Eggsploitation

Summary

"Eggsploitation" delves into the controversial world of egg donation, exposing the alarming truths hidden beneath the surface. It highlights the high demand for specific ethnicities' eggs and the largely unregulated industry that capitalizes on young women, often manipulated through altruistic appeals and financial incentives. The documentary sheds light on the hazardous health risks donors face, including severe complications and lack of long-term studies or follow-up, questioning the ethics and safety of this burgeoning market.

Highlights

• The high demand for specific ethnicities' eggs drives a global, multi-billion dollar industry. 🌐
• Young women are often unaware of the health risks involved in egg donation. 🤷‍♀️
• Financial incentives can cloud judgment, leading women to underestimate potential dangers. 💰
• Lack of regulation and research oversight in the egg donation industry poses significant ethical concerns. 🧐
• Personal testimonies reveal severe health complications following egg donation procedures. 😢

Key Takeaways

• Egg donation is promoted as altruistic, yet it involves serious unrecognized risks for donors. 🌟
• Young women are targeted on college campuses with the lure of financial gain. 💸
• Health complications from egg donation can be severe and long-lasting. 🚨
• The ethical landscape of egg donation is complex and often unregulated. 🤔
• There's a critical need for more research and transparency in the egg donation industry. 🔍

Overview

"Eggsploitation" takes viewers on a revealing journey into the egg donation industry, highlighting the profound ethical and health-related issues many women face. The documentary artfully exposes how young women, often devoid of crucial risk information, are persuaded by lucrative offers and calls to altruism. It questions the morality of an industry prioritizing profits over participants' well-being.

Through this eye-opening exposé, personal stories from past donors underscore the unmistakable dangers linked to egg donation. From severe health complications to the lack of long-term studies on donors' well-being, the film presents a compelling case for the need for regulatory action and thorough research oversight. Viewers are left pondering the true cost of egg donation on women's health.

The narrative challenges the perception of egg donation as a simple, consequence-free decision. It shines a light on the exploitation of women as mere "egg factories," advocating for ethical practices that protect and prioritize their health. "Eggsploitation" is a crucial call-to-action for re-evaluating our approach to reproductive technologies and ensuring safe, informed practices.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: The Demand for Eggs and Buyer Personas The chapter explores the demand for eggs among various ethnic groups, including Asian, East Indian, Jewish, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern communities. It highlights the heightened altruistic motivations involved in egg donation and suggests that potential buyers or recipients, particularly women aged 21 to 29, may not fully consider future fertility concerns or associated risks. The chapter also notes that physically attractive, tall, and fit individuals with a desire to help are particularly desirable for egg donation.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Misleading Promises and Emotional Appeals The chapter "Misleading Promises and Emotional Appeals" discusses the deceptive tactics used by some organizations to manipulate young and healthy individuals into donating their eggs. The chapter highlights the emotional appeal and misleading promises, such as making a difference or helping someone in need, that these entities use to encourage donations. It also touches upon the exploitation of individuals who may not fully understand the implications of egg donation, as illustrated by the distress of seeing a young woman with a seemingly advanced pregnancy, which may not align with reality. The overarching theme is the manipulation and ethical concerns surrounding egg donation.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Global Egg Donation Industry: Risks and Regulations The chapter explores the global egg donation industry, highlighting its largely unregulated nature and its multi-billion dollar value. Young women are commonly solicited to donate their eggs, which are sought after for their fertility and genetic qualities.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Experiences of Egg Donors: Health Risks and Ignorance This chapter explores the experiences of young egg donors who face significant health risks due to competing interests from scientific researchers and fertility doctors. It raises concerns about whether these women are properly informed about the potential complications and risks to their reproductive health, bodies, and lives. It also questions the adequacy of legal protections and the advocacy available for these donors.
• 02:00 - 02:30: The Birth of IVF and Its Ethical Concerns The chapter titled 'The Birth of IVF and Its Ethical Concerns' discusses the journey of individuals attempting to have a baby through IVF. It shares the story of a woman undergoing hormone treatments and facing the emotional struggles associated with IVF. The narrative also touches on the ethical and commercial aspects of fertility treatments, including the prominence of online ads promoting services and financial incentives. The emotional toll and ethical dilemmas surrounding IVF are highlighted, reflecting the complicated nature of assisted reproductive technologies.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Statistics and Lack of Research in Egg Donation The chapter discusses the physical and emotional challenges faced by egg donors, illustrated by a personal account from a donor who experienced significant discomfort and weight gain shortly after a donation procedure. The donor contacted the agency to express her concerns about feeling unwell, bloated, cramping, and generally miserable. Despite these symptoms, she was reassured by the agency that such effects were 'very normal' and typical of the process, providing a glimpse into the lack of research and awareness regarding the side effects and long-term implications of egg donation.
