Remember The Story About The Sperm Donor Who Was A Criminal And Schizophrenic? There’s An Update.

Remember when I told you about the sperm donor in Georgia who was listed in a donor registry (Xytex’s) as a handsome and healthy neuroscience engineering PhD student?

I mean, that’s a promising donation of sperm, right?

The trouble is that he was actually a narcissistic unemployed bi-polar schizophrenic who was in and out of jail.  Whoops.

I was curious about what had become of the lawsuit that was filed against Xytex, so looked for an update to the story.

But let’s back up a minute and recap.

Imagine you’re Angie Collins for a second, one of the women who used the sperm donor in question (a guy by the name of James Aggeles).  You’ve got a young son as a result.  The donor was perfect on paper.  Known on the registry only as Donor 9623, James Aggeles was, according to Xytex Corp, a healthy male with an IQ of 160, with multiple degrees,  pursuing a PhD in neuroscience engineering.

One day, over your morning cup of coffee, you get an email from a woman you don’t know, claiming that she too, used the sperm of the neuroscience engineering dude, and has since discovered that James Aggeles is not at all what Xytex described.  A simple google search uncovers that James Aggeles is actually the mentally ill dude I described above.  OF COURSE you’re going to sue, right?

Well, Angie Collins DID sue Xytex in Georgia, but her suit was dismissed as a “wrongful birth” lawsuit, which is a type of claim not recognized in that state.  She appealed, and the case was dismissed again.

Aggeles’ sperm was used often enough that he is the proud father of 36 kids in 26 different families, all of whom, of course, now have a genetic predisposition to mental illness.

Xytex, inexplicably, claimed not to have any information about Aggeles’ background, even though it was easily discoverable using GOOGLE.  They simply took him at his word when he completed his application paperwork. And in fact, according to this, Aggeles was ENCOURAGED to falsify his questionnaire by a Xytex representative.

Ultimately, Aggeles’ identity was exposed in an accidental confidentiality breach by Xytex in a client email.  Which, if you ask me, is just one more additional piece of evidence that it’s a company no one in their right mind should do business with.

Anyway, according to this, Xytex and a same-sex couple who sued them over this donor have settled as of late October.  Their child is now 11 years old, and so far, there are no signs of mental illness, but obviously you can’t rule out the development of an illness later in the child’s life.

It’s an absolutely horrific situation, and I’m not entirely certain that Xytex has cleaned up its act at all with respect to screening their donors.  And the questions I had when I wrote the original post remain:

But what are sperm banks to do, exactly? I mean, I suppose a criminal background check is simple enough, but do they need to demand health records? Do they need to give IQ tests? Do they need to do something more than the “honor system” they currently apparently use?

Or do people simply need to STOP GETTING SPERM from donors they don’t know? Would you take the risk?

Discuss.