WEBVTT - The Human Egg Trade: Episode 2 - The Theft 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:07.240 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:11.680 In early twenty twenty, after a long struggle to get pregnant, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:17.080 Maria and her husband started IVF, but Maria still considered 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:18.360 herself lucky. 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:22.640 She lives on the island of Crete in the town 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:27.160 called Hanya, where, much to her good fortune, one of 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.080 the most prominent fertility clinics had been set up a 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:32.240 couple decades earlier. 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:37.040 That's Vernon Silver. He's an investigative reporter at Bloomberg, and 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:39.880 he traveled from his home base in Rome to Greece 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:44.680 to report this story. Maria is a pseudonym. She asked 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:46.800 us not to use her real name and didn't want 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.160 to be recorded. Her hometown of Hanya is a seaside 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.240 tourist destination with a close knit community famous for its 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.800 centuries old harbor. The clinic where Maria went is about 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.680 a ten minute walk from that harbor, called the Mediterranean 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.600 Fertility Institute, and it drew customers from all over the world. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.680 In recent years, it had become a hub for customers 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.680 from Italy, or Australia or the US. So right there 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.520 in her backyard was a clinic that could provide exactly 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.600 what she and her husband needed to try to have 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:21.600 this baby. 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.320 It all seemed pretty standard. The clinic did a procedure 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.560 to retrieve Maria's eggs. Staff fertilized them with her husband's 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.800 sperm and implanted an embryo. She told Vernon it took 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:38.520 three cycles of IVF, but finally it worked. 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.039 She eventually did get pregnant and she had a child. 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:43.399 Her dream had come true. 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.680 Maria became a mother and for the next three years 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.000 she raised her baby, who grew into a toddler. Then, 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.720 one day in February twenty twenty four, she got a 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:54.840 call from the police. 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.440 The police asker had come down to the police station 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:01.240 and she walked into the room and there were two 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.600 police officers and a third person who was a psychologist. 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:13.600 And when Maria saw the psychologist, her heart sunk. She knew, 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:19.040 she knew she was about to get bad news. They 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.120 sat her down, The four of them sat around a desk, 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.200 and they broke the news to her that their investigation 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.720 had found that her eggs had been stolen. 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.520 Stolen. She didn't donate them or sell them. She initially 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:35.560 didn't even know they'd been taken from her. 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.600 When she had had her eggs harvested to make her 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.360 own child. People at this clinic, according to the police, 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.960 had secretly taken about half of those eggs and given 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:47.160 them to another woman. 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.320 This is episode two of The Human Egg Trade, a 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.600 special series from Bloomberg's investigations team and The Big Take 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:08.760 podcast about the booming global market for human eggs. Bloomberg 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.440 reporters across five continents and eleven countries have spent the 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:16.680 last year trying to understand how human eggs are bought 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.079 and sold around the world. They've shed light on the 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:24.560 thirty five billion dollar market for assisted reproduction, an opaque 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.760 market where regulations vary widely from country to country. It's 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.640 a patchwork that can push some people to travel great 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.960 distances in their quest for a child, and can also 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.680 create opportunities for bad actors looking for a cut of 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.720 the trade. Today we zoom in on one clinic in 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.400 Greece where police have identified as many as seventy five 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:50.720 cases of egg theft. Seventy five cases where a woman's 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.840 eggs were allegedly taken without her consent and sold or 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:59.320 donated to another person. It's a story that shows how 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.280 the actions of one clinic can have ripple effects around 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:06.280 the world that can reverberate for decades, and it reveals 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.560 the unique ways that the fertility industry runs not only 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:14.840 on capital, but on trust. Will continue after the break 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.680 After a year of digging into the fertility industry, Bloomberg's 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.080 Vernon Silver says, the trade of human eggs behaves much 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:35.440 like the trade of any commodity. 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:40.200 Like any global commodity trade, where you ship things, where 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.040 you invest, where you go for the best deal, depends 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.400 on regulations and prices, and it's kind of like squeezing 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:50.080 a water balloon, where if there's pressure at one place, 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:51.960 you know everybody's going to go somewhere else. 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.039 In recent years, as other fertility hotspots like India and 0:04:56.120 --> 0:05:00.240 Thailand tighten their regulations, and after Russia began its full 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:04.320 scale invasion of Ukraine, Vernon says, some of that trade 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:09.679 shifted to Greece. If you're a couple or a person 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:15.000 needing a fertility treatment, what is the pitch that Greece 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:15.880 gives to them. 