• 03:00 - 03:30: The Illusion of Safety and the Unknown Risks The chapter titled 'The Illusion of Safety and the Unknown Risks' delves into a personal medical experience where there is a recurring reassurance from medical professionals stating that the procedure is normal and everything will be fine post-procedure. However, a sense of inconsistency arises as the doctor keeps urging 'a little bit more,' akin to a bad dream. The narrator reflects on the discrepancy between what was advised initially (a procedure between 20 to 23 units) and the reality (a procedure that took 45 units), highlighting a profound moment of realization about unknown risks that weren't mentioned upfront. This narrative underscores the theme of misplaced trust in perceived safety amid unforeseen complexities.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Ethical Dilemmas and Monetary Influence in Egg Donation The chapter details a personal account of extreme illness during air travel, relating it to an 'egg donation' procedure and questioning the ethical and financial dimensions of such medical engagements. The individual describes the severity of their symptoms as similar to the worst flu imaginable, experiencing persistent nausea and vomiting throughout the journey. Despite these symptoms, they were continuously reassured that what they were experiencing was 'normal,' highlighting potential ethical concerns surrounding patient care and well-being in medical procedures influenced by monetary incentives.
• 04:00 - 04:30: The Regretful Experience of Donors: Ignored Warnings and Health Problems The chapter opens with a significant event in the history of reproductive technology, the birth of Louise Brown, the first test tube baby, on July 25th, 1978. This marks a breakthrough moment for fertility specialists who had been striving for years to accomplish the fertilization of a human egg by sperm outside the human body, a process known as in vitro fertilization (IVF). The technique involves fertilizing the egg in a glass Petri dish and subsequently implanting the resulting embryo into the uterus. This milestone is presented not only as a scientific achievement but hints at underlying themes of ignored warnings and potential health problems associated with the donors and processes involved.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Technical Extraction Process and Medical Concerns Dr. Patrick Steptoe and Dr. Robert Edwards successfully assisted in reproduction by working on a woman's womb, leading to the birth of Louise as a healthy baby. This marked a historic achievement in the IVF industry.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Surgical Procedures and Complications The chapter discusses surgical procedures and complications, focusing on the data from 2010 provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It reveals that in the United States, over 100,000 assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycles were conducted using non-donor eggs, but less than 20% led to live births. In contrast, over 80,000 cycles were unsuccessful. The data also mentions that nearly 17,000 cycles involved donor eggs, which generally improves the success rate.
• 05:30 - 06:00: The Unforeseen Long-Term Health Issues The chapter titled 'The Unforeseen Long-Term Health Issues' discusses the global prevalence of reproductive technology procedures, highlighting that it was performed approximately 1.5 million times last year. It raises concerns about the health and fertility risks faced by donors, noting the mainstream acceptance and portrayal of these technologies in media. Despite the positive depiction and marketing, the chapter points out a significant lack of peer-reviewed medical research addressing the long-term health impacts of these fertility treatments.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Medical Recommendations and Health Ignorance This chapter delves into the complexities and ethical considerations surrounding egg donation. It raises important questions about the safety of the procedure for donors and whether enough protective measures are in place. The discussion questions if the fulfillment of one woman's desire might come at the cost of another woman's health or life, and scrutinizes the balance between advancing scientific research and the health risks posed to young women donors.
• 06:30 - 07:00: Scientific Research Needs and Ethical Responsibilities The chapter discusses the ethical and practical issues surrounding human egg donation. It highlights the often anonymous, altruistic or financially motivated women who donate their eggs, and the conflicts that arise between various stakeholders, including doctors, researchers, the fertility industry, and the scientific community.
• 07:00 - 07:30: The Ethical and Economic Considerations of Egg Donation The chapter discusses the ethical and economic considerations surrounding egg donation. Advocates for women's health and ethical reproductive practices emphasize the minimal risk of egg donation, while critics express concerns about the lack of long-term studies and tracking of egg donors' health.
• 07:30 - 08:00: The Need for Better Support and Public Awareness This chapter highlights the lack of proper documentation and recognition for women who experience complications following procedures like egg donation. It underscores the invisibility of these women in medical literature and government oversight, emphasizing the need for better tracking and support. The text stresses the necessity of public awareness and accountability, addressing the ethical obligation to safeguard the well-being of donors who participate in egg donation. Overall, it calls for a more robust system to ensure the long-term health and safety of women involved in such medical practices.
• 08:00 - 08:30: The Consequences of Egg Donation: Exploitation and Isolation This chapter delves into the complexities surrounding egg donation, focusing on the ethical concerns related to the recruitment, screening, and informed consent of young egg donors. The discussion raises questions about whether egg donation is truly altruistic and highlights the potential risks involved. Additionally, the text discusses how financial incentives might impact the donor's ability to give informed consent, emphasizing the possible exploitation and isolation faced by donors.
• 08:30 - 09:00: Ending Remarks: A Global Call for Ethical Practices and Awareness The chapter titled 'Ending Remarks: A Global Call for Ethical Practices and Awareness' discusses the ethical concerns surrounding the commodification of human eggs, particularly targeting university students in the United States. The speaker finds the practice offensive, as it assigns a dollar value to individuals based on their educational level and exploits their financial desperation. Advertisements on social media platforms often offer substantial amounts of money, creating ethical dilemmas and highlighting the need for increased awareness and ethical considerations in such practices.
