It’s Time for an Egg Donor Registry and Long-term Follow-up

Although not a transcript, this is an accurate record of what I said on November 14, 2007 at a Congressional briefing on human egg trafficking co-sponsored by Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA).

Email: jennifer@jenniferschneider.com
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1. Summary:

I’m a physician. I’m also the mother of a young woman who, like thousands of other college students at elite universities, decided to supplement her income by donating her eggs for money. And like all other egg donors, she did it without understanding that the long-term risks of this procedure are unknown.  She underwent the procedure 3 times, and then went on with her life. Six years later she was dead of a disease that usually affects people my age, not hers – colon cancer. She had no family history of this disease, and genetic studies of her tissue subsequently showed that she was not at genetic risk of colon cancer.  

Since her death I’ve researched what is known about the long-term risks of colon cancer in egg donors, and I’m here to tell you that hardly anything is...