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:19.880 Greece has positioned itself, along with other countries that have 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:24.719 nice beaches, as a location for medical tourism, which applies 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:30.000 to fertility treatments. When it comes to eggs and the 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:35.400 other services like surrogacy an IVF its prices are lower 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:40.680 than in the United States, for example, in other Western countries. 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.560 The country's legal framework is another selling point. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.240 There are a lot of restrictions in a lot of 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:50.000 countries that make it harder to do IVF or to 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:54.240 get a donor egg in a country like Italy, for example, 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:58.560 or Australia, and those restrictions are much less in Greece. 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:03.719 So it's a combination of legal framework, money access and 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.760 a friendly accepting economy based really from the government that 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:10.760 wants to promote this sort of thing. 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.080 And nice beaches and nice. 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.080 Beaches, I mean. Part of what happens when you are 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.919 seeking a fertility treatment, especially if it involves you know, 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.440 a donor egg, is somebody will travel, let's say, with 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.200 her husband to Greece, go to the clinic. The husband 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.599 will provide a sperm sample that will be used to 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:31.160 fertilize the donor egg. They wait around on the beach 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.159 in a nice hotel, have a good meal while the 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:40.200 wife is being prepared to have this growing embryo implanted 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.760 in her. And so it's always good to have a 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.400 nice place to do this. That's pleasant and hang out 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:46.680 and cost effective. 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:52.600 Vernon says Greece's fertility industry has another geographic advantage, proximity 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:54.120 to Eastern Europe. 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.760 Borders on poorer Eastern European countries, where there are women 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.280 who might want to be paid for their eggs and 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.200 also to be surrogates, which is a related industry in 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:06.359 the fertility industry. 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:10.160 Women from countries like Georgia and Bulgaria, who Vernon says, 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.960 are often motivated to sell their eggs because it pays 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.400 more than many other kinds of work. But that dynamic 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.760 has created opportunities for abuse. 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.040 Going back a decade, there had been a series of 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.640 busts by the Greek authorities, mostly in the northern city 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.800 of Thessaloniki, where they had tried to crack down on 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:36.760 people being pressured or manipulated or trafficked into giving up 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.200 their eggs. And so while Greece is not the biggest 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:44.400 market for eggs, you have Ukraine, you have Spain, which 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.240 are sort of massive hubs for egg banks, and that 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.960 sort of thing. You had some of the worst behavior 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:52.160 already being exposed in Greece. 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:56.960 The clinic where Maria went, the Mediterranean Fertility Institute had 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.320 been on the radar of Greek regulators for years. In 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:05.160 twenty nineteen, the Greek agency overseeing medically assisted reproduction sent 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.680 a team of inspectors to the clinic to look into 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.920 a complaint about its surrogacy program. The team ultimately voted 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.640 to suspend the clinic's license for improper record keeping, but 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.960 the suspension went unenforced and the clinic remained open. It 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.880 would take another four years before Greek authorities were once 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:25.280 again at its door. 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.720 A few months before the police invited Mario over to 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.480 break her the bad news about her own eggs. There 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.400 had been a bust and this had to do with 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.040 surrogacy and other issues, not egg theft yet, and because 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.200 of that bust, the clinic shutdown. 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.600 The police told Vernon they were once again looking into 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.679 the clinic surrogacy practices, but once they got inside, they 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:51.920 found evidence of other kinds of crime. 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.040 What the police had found in their investigation of this 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.600 clinic was that there were these handwritten records that showed 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.679 on a certain day, an IVF patient like Maria would 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:04.960 have her eggs removed and they would say how many 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.840 there were, and on that same day, about half that 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.679 many showed up in these handwritten records as being donations 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.520 to another woman of fresh eggs, meaning non frozen eggs, 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:18.080 eggs that had been extracted that day, and if that 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.959 woman had been the only person who had come in 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:25.360 to get her eggs removed, the police were fairly confident 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:29.000 that they could conclude that that exact match. For example, 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.160 twelve eggs removed from patient A and then six given 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:37.440 as a donation to patient B, and six made use 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.120 of by patient A the original one. That all added 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.080 up to them literally siphoning off half of the eggs 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:44.000 for somebody else. 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.960 The police also found that the clinic had a consent 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:49.240 for him with a box that patients could check if 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:51.880 they were willing to donate some of their unused embryos 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.960 eggs that were successfully fertilized. And when the police sat 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.880 down with Maria, they really wanted to ask her about 0:09:58.920 --> 0:09:59.920 that piece of paper. 