• 09:00 - 09:30: Reflective Finale: A Personal Appeal to Prospective Donors In the final chapter, the narrative concludes with a direct and reflective appeal to potential donors. The speaker discusses the rigorous selection process for organ donors, emphasizing that donation should stem from a desire to help others rather than financial gain. They criticize the selective criteria for donors, which includes being an attractive woman of certain age and ethnicity. The chapter also highlights the considerable health risks involved, such as the necessity of hormone treatments, signaling moral and ethical considerations for those contemplating donation.
• 09:30 - 10:00: Closing Credits and Reflections This chapter explores the complexities and personal experiences of women participating in egg donation. It highlights the physical demands, such as frequent ovulation, and the emotional and ethical considerations involved. Despite the challenges, many women are driven by a sense of altruism, wanting to help others achieve parenthood or contribute to scientific research. The narrative begins with the perspective of a graduate student who, facing financial difficulties, encounters an advertisement for egg donation in her university newspaper.

Eggsploitation Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 high demand for specific ethnicities asian east indian jewish mediterranean middle eastern i just very much had the altruistic piece of me triggered and she's going to look at that and say that's a lot of money women ages 21 to 29 they're not thinking about their fertility or risks eggs are being bought with all of the risks that follow from that if you're tall attractive physically fit and have a desire to help and what
• 00:30 - 01:00 person doesn't want to see themselves that way to see your daughter who's not pregnant and stomach looked like she's six months pregnant it was awful i'm mad at the fact that people are out there wanting to take advantage of someone who is young or healthy and wanting to help and it says right here make a difference today donate your eggs it makes it sound like it's this you know act of benevolence to think that this is someone who cannot have children otherwise and this person has chosen me for the kind of person that i
• 01:00 - 01:30 am this is my duty this is what i signed on for this is my duty this is what i signed on first is what i signed on for [Music] young women around the world are solicited by a largely unregulated global multi-billion dollar industry to help people have babies what is this industry after their fertility their good genes their eggs human eggs are a valuable commodity and now
• 01:30 - 02:00 scientific researchers compete with fertility doctors for those eggs these young women are subjected to risky procedures with potentially serious health complications who is this young woman so desperately needed by these two markets is she adequately informed of the risks to her health what laws are in place for when she is harmed and who will rise and speak for her reproductive health her body her life
• 02:00 - 02:30 and there was a girl that i worked with that was trying to have a baby so she went through all the hormone shots she went through the whole process um unfortunately was not successful but i just saw how much she wanted to have a baby i of course would see ads for it online hey you know i can help somebody and then also get paid for it too it was a blur i started getting more uncomfortable each day
• 02:30 - 03:00 and a little bit more bloated i remember just being miserable i think i ended up gaining about 10 pounds in about that week um the first person i contacted was the agency so she was the first person i reached out to to say look i'm i'm not feeling very well i'm i'm comfortable i'm bloated i'm cramping really bad it's getting worse she reassured me i was okay she said it's very normal this is typical nothing to worry about um you know when i had my appointment with
• 03:00 - 03:30 the doctors and or the doctor and the nurses same thing they said it's normal it's normal it's normal after the procedure you'll be good um and yeah and he kept saying just a little bit more a little bit more a little bit more a little bit more it's kind of a bad dream now i asked him and he had told me between about 20 to 23 after researching on the whole medical side of what ended up happening he ended up taking 45 well after the procedure i started
• 03:30 - 04:00 throwing up instantly um bad bad bad bad and was just unbelievably sick um the worst the only way to describe it would be the worst flu you can ever imagine just that nauseous and that sick i was throwing up on the jet way i was throwing up on the airplane i was throwing up in between flights again i just kept hearing it in my head that it was normal it was normal it was normal
• 04:00 - 04:30 on july 25th 1978 the world awoke to the announcement of the birth of louise brown the first test tube baby for decades fertility specialists have been trying to fertilize the human egg with human sperm outside of the body in vitro which literally means in glass in the petri dish and then transfer the embryo back into a
• 04:30 - 05:00 woman's womb in order to assist in reproduction on this historic date dr patrick steptoe and dr robert edwards accomplished just that and louise was born a healthy baby just five short years later dr alan trounson was the first to use a donated egg in creating an embryo the ivf industry was born and it seemed that the solution to infertility was found in the laboratory
• 05:00 - 05:30 the most recent data we have is from 2010 from the centers for disease control and prevention it shows that in the united states alone over 100 000 assisted reproductive technology cycles were performed using non-donor eggs less than 20 percent of those cycles resulted in live bursts over 80 000 cycles failed almost 17 000 cycles were performed using donor eggs and while that increases the chance of a
• 05:30 - 06:00 live birth it comes at the cost of risking the health and fertility of the donor last year this procedure was performed approximately 1.5 million times globally reproductive technology has gone mainstream and is depicted in film and television sometimes making light of the situation but for all the feel-good marketing and popular representation of fertility treatment there is an alarming absence of published peer-reviewed medical research and data
