Professor Rene Almeling wrote an op-ed that appeared in Sunday’s New York Times. In it, she argues that the changing technological and economic landscape of sperm donation has produced uncertainty about how many donors there are in the United States, how often they donate, and how many children are born from the donations. Drawing on research from her book, Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm, she provides historical context and describes a fundamental shift in how the fertility industry sources sperm, from customized production to mass manufacturing. She calls on the FDA and the CDC to begin collecting basic data about the size of the market.
In the past two weeks, Professor Almeling’s research on sperm donation has also been featured on Danish Public Radio, New Hampshire Public Radio, Chicago Tribune’s RedEye, and the websites for Time Magazine and PBS’s Making Sen$e.