It's the reproductive version of the subprime mortgage crisis! According to the NY Post, New York City's sperm banks are holding a lot of junk.
State regulators haven't inspected four of the city's six sperm banks since 2004, leading to lax screening of donors. Many samples aren't checked for diseases and donations are accepted from men admitting to high-risk sexual behavior. From the Post:
Idant Laboratories...failed to pass along information about "high-risk social and sexual behavior" of a donor to a woman seeking in vitro fertilization, records from the May 2004 inspection show.
The sperm bank, which was shut down temporarily by the state for the same violation in 1995, claims that the woman was aware of the donor's sketchy history, but that they had failed to document her written consent.
Fifth Avenue lab Idant says its record keeping has improved, but it has also ignored the requirement that donors be tested before and after donating sperm to make sure they aren't "carrying any sexually transmitted or genetic diseases." And sperm banks aren't the only ones under loose regulation - one couple is suing a reproductive business for misplacing six embryos.
Besides mix-ups and poor inventory controls, many labs don't seem responsive to complaints or offer plans on fixing past mistakes. The head of one lab thought the Health Depatment was overly picky, for insisting every thermometer be calibrated and every form be signed or initialed. Sheesh, you'd think people's hopes and dreams were on the line or something.
Approximately 300,000 people utilize the city's reproductive facilities annually. It's possible the laxness in testing and screening stems from the recent shortage of Scandinavian sperm. The Post has an infographic with some of the specific lapses in sperm screening.
