New York Becomes First State To Allow Payment For Donating Eggs For Stem Cell Research

Main Category: Stem Cell Research
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 29 Jun 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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New York's Empire State Stem Cell Board earlier this month decided to allow embryonic stem cell researchers who receive state funding to compensate women for donating their eggs for use in research, making New York the first state to enact such a policy, the Washington Post reports (Stein, Washington Post, 6/26). According to the New York Times, the New York state Legislature in 2007 allotted $600 million for an 11-year stem cell research plan (Nelson, New York Times, 6/26). Under the board's decisions, researchers receiving the state funding may pay women up to $10,000 to compensate them for the time, discomfort and expenses associated with egg donation. David Hohn, vice chair of the board's two committees that endorsed the decision, said that the board "could not distinguish ethically between the payment for in vitro fertilization, which is very well precedented, and the compensation for donation for research." The board said researchers should follow the same guidelines as infertility clinics that receive donated eggs for infertile couples. Under those guidelines, payments exceeding $5,000 must be justified, and those exceeding $10,000 are considered excessive (Washington Post, 6/26). Robert Klitzman, director of the master's degree program in bioethics at Columbia University and a member of the stem cell board's ethics committee, said the payments will be carefully evaluated by an institutional review board (New York Times, 6/26).

The Post reports that the decision goes against policies in other states that offer funding for embryonic stem cell research, as well as against current guidelines from scientific organizations like the National Academy of Sciences (Washington Post, 6/26). NAS guidelines, for example, prohibit paying women for eggs used in stem cell research. Similarly, the internal guidelines for New York-based groups like Rockefeller University, Cornell University and the Sloan-Kettering Institute prohibit financial compensation for donated eggs. However, researchers say that efforts to recruit unpaid donors have been unsuccessful and that the board's decision will give New York an advantage in stem cell research (New York Times, 6/26).

The decision was welcomed by scientists and other proponents of stem cell research, who said it will allow them to further research in areas like therapeutic cloning. The process, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves replacing the genetic material in a human egg with genes from the nucleus of a patient's cell. The egg is then developed into an early embryo, which, in theory, could be used to produce stem cells that the patient's immune system would not reject. Although the procedure has been unsuccessful so far, researchers say the board's decision will help attract more donors, which will allow for more experiments. Egg donation involves weeks of hormone injections to stimulate the ovaries and a painful egg extraction procedure, which carries rare but serious risks. Other attempts at soliciting women to donate eggs for stem cell research have been unsuccessful, according to the Post.

Some critics of the board's decision said that paying women for eggs could lead to exploitation, especially for low-income women. Thomas Berg -- a Roman Catholic priest who is director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person and a member of the Empire State Stem Cell Board's ethics committee -- said that in the current economic recession, paying a woman $10,000 to participate in a research project is an "undue inducement." He added that he thinks it "manipulates women" and "creates a trafficking in human body parts." Other opponents of the decision questioned if compensating women who donate eggs for research is indeed equivalent to the process for infertility treatments. Jonathan Moreno, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said that donors recognize that egg donation for infertility treatments is a "very concrete good for society" but that "you can't be sure any biological material you collect for research will be part of a medical breakthrough."

Supporters of the decision said that researchers frequently compensate participants in clinical trials and that donation eggs for research is no different. Ronald Green, a bioethicist at Dartmouth College, said, "It is discriminatory against women to ban them from receiving payment." He added, "The idea that women cannot make that decision on their own strikes me as sexist" (Washington Post, 6/26).

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