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.200 What they wanted to know from Maria was had she 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:06.719 consented to this quote. 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:08.679 Donation and had she She. 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.880 Said she definitely did not. In fact, she remembered the 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.760 consent form that she signed, and she said, you know, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.920 this consent form had a box to tick about donating 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:23.720 any unused embryos which she did not tick, and nothing 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:28.360 about donating any excess eggs, and so at that point, 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.160 as it would turn out that she was one of 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:35.640 scores of women who were getting similar calls with the 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.800 police telling them the same thing and wanting to know 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.920 the same basic question, did you consent to this? Because 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.520 the records we have found showed that half of your 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.000 eggs went to somebody else. 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.040 If you're a woman in Maria's position leaving the clinic 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.959 that day and the police never call you, how would 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.079 you ever know that your eggs had been stolen? 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.760 You would never know. Possibly you could know later on 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.320 if somebody did a twenty three and me test, or 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:07.040 if you walk down the street and saw someone who 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.160 looked a lot like your own kid. I mean, there 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:13.240 are ways conceivably to find out. 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.240 A DNA test, a gut feeling, but in the moment, 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.520 it's impossible to know. That's because a woman undergoing an 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:25.680 egg retrievle is typically given anesthesia. It's only after she 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.560 comes to that she's told exactly how many eggs were collected. 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:34.000 But the really haunting aspect of all of this is 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.440 that if the police hadn't been doing an investigation of 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.920 this clinic, which they were doing for other reasons. If 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.920 that hadn't happened, she likely would never have been called 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.800 to the police station and been told this information, and she. 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.000 Might never know when we come back, what happened to 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.600 the eggs and embryos stored at the Mediterranean Fertility Institute 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.319 when it suddenly shut down, and what the fallout of 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.800 the investigation has meant for the women whose eggs were stolen. 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.720 Earlier this year, Bloomberg's Vernon Silver went to visit a 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.640 secure room at Kanya General Hospital on the Greek island 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.200 of Crete. He was there to see the genetic material 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:26.000 that authorities had seized from the Mediterranean Fertility Institute without sansos. 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.040 Is it top secret? Can I take a picture? 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:29.160 Yes? 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.000 A doctor punched a passcode into a keypad and unlocked 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.080 the door to the climate controlled room. 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.360 It's nice and cold, nice and cold, of course. 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:42.720 Inside, they showed Vernon the six rounded metal containers that 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:44.240 were lined up against a wall. 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:48.640 It looks like R two D two from Star Wars. 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.160 The canisters looked like a cross between an ancient Greek 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:56.760 amphora and a propane tank. Rounded metal containers with wheels 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:00.520 on the bottom and two handles on top. The lids 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.960 were fitted with handwritten labels and temperature monitors. 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:13.120 In these things here they so this is an expensive 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.800 operation because you also have this thing that goes down. 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:17.959 What is that? That's the ice. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.800 The canisters were filled with liquid nitrogen and between the 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.760 six of them all the genetic material that had been 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:29.800 seized from the Mediterranean Fertility Institute. In total, they contained 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:34.120 the eggs, embryos, and sperm of about nine hundred people. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.599 But Vernon says the canisters represent only part of the 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.280 chaos that ensued from the clinic's closure. 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.560 Really heartbreaking chaos, because this is a clinic that had 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:50.320 stored embryos and eggs and hired surrogates to carry people's 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:55.080 babies for them. So they were dealing with everything from 0:13:55.600 --> 0:14:00.920 frozen eggs and embryos to pregnant women to babies who 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.440 had to literally be sorted out with DNA tests. 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.040 In the early morning hours of August eighth, twenty twenty three, 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.720 when police descended on the Mediterranean Fertility Institute, the clinic 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.120 was working with a number of pregnant surrogates, and after 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.720 it was abruptly shut down, the Kanya General hospital took 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.280 over their care and the care of the seventeen babies 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.520 they gave birth to. It would take eight months and 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:32.840 DNA testing to match them to their families and determine custody. 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.840 Vernon says what to do with the genetic material inside 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.520 the canisters was another piece of the puzzle. Some of 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.200 it came from local clients like Maria, some of it 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.600 had come from Ukrainian cryobanks, whose staff sent it out 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:51.640 of the country for safe keeping after Russia invaded, and 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.080 some of it had come from the clinic's foreign clients. 