"Sperm bank" integration - accident or fiction?
OBJECTIVE
A Washington newsletter recently reprinted from another publication the story of a white, previously childless, married woman who supposedly bore a black baby after being artifically inseminated with sperm from a "sperm bank."  The  woman reportedly committed suicide after the birth.  I was not aware of the existence of such banks and would like information about their operation, and whether such an incident as reported could possibly have occurred.


CONCLUSIONS
This question interests me enormously, for I was one of the pioneer investigators in therapeutic donor insemination.  Our 1st such baby is now 41-years-old.  I do not know of any "sperm bank" which furnishes sperm to doctors or patients.  I know of only 1 doctor in the U.S. who started freezing of sperm to a temperature of -74 degrees C who will on occassion ship sperm to a colleague for insemination.  I can assure you that in this instance there has never been any mixup in the source of the sperm.  Even those physicians who have sources of sperm which they use for donor insemination, for example, Edward Tyler, MD, in Los Angeles, and S.J. Behrman, MD, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to my knowledge use the specimens only for their own patients.  I have personal knowledge of only 1 instance of error.  In this case a doctor advised me that through an error of his office nurse, sperm from a black donor was inseminated into the doctor's private white patient.  Fortunately, the physician called me within 24 hours of this occurrence and I immediately instructed him to put the patient on a regimen of high doses of estrogen at once.  This prevented the possibility of a pregnancy from a bank.  Again I will say that in my large experience of donor insemination I do now know of any functioning sperm bank which furnishes semen to a casual physician.  The letter from the inquiring physician did not clearly elucidate the sequential relations between the artifical insemination, the birth of the black baby, and the suicide.  I presume that the black baby was born 9 months after the insemination; and, then because of having given birth to a black baby, the white mother committed sucide.  Referring to my experience mentioned above, if sucn an accident should happen because of the use of the wrong sperm, whether it be of black, white, or other origin, treatment with estrogen within 3-4 days of insem ination will prevent the ainsemination from being successful.  In all lik elihood, if this particular story were investigated, you will find that the sperm sample probably was not from a sperm bank but was fresh sperm, with somebody's carelessness responsible for the mixup; and, of course, assuming the incident really occurred.
Kleegman
S J
SJ
D007315:Insemination, Artificial; D012098:Reproduction; D012099:Reproductive Techniques; D013074:Sperm Banks
Artificial Insemination; Reproduction; Reproductive Technologies; Sperm Banks