• 06:00 - 06:30 on egg donation and the women who donate and with more stories surfacing we have only seen the tip of the iceberg is egg donation really as safe as the industry and scientific researchers would like us to think what safety should be in place to protect egg donors are we fulfilling one woman's dream at the expense of another's health or life are we willing to advance scientific research at the risk of compromising a young woman's health
• 06:30 - 07:00 as it is she is just a nameless faceless woman sometimes motivated by altruism often in need of cash but too often used and left forgotten the issue of human egg donation is a center of conflict and disagreement often between doctors and researchers the fertility industry and the scientific community and
• 07:00 - 07:30 advocates for women's health and those who want ethical reproductive practices supporters of egg donation maintain the practice is safe and has minimal risk those who are concerned for the health and well-being of otherwise healthy egg donors caution that we have never adequately studied the risk of egg donation since egg donors aren't tracked and monitored for the long term the girls who donate eggs after they're done with her there's no numbers i mean there's nobody saying how many of
• 07:30 - 08:00 those girls go on to have complications or problems i mean she is like nameless she doesn't appear anywhere she doesn't appear in the medical literature she doesn't appear in any kind of tracking or government oversight she is gone one of the most striking facts is just how little is known for sure about the long-term health outcomes for women who undergo these procedures others note our obligation to those who charitably participate in the practice of egg donation we have an obligation to ask
• 08:00 - 08:30 questions about what it is we're doing for someone who's healthy who's participating participating in research it's um it's an elementary activity it's a charitable activity it's altruistic and you can't abuse that charity that altruism by placing that person at risk but how are these young egg donors recruited screened and selected is it possible to inform them of the risks and does the money being offered cloud their ability to consent freely
• 08:30 - 09:00 in the united states one seeking a human egg needs to look no further than a university campus they don't tell you any of the health risks i find it i find it really offensive because i get these on my facebook all the time when when you start putting a dollar value on people because of their education levels it's it's not it's not right they're offering us you know twenty thousand fifty thousand whatever the dollar amount is and it's just it's really sad because they know we're desperate for money look at this they say elite donors what
• 09:00 - 09:30 i mean obviously you have to go through a process they don't want just any egg um i think it's a lot of money well hopefully i will never need money so bad that i will do it first of all to sell organ i think that's stupid you should donate if you want to help someone and the other thing is like you have to be attractive woman of all ethnicity between the age of 21 and 29 so that's also pretty screwed up i think i know that there are significant health risks they have to give hormone treatment and
• 09:30 - 10:00 the women are forced to ovulate multiple times and it's pretty brutal i'm not saying i'm not attractive but i'm i'm too old but they won't take mine each woman's story of egg donation is unique but it almost always starts with an ad appealing to their sense of altruism in order to help others have babies or to advance scientific research i first saw the ad for egg donors in the university paper as a grad student you don't earn very much money and i was behind on rent even though i was living
• 10:00 - 10:30 a very spartan sort of lifestyle i had been looking on craigslist due to you know the need and desire for money five thousand dollars was easy to make the first time that i'd heard about egg donation was when i was a college student in new york once i moved to atlanta i was just starting my job so my money was not to me as it should have been like yeah you know you have the great you know sat scores you got the looks
• 10:30 - 11:00 you know you're a perfect fit perfect candidate for what we need i looked for someone with a very good education they did an iq test on me they well they definitely want to see my photos i mean they made it seem like it was you know destiny that this couple found me i needed about three thousand dollars and if i had that three thousand dollars everything would be fine and i thought at the time that it had solved all of my financial problems at the end of my college career i actually responded to an ad in the stanford newspaper advertising
• 11:00 - 11:30 fifty thousand dollars for an egg donor with certain criteria both kylie and callus suffered a stroke alexandra lost an ovary cindy almost bled to death and linda and latoya were both hospitalized with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome jessica responded to an ad and went on to sell her eggs three times at 29 years old she was diagnosed with colon cancer and by 34 she was dead
• 11:30 - 12:00 her mother advocates for follow-up and long-term studies on the safety of egg donation she wonders given no medical history or risk factors for this disease why her daughter died after multiple egg donation cycles she already accomplished so much in her 29 years and she could have if she had three times as long i can only imagine what she would have done we have her opera we have classical music she's composed
• 12:00 - 12:30 and she's gone [Music] today the fertility industry in america is a multi-billion dollar a year
• 12:30 - 13:00 enterprise operating with little regulation or oversight and yet the risks associated with the powerful drugs women have to take to cause super ovulation are real the egg donor is unique in that she is not infertile she is not sick yet she assumes all the risk in order to help someone else at the time when i was considering egg donation i was at a major research university so i had access to online databases of research literature and what i found was that there was
• 13:00 - 13:30 nothing stating that there were risks to egg donors looking up studies and trying to see if there was anything i should be wary of what side effects or procedure might have and after doing that research and not coming up with much in terms of risks or dangers then i decided it was safe to proceed i repeatedly asked the questions especially about hyperstimulation and the woman that i was speaking with she assured me that
