‘Medical calamity’: 3,000 people in Netherlands have 25+ unknown siblings

Over a year ago, the Netherlands reported numerous sperm mega-donors within the country, leading to fears of accidental incest. The number of these mega-donors seems to keep growing, with the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (NVOG) now admitting at least 85 men have fathered 25 or more children.

The most infamous Dutch sperm mega-donor is Jonathan Meijer, who is believed to have over 1,000 children and was the subject of a Netflix documentary last year. Meijer had been ordered to stop donating sperm, though he appeared not to have complied, just moving his sperm donation business outside of the Netherlands.

A law banning donors from fathering more than 25 children has been in place in the Netherlands since 1992, but it seems to have been ignored by the fertility industry. The limit was lowered again, to 12, in 2018, but it made no difference. This was confirmed after a code system analyzing sperm donations was put into place this month. Fertility clinics have been lax about regulations meant to protect women and children in the Netherlands. Clinics were found to have been knowingly using sperm from the same donor more than 25 times, to have exchanged sperm without knowledge of the donors or filing the required paperwork, and to have allowed the same donors to donate sperm at multiple clinics.

READ: Donor-conceived people react to export of UK sperm: We are ‘mass produced’

“The number of so-called ‘mass donors’ should be zero,” gynecologist Marieke Schoonenberg told the TV show Nieuwsuur. “On behalf of the whole profession, we wish to apologise. We didn’t do things as they should have been done.”

She continued, “As a result, we now know, for the first time, the exact number of children per donor.” Most of the donors fathered between 25 and 50 children; this includes at least 10 fertility doctors, who illegally used their own sperm to father over 80 children.

Ties van der Meer, of Stichting Donorkind, an association dedicated to fighting for the rights of donor children, called the findings a “medical calamity,” pointing out that at least 3,000 people in the Netherlands have 25 or more siblings they don’t know about.

“The harm done to people’s trust in the medical system, and in the governments that allowed all this to happen, is just the beginning,” van der Meer said. “Once they start dating someone, they’re going to have to do DNA tests to make sure they’re not going out with a close relation.”