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.920 The embryologists charged with caring for them told Vernon the 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.560 canisters contained frozen eggs and embryos from about one hundred 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.320 and twenty five people who had come from outside Greece. 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:08.960 Some of those people had traveled from as far away 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:13.040 as India and Australia to use the clinic services, and 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.560 some were clients of Sam. 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:20.560 Everingham, three parents were contacting me saying, look way here 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.080 for the birth of that child, but no one's here. 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:28.720 The staff of all gone. They're in gile wirestock. 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:33.320 Sam is the founder of Growing Families Global. Its mission 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.080 is to support and inform people looking for safe, ethical 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.040 fertility services. He says people often reach out to his 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.320 organization when they can't source surrogates or donors in their 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:49.239 own countries and are hoping to find information about options overseas. 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.640 Representatives from the Mediterranean Fertility Institute had spoken at events 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:58.520 his organization hosted in Australia. He'd even gone to visit 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.560 the facility himself, and he says he was shocked when 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:04.440 he heard what had gone wrong there. 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:09.240 Oh, it was horrifying. Yeah, it was really tough. We 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.480 had to get them in touch with the Greek lawyers 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:14.840 to help out there. Some of them wanted to take 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.440 cases against the clinic, many of them wanted to get 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.080 embryos out. We had to do a lot of work 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.360 to try and get embryo shipping happening to other countries, 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.600 and that was complicated because of the rules in Greece 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:30.160 around embryo export. So it ended up being a really 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:35.840 difficult lesson for people around the risks of cross border 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.560 reproductive care. You can't be on the ground looking at 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.120 what these planks are doing, and they'd pulled the wall 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:42.600 over the eyes of so many people. 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.640 Seeing the fallout from the closure of the Mediterranean Fertility 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.680 Institute made Sam re examine his own experience with the 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:51.760 fertility industry. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.720 I suddenly started questioning the kind of things that were 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.120 happening in India. And we'd done it all those years before, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:03.040 and I did organize some DNA testing for our daughters 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.600 because they are they look different. 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.520 Sam and his husband have teenage twin daughters born through 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.800 a surrogate in India. They'd been told the girls were 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:18.760 born from eggs from the same woman, but doubts had lingered, and. 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.280 Yeah, so look we've got the DNA test done it 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.240 and sure enough we've been told they were the same egdona, 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.479 but the results so that they weren't. And look, you know, 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:29.320 it doesn't matter for us in terms of, you know, 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:31.480 loving our kids, but it's kind of weird when a 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.960 click tells you they've used one egdona and you find out, 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:36.240 well know, they hadn't. 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.000 Once Sam and his family had the results, they discovered 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:41.280 they weren't alone. 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.160 We suddenly started realizing we're talking to other parents who'd 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:45.880 done the same kind of tests and found the same 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.159 sort of thing, but the kids they'd had in the 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.920 same country were also different genetically. 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.719 And obviously, as you said, this doesn't change anything about 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.359 how you love your children. But what did it feel 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.560 like having that revelation and that surprise. 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.439 It just felt like a betrial, a trial from the 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.200 abby of Clink's point of view in terms of, you know, 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.480 not being honestno being open with us at the time 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:19.160 about how they were credit imbrush. 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.640 While reporting the story, Vernon came across cases of egg 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:26.240 theft in many countries, including ones in India and Israel, 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:27.840 Italy and the US. 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:32.400 What's interesting is that the cases we know about were 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.520 addressed in the courts. They were addressed with disciplinary committees 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.640 and medical boards, but for the most part, they were 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:44.119 resolved with mirror slaps on the wrists of the doctors involved. 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.840 Vernon found that a doctor who stole eggs in Italy 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.800 was sentenced to jail time, which he ended up serving 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.720 under house arrest because he was in poor health. He says, 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.000 doctors accused of egg theft in Israel and India have 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.040 been able to continue with their careers. In August twenty 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:07.320 twenty three, Greek police arrested eight Mediterranean Fertility Institute staff members, 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:12.240 including the clinic's founding doctor and its scientific director. Both 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:17.119 remain in jail. Awaiting possible trial. The doctor's lawyer didn't 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:21.000 respond to a request for comment. The scientific director's lawyer 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:23.080 said in an email that a list of questions from 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.440 Bloomberg about the police case contained inaccuracies, but didn't specify 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.720 what they were. It's unclear what the consequences will ultimately 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:36.480 be for those involved, but for Maria the impact has 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.320 been severe. She told Vernon that finding out her eggs 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:44.160 had been stolen felt like a violation, like a rape. 