• 13:30 - 14:00 you know nothing would happen i almost thought of it like a uh a side effect or a commercial for a medicine that you have the side effects at the end that you know never really happens but they just have to say it just in case so that's kind of how they made me feel about it and that's how i kind of took it was there's no real risks there's no nothing major that i needed to worry about so the procedures involved in egg donation remain unknown to the general public women normally ovulate one or two eggs a month but egg donors are expected to produce
• 14:00 - 14:30 many more sometimes dozens by a process called superovulation latoya had 33 eggs removed for research in an egg freezing study they removed 45 eggs from kylie 60 from cindy 28 from alexandra and a total of 39 eggs from linda in her three donation cycles they have a requirement at least my agency did that you have to produce at least a
• 14:30 - 15:00 certain number of eggs or also count as a failed cycle stay the course everything was fine we don't want this cycle to fail you should keep doing this even though i question their their protocol and everything there are three stages prior to removing the eggs at each stage the woman takes drugs to artificially coordinate the procedure first synthetic hormones are self-injected by the woman to induce menopause stopping the ovarian function while allowing the physician to control
• 15:00 - 15:30 the timing of the maturation and release of eggs the first drug they sent me is called lupron and its job basically is just to stop the donor's menstrual cycle to be able to be synced with a surrogate so that that person can carry the child and the woman on the other line reportedly because i couldn't hold the telephone at this point said it's all part of taking the lupron it's very common to make sure she keeps taking the medicine what was not known was that i had a small benign tumor on the pituitary gland
• 15:30 - 16:00 so when i started taking that drug i became very ill because basically that tumor had a catalyst and caused a major stroke so i was paralyzed on my left side and brain damage and being legally dead i think twice or three times next thing you know i was crabby cranky fat super bloated super moody extreme mood swings lupron is not indicated for fertility use it's a drug that's being used unapproved fda never approved it for
• 16:00 - 16:30 use and fertility second the woman is super ovulated to bring about the maturation of multiple egg follicles the contract said that you are obligated to follow the exact dosing and protocol that the doctor tells you to do everything that happened to me was a chain of events where risks were not taken into account and they didn't look at the data objectively they just kept pushing me on they had saw that my
• 16:30 - 17:00 the follicles that they're monitoring were oversimulated they didn't tell me that so i found that out after the fact i could feel my ovaries enlarging like if i were to bend down i could feel them flopping to one side whatever side you know i was leaning then third the woman takes a final injection to release the mature eggs which are extracted during a minor surgical
• 17:00 - 17:30 procedure when i questioned if i should be taking less of the medication to stimulate my ovaries i was told that you have to continue the medication we give you at the dose that we give you so i was expressing some concern at that time regarding whether or not i should you know continue or if they should reduce the amount of medication that they give me the answer the ultimate answer was no we can't jeopardize we can't stop at this stage we can't jeopardize the cycle so just continue doing what you're doing we'll just keep
• 17:30 - 18:00 watching i remember just being miserable and texting the agency that the woman i was in contact with and just telling her how uncomfortable i felt it is clear from these women's stories that even when they expressed concerns and attempted to advocate for their own needs those who wanted and were waiting for their eggs ignored the evidence in order to have a successful egg harvest the fourth and final step in the egg donation process
• 18:00 - 18:30 is a minor surgical procedure under anesthesia using a long catheter with a needle at the end inserted vaginally the physician removes the eggs by suction harvesting the eggs as with any surgery has its own set of risks and complications at first i was feeling okay but then very soon after i began to get very dizzy and short of breath and i was told this is probably just a sedative or anesthesia everything is okay you should go home
• 18:30 - 19:00 soon and when i tried to go home i couldn't even i found i couldn't even stand up they measured my blood pressure it was droppings the pain was very it was very irritating almost like there was blood in my belly irritating um my diaphragm and i knew this from my medical studies so i thought you know maybe i'm bleeding internally maybe something went wrong with the procedure they did get an ultrasound and they it was an informal ultrasound they said we didn't we don't see anything we're fine you're going to be fine
• 19:00 - 19:30 i saw the doctor at the reproductive clinic a few days afterwards and he said i was doing fine and then things went south it was nine days after my retrieval that i woke up in searing pain got to the airport and was just unbelievably sick throwing up on the airplane i was throwing up in between flights i remember having to lay down on the airport carpet and now it's gross even thinking about but i was just that sick that i did not care i couldn't even move
• 19:30 - 20:00 after waiting about five to six hours things only got worse and finally they admitted me to the hospital as soon as i got into the hospital bed i felt very very sick they took immediate blood pressure on me and it was about 40 over 20. they took me to the operating room for emergency exploratory laboratory i basically found that a very small artery in my right ovary had been punctured and most likely this was done by the needle that was
• 20:00 - 20:30 used to retrieve the egg and possibly this could have been caused by some sort of hyperstimulation as well which makes the vessels very fragile i felt like my insides were being tied with a string it was excruciating i went through a lot of things after that but that pain is the worst pain i have ever felt in my life i got up and went into the bathroom and
• 20:30 - 21:00 before i even made it to the door jamb i collapsed i fainted because of the pain i lost consciousness and when i came to i was able to crawl to a telephone where i called a friend of mine she was one of just a couple people who knew that i had been through the egg donation and she drove me the 45 minutes to the clinic to have them check me it was the weekend and the doctor who had been seeing me
