Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm Read Online Free PDF Page A

donors. Creative Beginnings’ founder expressed “disappointment” in “girls that really ask you to negotiate,” saying, “I really don’t like that. It’s really uncomfortable, and couples don’t like it.” 14
    There are literally hundreds of other donors available, either within a given program or at nearby programs, so it appears that these fees are not as responsive to supply and demand as one would expect. Unfortunately, there are no aggregate statistics available to measure “supply” (number of donors or number of gametes produced) or “demand” (number of recipients or quantity of gametes consumed), which makes it difficult to test this claim rigorously. However, it has been noted by other observers of this market. 15 There is also a dearth of data about the financial situations of egg and sperm recipients, which leaves open questions about the extent to which they are able to afford assisted reproduction. Such calculations would be further complicated by a patchwork of state mandates and insurance policies, some of which provide coverage for donor insemination or IVF.
    In an attempt to capture the supply of sex cells available at the egg agencies and sperm banks in this study, Figure 3 illustrates the number of donors with profiles posted in each program. 16 At the egg agencies, the white part of the bar reflects the number of egg donors who are currently matched to recipients, which renders them unavailable to other recipients and thus provides some evidence of demand. OvaCorp, one of the largest and oldest egg agencies in the country, cataloged 465 donors and had 100 active donor/recipient matches in the summer of 2002. That same summer, Creative Beginnings, a new egg agency that had been open for just three years, already had 123 egg donors listed online, with 23 women in active matches. In 2006, Gametes Inc., a sperm bank that had been open for thirty years, posted just 113 sperm donors, and its egg agency, which had opened just a few years before, already had profiles for 75 women, 25 of whom were matched. In 2002, CryoCorp, one of the largest and oldest sperm banks in the country, listed 125 donors, and Western Sperm Bank, the small, nonprofit program, had vials from just 30 donors. In terms of recipient demand for men’s gametes, CryoCorp reports distributing about 2,500 vials every month, and Western Sperm Bank estimates that it serves around 400 recipients each year. 17
    It is certainly the case that egg agencies and sperm banks have different business models. Egg agencies are essentially brokers, matching donors and recipients before sending them off to medical professionals for tests and procedures. In 2002, both OvaCorp and Creative Beginningscharged recipients an agency fee of $3,500 for these services and then added standard fees for the donor’s medical and legal expenses. The egg donor’s fee is a separate line item on the bill, and the agency receives no additional compensation for negotiating a higher fee for her. If recipients experience a “failed cycle” with a donor, the staff might offer a discounted rate on the second cycle. In some cases, staff will even explain the situation to the egg donor and ask her to accept a lower fee.

    Figure 3 . Number of egg and sperm donors with posted profiles, by program
    Sperm banks are much more than brokerages in that they have labs for testing sperm samples, storage facilities for freezing thousands of vials in nitrogen tanks, and shipping departments for managing distribution. In 2002, the nonprofit Western Sperm Bank paid men $50 for each acceptable sample, and the for-profit CryoCorp paid $75. Acceptable samples can generally be split into several vials, from two or three to as many as eight or nine. Each vial is then sold for $175 at Western Sperm Bank and $215 at CryoCorp. 18 Undoubtedly, the different business models contribute to the different prices in this market.
    Another consideration for an analysis of supply and demand is the