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:50.000 Maria after her first reaction of thinking, my gosh, do 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.679 I have Do I have a biological child or children 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.000 that I don't know about, she started asking the questions 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.920 of the police and it started with do you know 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.280 who this will is who got my eggs? And the 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.400 answer is yes they do. Do they know whether she 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:07.160 has had a child, And the answer was that they 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:07.680 didn't know. 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.800 Maria says the police told her Greek privacy law forbade 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:13.840 them from giving her the name of the woman who 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.399 received her eggs, but they could give her something else, 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:18.919 a code. 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:22.919 Each woman who did IVF at this clinic was given 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:25.159 a code, a customer code. 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.280 And the police gave Maria her own code and the 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.400 code of the woman who received her eggs, and one 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.840 day Maria would like to meet her, but first they'd 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:36.920 have to find each other. 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:39.439 She's hoping that there will be a way that she 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.840 can be connected to the woman who got her eggs 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.679 through some official mechanism. If there isn't, she thinks there 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:48.199 might be other ways. You know, you could set up 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.720 a Facebook group. You could say, you know, the Honya 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:56.400 egg scandal group, and let's say, you know egg egg 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:00.719 donor one, two three four seeking egg recipient five six 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:03.000 seven eight. So that's the sort of thing that she 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:08.360 thinks about practically, but in reality, what's haunting her and 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:15.040 she's getting psychological help, is that her child might someday 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.320 meet and fall in love with that child's half sibling. 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.479 And she doesn't know whether this woman who got her 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.320 eggs is from Australia or the US, or Canada or 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:31.920 Italy or maybe Greece, and quite possibly her own town. 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.119 That if there is this other child, that maybe that 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.479 child is a schoolmate of her child. 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:42.720 While police have identified as many as seventy five cases 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.800 of egg theft at the Mediterranean Fertility Institute, a Greek 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:51.199 judicial source told Vernon the final count could be much higher, 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:56.720 and Vernon says the ramifications are profound, not just for 0:21:56.760 --> 0:21:59.600 the women whose eggs were stolen, but also for the 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:01.160 women who received them. 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:05.120 We've been talking about Maria, but what about the woman 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.359 who got her eggs. We're talking about scores of cases 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:13.040 just in this one investigation. What about all of those 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.240 women who may or may not be informed in the 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:21.959 near future that their children were conceived from stolen eggs? 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:24.679 What about all the women and families who went to 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:28.520 that clinic and aren't informed, who think, gosh, maybe I 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:32.359 got stolen eggs. You know, Maria says, you know these 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.480 if she has a child, you know, it's my child. 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.000 But it's not my child, it's this other woman's or 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:42.639 this other famili's child. But what's to stop someone like 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.119 Maria from trying to claim custody? 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.320 Vernon says cases like these lay there just how much 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.840 trust is involved with undergoing IVF and how easily that 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:58.320 trust can be exploited, Because he says, if a patient 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:02.520 can't trust her clinic, how can anyone who's done IVF 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:06.359 or used a donor egg be certain that they haven't 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:12.000 received a stolen egg or that someone else hasn't received theirs. 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:21.720 That was the second episode in The Human Egg Trade, 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.639 our special series about the booming global market for human eggs. 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:29.960 The next episode in the series follows one couple's globe 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:33.520 spanning journey to start a family and what it costs them. 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:39.000 They call their son a quarter million dollar baby, right. 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:41.520 They say, by the time they finished the process with him, 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:43.600 they'd spent about a quarter million dollars. 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:46.480 And did they go into debt? They did go into debt. Yes. 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:49.800 For more in depth reporting on how the human egg 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:53.960 has become a precious resource traded around the world, read 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.880 The Egg, an investigation by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and The Big Take. 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:01.400 You can read The Egg on the Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg 0:24:01.440 --> 0:24:04.280 dot com or in the January twenty twenty five issue 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:09.760 of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:13.159 I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by David Fox. 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:16.960 It was edited by Tracy Samuelson, Lauren Etter, and Ken Armstrong, 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:20.360 who was fact checked by Adriannatapia and mixed and sound 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:24.280 designed by Alex Zuguiera and Jessica Beck. Our senior producer 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:28.040 is Naomi Shavin. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:32.360