• 21:00 - 21:30 wasn't there his partner was on call and it was she who examined me she said that my ovarian follicles were shedding she said oh it's uncomfortable but it's nothing serious you can just go home don't worry about it you can take these painkillers if it's a problem i woke up the next morning and still couldn't move i was just that weak that sick i called my manager and said i'm really sick i'll be there as soon as i can and the girl that was filling in for me
• 21:30 - 22:00 before i got there she looked at me and she just said kylie you're gray don't be like you need to go home the canadian doctor told me before i left canada that he was taking a trip to florida and he said if i needed anything i could get in touch with him directly um so he didn't tell me that before i left and so then i didn't know what else to do and i told my boyfriend to call and say ask him what to do and the doctor told him it's normal just give her gatorade she'll be okay i
• 22:00 - 22:30 also found about 1.5 liters of blood in my abdomen which was causing all the pain and the shortness of breath and i had to receive emergency blood transfusions so basically i was in shock i stayed in the hospital for another five days or so she said that if it were anything serious i would know and that the worst case scenario was a torsion ovary and that if my ovary were torsioned i would not have been able to walk into the clinic so i took her word for it and i went
• 22:30 - 23:00 home and i spent the next seven days in and out of consciousness my boyfriend told the doctor she can't keep water down like she's you know and the doctor just kept saying no it's okay it's okay she's okay um it'll pass but the doctor's response initially was you must have a uh like a bleeding disorder because this has never happened to me and i've done it over 3000 times and that's exactly what she said and
• 23:00 - 23:30 that was checked out and it was negative but i felt like they weren't really taking this seriously another comment the doctor made was it's time for you to go home you've been in the hospital already for this amount of time why are you still here so i think the whole time i felt like they were trying to get rid of me it was almost exactly two weeks after the donation when my graduate advisor grew so concerned about me that i had not been back to work that he came to my house and sat with me
• 23:30 - 24:00 all night long and held the bucket while i vomited stool i vomited stool for an entire night and it was during that night that i called the doctors at the clinic and they agreed that i should come back in first thing the next morning and that was the first time that i saw the doctor who had performed the retrieval and when he saw my distended abdomen his face went white and he looked me in
• 24:00 - 24:30 the eye and he said oh alexandra i know what this is and we're going to be able to fix it your ovary has become torsioned in the fallopian tube and we will try to save your ovary in the end they had to remove my ovary it had swollen up the size of a grapefruit it was covered with puncture wounds and it had bled all over inside my body cavity i had had so much internal bleeding that i had mild peritonitis if i had not
• 24:30 - 25:00 been treated i would have died he just asked what was wrong and i just said i i can't feel my arm i can't grab i can't grab anything um just something's wrong i guess my my speech was slurring um and he just said what's going on i said i just you have to call somebody i said call the hospital call doctor call somebody and so he called
• 25:00 - 25:30 9-1-1 and then they were there within about five minutes i think and um just asking very general questions um i didn't think i just i was dehydrated i i really at that point was still in shock about the whole situation and so i didn't again in my mind i was okay i was i was normal um i was healthy i was this stuff doesn't happen to me all my symptoms were a stroke and they knew that and so then that's what they
• 25:30 - 26:00 were testing for um they were asking me when the my loss of feeling started because they had to track it by hours because there was a certain medicine they could give me the next day my abdomen swelled ballooned up i was i looked like i was probably about six or seven months pregnant after they took out the torsioned ovary my intestines still did not write themselves it turned out that i had an intestinal ileus and so i laid there on my back in a hospital bed for six or seven days and i lost about 25
• 26:00 - 26:30 pounds cindy had many post-operative complications related to her emergency surgery it took months for alexandra to regain her strength kylie still faces the residual effects of her stroke these women are still dealing with health issues that they feel are a direct result of having made the decision to sell their eggs
• 26:30 - 27:00 short-term risks of egg donation include those associated with surgery and anesthesia as well as risks
• 27:00 - 27:30 associated with taking the daily hormones and injections to cause superovulation the most serious short-term risk is ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome it's a syndrome ohss that's the result of the ovary being kind of put into hyperdrive it's producing a lot of eggs and when you do that to a person's body it also produces other changes in the body which can actually and some people can have the risk of death i was doing the
• 27:30 - 28:00 ultrasounds and things like that and then they realized that the stroke was caused by the ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome um and so they had to immediately stop the blood thinners and so at that point my stroke symptoms were not their concern anymore it was checking out my ovaries checking on my blood levels everything like that so it completely switched momentum from a stroke to
• 28:00 - 28:30 this i noticed a big difference in my abdomen and basically they just instructed us to eat protein i believe it took three visits for them to admit me and that's when i came down and when i saw latoya she looked as if she were six months pregnant i couldn't believe it well the nurses basically handed the doctor a needle and it was about this long and i said well what are you going to do she said i have to stick this in so that i could put in
