Do you think egg donors lie about their medical history?

[Anonymous]

It recently occurred to me that it would probably be really easy for someone to lie about a history of mental illness or addiction if they want to be a donor badly enough. Is this something others worry about? How upset would you be if you found out a donor had a family history of addiction, depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, etc? Can someone intent on concealing their history get away with it? Doesn't seem like it would be too difficult since it's self-reported info.

[Anonymous]

I wondered that myself--except that many of the donor profiles have a lot of bad health information reported on them, so apparently a lot of donors are fine with sharing this information. I discounted many a donor because of health issues such as juvenile diabetes in the family, cancer, etc. I wound up picking a very young donor with nothing bad health history-wise. Of course, the younger the donor, the younger the parents are likely to be, and a lot of serious family health issues don't show up until the parents get to be 65+ many times, so you are taking a chance there--(but worth it, maybe, because the younger the donor the fresher /healthier the eggs are likely to be.)

[Anonymous]

p.s. pp here. To your question--I would indeed be upset if I found out they concealed a history of something very serious like Schizophrenia. As far as depression, eating disorders, etc. I don't view as a quite as big an issue because, at least with depression it is so common I venture to guess most people have had some form of at least mild clinical depression in their lives or will. And eating disorders, I happen to believe, are partly environmental ("nurture" not nature") so well, I'd be hopeful to be able to avoid or deal with as they arose.

[Anonymous]

My clinic told me that as part of the donor screening process, the donors are given various tests to test their integrity. If these tests are not satisfactory, the donor is nor accepted to the program.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Everyone lies.

To put it in perspective, your spouse could lie to you about his family medical history or you personally could have some crappy genes. Whether you use your own or use a donors, there is no guarantee. You get what you get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Everyone lies.

To put it in perspective, your spouse could lie to you about his family medical history or you personally could have some crappy genes. Whether you use your own or use a donors, there is no guarantee. You get what you get.

This. And for the record, EVERYONE has some crappy genes. You just don't know which ones.

[Anonymous]

I definitely thought about this, not only an intentional lie but simply a lack of information. I'm not informed enough about all my family members' medical history to be as thorough as my donor was expected to be.

But I figure it's a calculated risk. Also, the donor screenings include not just various levels of evaluation, testing, scrutiny, but also a session in person with a therapist - which is designed to specifically evaluate (among other things) motivation, honestly, etc...

I found learning about that to be one of hte most beneficial aspects of my required session with the therapist - it was reassuring.

[Anonymous]

As the PP said, I don't think donors LIE about their medical history so much as they might just not know that much about their medical histories. I didn't use an egg donor, I used a sperm donor, but I think the general concerns are the same; these are young adults, and I know that I didn't know, in my 20s, that my father would go on to have hypertension and a stent, and my mother would have breast cancer.

I also didn't know then, and still don't know now, how my grandfathers died. And if I had been planning on donating eggs, I probably would not have gone to my parents and said "Hey, how did Grandpa die? No reason I'm asking, just curious!" I probably would have just put down "natural causes."

So there may be donors who are deliberately hiding details, but I think its just as just as likely that they don't know them.It is a calculated risk to be sure, but reproduction between any two people is a bit of a crap shoot.

[Anonymous]

A lot of the donor profiles I've looked at say they have history of ADHD in family or have it themselves. I'm thinking this is not a deal breaker since it's a relatively recent diagnosis, and possibly over diagnosed.