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(TOKYO) Hideaki Kato discovered his true identity by accident.

During his medical training a decade ago, the now 39-year-old Japanese doctor was performing blood tests on family members when he learned something startling: his dad was not his biological father.

Suspecting an extramarital affair, the Tokyo-area physician questioned his mother while the man he had always known as his father was away on a trip.

But rather than uncovering a cheating parent, Kato learned his biological father was an anonymous sperm donor and that his parents had hidden the infertility from him.

"I felt as if half of me had collapsed," he said.

"I asked myself 'were childhood memories of my family's smiling faces at the beach just a fake?'"

But Kato's desire to learn more was hampered by his upset parents and a lack of laws in Japan over access to details of his genetic parentage.

It is a challenge shared by thousands of people in Japan and elsewhere who were the product of anonymous sperm and egg donors.

Many suffer identity crises upon learning of their background and...