A couple have accused a major IVF clinic of using ‘wrong sperm’ after their two youngest children developed serious health complications and they discovered they were not related to their eldest child.
Anastasia and Lexie Gunn had three sons via donor sperm at the Queensland Fertility Group (QFG) between 2006 and 2014.
The couple had paid to use the same donor sperm for all three children, but later discovered after hundreds of hours of painstaking research that their eldest was not related to his two younger brothers.
“It’s a catastrophic mistake… how could they have used the wrong sperm to make children?” said Anastasia.
“We had IVF and got the wrong sperm,” Lexie added.
“It has shattered what we all believe to be true.”
The revelations come as part of a major investigation by ABC’s Four Corners into Australia’s hugely profitable IVF industry.
Anastasia told the program that they had taken great care in choosing the right donor, choosing donor 227. He was announced as a fit, healthy white male, approximately 25-30 years old.
“My medical background was definitely a concern for me,” she said.
Four years after their first son was born, they decided to have more children and contacted QFG to see if they could use the same donor.
“We wanted them all to have the same biological father to tie them together, so that when they have children, their children are all connected through biological history,” Anastasia said.
The clinic told them they could use the same donor and they ended up having two more sons.
But both boys suffered from serious health complications from birth.
They were diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which causes very flexible joints and fragile skin, while the youngest were also diagnosed with autism and ADHD.
Concerned about the number of health problems, the couple tried to find out if other children of donor 227 had similar problems, so they submitted their sons’ DNA to an ancestry website.
But the results shocked them when they discovered that their eldest was not biologically related to their youngest two.
“I was completely perplexed,” Anastasia said.
“I could tell there was no match between our oldest boy and our youngest two.”
Anastasia and Lexie Gunn had three sons via donor sperm at the Queensland Fertility Group (QFG) between 2006 and 2014 (pictured). But they were shocked to discover that their eldest was not biologically related to his younger two siblings
QFG doubted the reliability of the DNA results, so the couple used a Family Court DNA testing laboratory, which produced the same results.
“(QFG) has not provided any response to that legal DNA testing,” Anastasia said.
“They haven’t given any reason.”
The couple is currently suing QFG in an attempt to hold the fertility clinic accountable.
Lexie said she would go so far as to sell her kidneys to fight the case.
“I think it’s very dangerous to underestimate all mothers, but especially mothers of children with disabilities,” she said.
“I think they messed with the wrong women.”
The clinic told the program that the data showed the same donor was used for all three children.
The couple had paid for the same donor sperm for all three children, but later discovered after hundreds of hours of painstaking research that their eldest was not related to his two younger brothers. (Photo: Anastasia)
In a statement on its website, QFG said it “recognized the difficulties the Gunns have faced since we helped them start a family and we would like to work with them to find a mutually acceptable solution.”
However, the company said it could not comment further as the matter was before the courts.
QFG is owned by Virtus Health, Australia’s largest IVF provider.
The program also spoke to three mothers who all used the same sperm donor and whose children were subsequently diagnosed with autism.
The mothers asked the clinic to share information about their children’s health problems, but the clinic initially emphasized that there was no clinical requirement to notify other patients.
Despite the health problems, the donor is reportedly still being used by QFG to father more children.
“It’s still being sold as probably gold class Australian semen,” one of the concerned mothers told the programme.
“I just don’t understand how they can create children with something that is more likely to become a disability. It’s just money. It is all it is.”
QFG said in a statement that in 2023 they were informed by another family who had used the same donor that their children had been diagnosed with autism.
‘The nominated clinical geneticist assessed all three cases and subsequently recommended that families who had received a donor from people of the donor should now be informed of the diagnosis, and that the donor’s sperm should only be available for family expansion.’ , a clinic spokesperson said. .
They added: ‘By November 2023, we had informed all patients with donor children of the donor of the clinical diagnosis of autism.’
Lexie Gunn (pictured) and her wife are suing Queensland Fertility Group. “I think they messed with the wrong women,” Lexie told Four Corners
The program also spoke to a woman who discovered she could have as many as 700 half-siblings because her biological father was a prolific sperm donor.
Katherine Dawson, 34, discovered that poor vetting practices allowed her biological father to donate to different clinics under different names in the 1980s, creating different donor codes.
At the time, donors could receive $10 per donation and donate multiple times.
But today it is illegal to pay a donor and they are normally only allowed to legally start five to ten families.
‘I think there were seven [names] including his own,” Katherine says of her donor father.
“If you go to ten different clinics and hospitals, as he said, I estimate there could be as many as seven hundred brothers and sisters.”
The clinic said that “current donor screening processes have changed dramatically since that time and would prevent this from happening today.”
They wrote to the recipient families and almost two-thirds received the letter.
“We continue our efforts to contact recipient families who did not respond to our original letter so that we can release all relevant health information related to this donor,” the statement said.