• 28:30 - 29:00 a port to drain the fluid and that's where the pain came in it sounded like a balloon popping and so the water the fluid was kind of just coming out and it was a panic because at that point they had drained one bag of fluid and right then within a 15-minute time span they had to change the bag again so fluid is still draining it's still draining and at that point um i guess they got everything stabilized and that's when they wheeled me up to the room that i would be in for two and a half days the list of
• 29:00 - 29:30 dangers for egg retrieval in women would include the ohss which would put a woman at risk for pulmonary complications fluid imbalances stroke death then you also have the clotting issues that you can have clotting where you can have stroke you can have pulmonary infarcts you can have loss of legs you can have perforation of the bowel you can have perforation of the bladder you can have bleeding
• 29:30 - 30:00 from hitting a major organ you can have all the complications of a surgical procedure because you have a laparoscopic procedure you can also have in the future you can have adhesions so you can have problems getting pregnant or difficulties in the future so there's there's a lot of issues and safety issues that can occur from the drugs and then from the procedures themselves to get the collect the eggs and when you look at the websites when they are asking for donors you know volunteers or to get paid
• 30:00 - 30:30 that information is not there and i think that in terms of the women who are considering voluntarily or even for money donating their eggs they need to be aware that this is not a procedure that is not without risk and one of those risks unfortunately is death so at some point while i was in the hospital and they've never really been able to pinpoint when this happened i had a fairly major stroke and was paralyzed on my left side for about four and a half weeks
• 30:30 - 31:00 they went in and did an emergency surgery and talking to the woman who set up the whole egg brokerage deal and she said it sounds like we have to send you a drop cycle check which means you didn't quite manage to produce what you're asked to produce so we're going to send you 750 and we're just going to call it good i was no longer a good option as an egg donor because i didn't have a clean bill of health the third time my stomach bloated up so bad that i couldn't even breathe at that point i had to go to the
• 31:00 - 31:30 hospital i was in the hospital for four days for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome the man that was doing mexico is like are you sure you're not wearing anything under and i said yes i'm sure he goes well i see nothing but water in your lungs the ovaries get so big that the water's nowhere to go so it's pushing the fluid up into your lungs i was shocked to learn that no one had
• 31:30 - 32:00 ever studied the potential long-term risks of egg donation especially the risks of high-dose hormones given to healthy young women i found what felt like an olive under my skin near my armpit they told me i was much too young to get breast cancer but that they would send me for a sonogram just in case my mother never had breast cancer my grandmother never had breast cancer none of my aunts had breast cancer and then i had a biopsy in september of 2007 and i received a call from the doctor and she said i'm sorry but i have bad
• 32:00 - 32:30 news it's cancer i had four months of chemotherapy i also had 28 days of radiation the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes in the process of follow-up treatment after my breast cancer they found cancer in my right breast and the only thing that was slightly different or the least bit suspicious or irregular about my health history was the egg donation over the course of my medical treatment i saw a lot of
• 32:30 - 33:00 doctors and two doctors mentioned to me that anecdotally they do see more breast cancer among women who have had in vitro fertilization treatments i was in a breast cancer support group with other young women who were diagnosed with breast cancer and there was another woman in the group who had been an egg donor and then was later diagnosed with breast cancer and then a third woman who had been through multiple rounds of ivf and was not able to conceive who can measure the value of one woman's story
• 33:00 - 33:30 those defending the practice of egg donation continue to state that the risks are minimal and rare that the procedure is safe every medical procedure comes with a level of risk ovarian stimulation and retrieval are standard medical procedures utilized for over 30 years but in over 30 years of the practice not one long-term peer-reviewed study has been published to back up claims that egg donation is safe for women
• 33:30 - 34:00 without the benefit of medical research or tracking we have lost decades of results just how many more stories of exploitation are out there until action is taken to protect young women we will continue to hear more stories about the reckless endangerment of women and i made a decision to sell my eggs and that that affected my reproductive history my that affected my ability to reproduce i lost an ovary because of it i mean i
• 34:00 - 34:30 can't have my own children now i think there is not an adequate informed consent i've seen some informed consents when they will say well there may be a risk of cancer well you need to say the studies have never been done to see whether there is a risk of cancer that's a different statement than saying well we just don't know it's one thing to say they don't know the risk it's another to know that nobody's going to look either and so you're really alone whether you give your eggs or not
• 34:30 - 35:00 in june of 2009 new york state became the first in the united states to offer taxpayer-funded compensation to young women who donate their eggs for scientific research under this hotly debated legislation women could make up to sixty thousand dollars in exchange for their eggs a 2013 bill in california sought to allow scientific researchers to pay for
• 35:00 - 35:30 eggs so why do you need more eggs it's because we need more stem cells in fact i recall one study saying that as many as 100 eggs might be necessary to obtain one embryonic stem cell line and that was published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences the number of eggs that would be required just to treat the say about 20 million people in the united states alone who have diabetes and if you just use even 10 eggs per patient you're talking about 200 million eggs
