrogate clinic in Crete.

"The Mediterranean Fertility Institute has had its entire medical team arrested and imprisoned on charges of child trafficking, and the illegal adoption of babies. Several Australian couples have been denied access to their newborn child until they can prove it is genetically theirs."

"Surrogacy scandals: Allegations of human trafficking, and illegal adoptions leave Australian families devastated."Neos Kosmos. 25 August 2023.

"...accusations of human trafficking... arrest of eight individuals involved in the organisation... key figures within the organization included a 73-year-old gynecologist-obstetrician and clinical director, a 44-year-old scientific director and clinical embryologist PhD, a 44-year-old manager of surrogacy programs, and other individuals with diverse roles such as office workers, midwives, and biologists...

"The network had been operating for a decade in multiple regions, including Crete, Thessaloniki, Attica, Agrinio, Ekaterini, and Trikala...

"The organisation targeted financially vulnerable women, primarily from countries like Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Georgia, and Albania... These women were convinced to sell their eggs or act as surrogate mothers...

"Authorities allege that the organisation employed extensive measures to conceal their actions, falsifying medical records, laboratory tests, and certificates to avoid suspicion.

"150 Australian families, comprising approximately half of the clinic’s international clientele... Due to the clinic’s closure and the ongoing investigations, desperate parents from Australia and Europe, who have come to Crete to collect their newborns, are unable to take their babies home or even hold them."

"Hania: Parents retrieve babies at center of surrogacy scandal." Ekathimerini.com. 26 Aug 2023.

A surrogacy scandal in Vietnam:

Hai Thu. "Hanoi jails members of $29,000 surrogacy ring." VNExpress. 25 August 2023.

"Binh went to several hospitals in Hanoi to contact people needing surrogacy, at a price of VND650-700 million for each surrogacy, plus VND30-50 million for twins... then went on Facebook to look for people to become surrogates... promising to pay them VND230-250 million...

"As hospitals require marriage certificates or other papers for in-vitro fertilization, Binh went online to hire people to forge such papers.

"Prosecutors said that between 2021 and April 2022, Binh’s group had carried out eight surrogacies... Authorities said Binh gained VND232 million."

Listens

"Listening to Children: Children's perspectives on surrogacy law." Mason Institute Investigates. 09 Aug 2023.

Rob Stein. "Startup aims to make lab-grown human eggs, transforming options for creating families." NPR. 15 Jul 2023.

Khaleel Rahman, Jessica Severin de Martinez, Catie Talarski, Meg Dalton, Megan Fitzgerald. "Conception deception: The fight for transparency in the fertility industry." Science Friday. WNPR. 13 Jul 2023.

Matt Russell, Patricia Clarke and Rebecca Moore. "Modern family: I had my dead son’s baby at 68." Tortoise. 10 Jul 2023.

"Cover Up: The Pill Plot." Sony. 01 Jul 2023.

Susan Burton and Laura Starecheski. "The Retrievals." The New York Times. 29 Jun 2023.

Olivia Moir. "To Freeze or Not to Freeze (Your Eggs)." It All Starts Here. 20 Jun 2023.

Melvyn Bragg. "Mitochondria." BBC Radio 4. 01 Jun 2023.

Reads

Amy Dockser Marcus. "A Sperm Donor Chases a Role in the Lives of the 96 Children He Fathered." Wall Street Journal. 27 Aug 2023.

Anna Molas. "Spain is the egg donation capital of Europe – here’s what it’s like to be a donor." The Conversation. 17 Aug 2023.

Ilya Gridneff, Emily Schultheis and Dmytro Drabyk. "Inside a Ukrainian baby factory." Politico. 23 Jul 2023.

Catherine Brahic and Sacha Nauta. "The most personal technology." Technology Quarterly. 22 July 2023.

Birdie Hall. "The case against surrogacy." The Spectator. 17 Jul 2023.

Stephanie McNeal. "Erin Andrews Wants to Change the Way We Talk About Surrogacy." Glamour. 14 Jul 2023.

Philip Ball. " 'Embryo Models' Challenge Legal, Ethical and Biological Concepts." Quanta. 13 Jun 2023.

Watches

Rachel Cox. "The Art of IVF with Rachel Cox." Broadly Conceived. 24 Aug 2023.

Events

12 Sep - ESHRE seminar series debate - Should psychological counselling be mandatory/routine in infertility care and ART?

18-20 Sep - Cambridge Summer School on Reproduction, online -  Reproduction at the Crossroads

Studies

University College London - Survey about long-term health of men affected by fertility problems

Universite du Quebec en Outaouais - Experience of sperm or egg donors who have been contacted by a donor offspring

University of Kent - Egg freezing for social reasons

Institute for Women's Health, University College London - Let's talk menopause

Toronto Metropolitan University and University of Waterloo - Elective egg freezing in Canada: Towards appropriate legislation governing consent

University College London - Patient and public involvement group on male subfertility and long-term health

Leeds Beckett University - The online sperm donation project

University of Waterloo, University of Ottawa and Toronto Metropolitan University - Ova obscura: egg donors in Canada

University of Leicester - Children's voices in surrogacy law

University of Ottawa - Surrogacy laws in Canada: Exploring intended parents' experiences and perspectives

University of Birmingham - Survey of LGBTQ+ parents

Academic papers

Sebastian Leathersich et al. "Season at the time of oocyte collection and frozen embryo transfer outcomes." Human Reproduction. 2023.

Emily Bailie et al. "The ovaries of transgender men indicate effects of high dose testosterone on the primordial and early growing follicle pool." Reproduction and Fertility. 2023.