Sperm Donors
 THE most successful fertility clinic for making babies from donated sperm could be forced to close next year because of a critical shortage of donors for sperm donation.
The director of the Cardiff Assisted Reproduction Unit has warned that the future of the donor insemination (DI) programme is being jeopardised by new rules which no longer allow men to donate anonymously.
Janet Evans said a new pool of sperm donation - principally men with families - is urgently required to help childless couples become parents. For the majority of the 100 couples treated by the Welsh service every year, donor insemination is their only chance of conceiving. In some cases couples are being turned away from the programme because there is no donated sperm available.
"The result of the new rules has been to vastly reduce the number of sperm donors available," Mrs Evans said. "The thought that they may no longer be able to donate anonymously seems to have frightened donors off. We are now faced with the prospect of not being able to offer this service, that has been very successful, to patients. If we cannot find more donors we will have serious problems come the new year and we may not be able to keep the service going." The Cardiff Assisted Reproduction Unit started providing its DI service in the 1970s and has the best success rate in the UK at 22% for each £1,000-cycle, compared to the average of 11%.
Every year it treats 100 NHS and fee-paying infertile couples from Mid and South Wales using frozen sperm from local donors and from a central London sperm bank supply, offering ethnic choice.
sperm donor shortage
But in the past decade the number of sperm donors in South Wales and elsewhere fell dramatically. In 1990 the University Hospital of Wales-based service had a pool of 16, which dropped to two this year; and in London, there were 15-20 Caucasian donors, now there are only five or six.
Sperm donors, who receive expenses of up to £17.50 a time, may continue donations until they reach their pregnancy limit of 10 children. A sperm donor can donate every three days.
The change in the rules surrounding anonymity means that from April 2005 any children born as a result of sperm or egg donation can trace their genetic parents when they reach 18.
New donor registration forms were also introduced in July requiring all donors to provide their NHS or passport number, address, marital status and information about their children, plus a detailed medical and family history.
Elfed Williams, the Infertility Network UK's regional organiser for Wales, said, "We are very concerned for the patients of today who are being denied treatment because of this. If units are having to close down because donors cannot be found, urgent action is needed so these patients of today can continue to be treated.
"The Government has put in place an awareness raising campaign and is working to change the culture of donation in the UK to recruit a new type of donor, and we back this completely."
Paul Ellis - Men's Health 
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