• 35:30 - 36:00 the numbers are just staggering that without compensation we cannot obtain the oocytes we need to do this research that will one day improve women's health and here a healthy woman is being asked to donate eggs now whether those eggs are being bought from her or whether she is being compensated for the inconvenience of making the altruistic donation depends on the magnitude of the dollars five ten fifteen thousand it starts to look like purchase there's a very ethical sound way to do
• 36:00 - 36:30 this and that is to compensate people for the expenses that they incurred but don't entice them no one's gonna make an extra thousand dollars ten thousand dollars from donating their tissue we can cover their expenses but that's not an enticement we owe these women the respect to acknowledge they are capable of weighing the risks of participation and the rewards of contributing to scientific knowledge and that they will exercise the choice that is right for them paying research subjects has the risk of
• 36:30 - 37:00 coercion you know if you are willing to pay someone 100 000 you can get individuals to act against their own intrinsic interest and that's the danger here if we're going to start compensating egg donors for eggs for research that's simply an expansion of the market and it has the same risks and limitations that it does for reproductive use and of course it's heightened by the fact that this will take disproportionate advantage of
• 37:00 - 37:30 the poor and that desperation dulls their capacity to defend their own interests economic hardship constrains choice and here we have a a healthy young woman and so she is operating under a financial inducement to accept risk that is against her own health interest and that's the problem one is the financial compensation and we're taught in medical school that anytime you have financial compensation um it creates
• 37:30 - 38:00 inequities in care and in the decisions that people make so if someone is more in need of money they're more willing to take risks and i feel like in my case the money definitely made a difference in the decisions i made and i did make poor decisions as a result of the financial compensation i'm all for research but not at the risk of the lives and health of more young women now i see the the a shift where all of a sudden we have money entering in
• 38:00 - 38:30 in terms of research and we see young women being looked at as a market for eggs a woman has become a walking ovary as you know ovary factory egg factory and i think that women should not be treated that way where society benefits from research we owe compensation to those who participate and contribute unlike infertile women who are considered patients egg donors are treated as vendors when they walk out of the ivf clinic no
• 38:30 - 39:00 one keeps track of them it's an industry that pretty much thrives on profits and reputation and has very little incentive to report adverse events or to protect the health of donors who are anonymous governor jerry brown vetoed the bill citing the unknown health risks to young women and the fact that financial compensation only compounds the problem he opened his veto letter to the california state assembly by stating not everything in life is for
• 39:00 - 39:30 sale nor should it be given the great potential for harm to young fertile women what can be done to protect them from exploitation i think in terms of the egg donor right now she's standing alone she's by herself and i want to make it so that she's not by herself that she knows that there's risks and that she starts networking at least so that she's not
• 39:30 - 40:00 just pushed in a corner and forgotten about we can't abandon research subjects who've experienced a complication in the course of our research that would be unethical we would be obliged to care for them the first thing that i would say to a young woman who's considering egg donation is don't do it i went into it wanting to help somebody and and my intentions were good i would of course have to say don't do it i'm not thinking about
• 40:00 - 40:30 myself i'm only thinking hey i'm doing something great in this world but i could have lost my life over it and that's you know those weren't things i was thinking about at that time i was 21. i was a kid well i don't think you can undo a harm in this case or any case but i think what we need to do is to look towards the future and prevent other young women from being exploited i mean i urge every young woman i know not to do this not to take a risk with
• 40:30 - 41:00 this any chance i can i wish that they would have been truthful i would not go through egg donation again and i sure as hell wouldn't let anybody i care about do it my story isn't documented in any statistics anywhere and it's impossible to find out what proportion of women who go through egg donation become hyper-stimulated it's impossible to know how many of them lose their ovaries how many of them
• 41:00 - 41:30 become infertile and there's no good data about how many of them get breast cancer or other reproductive cancers nowhere in the world has anybody done any research on the aftermath of the drugs on women who've been donating or often it's not donating selling eggs across any of the countries that are involved in this kind of trade they become forgotten in terms of the drugs that are given in terms of no care no follow-up they're
• 41:30 - 42:00 a faceless person that comes in and donates their eggs and then they're gone people who are not involved in the profit motive should be involved with watching out for the safety of these women so that they aren't exploited it has been said that the reproductive technology practiced by the infertility industry is one of the greatest social experiments of our time a global debate is heating up on the issue of anonymous egg and sperm donation and the rights of the child conceived
• 42:00 - 42:30 with donor gametes to know her parents the truth about the dangers of egg donation is emerging but with so many unknown risks both short and long term how can we continue to ask young women to assume such a burden shouldn't we do all that we can to preserve their health and well-being and safeguard them from abuses how can we demand hormone-free organic food and water and yet pump young women full of risky hormones as
• 42:30 - 43:00 older women can we in good conscience ask them to potentially sacrifice their future fertility for our desire to have a child and to young women who are in need of money and willing to help another woman are you thinking about donating your eggs think again [Music]
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