Views of women volunteering to provide eggs for mitochondrial research
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A socio-ethical investigation of the values and experiences of women volunteering to provide eggs for mitochondrial research under a scheme in which money is offered to egg providers.
IRAS ID
146099
Contact name
Alison Murdoch
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Research summary
This study is the world’s first systematic empirical exploration of the views and experiences of women who volunteer to provide eggs for mitochondrial research in a scheme where money is being offered to those who actually go on to provide eggs. The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, will fill a gap in existing knowledge by discovering and understanding volunteers’ own perspectives on the role and importance of money in their decisions to volunteer. As such it will contribute to worldwide debates about the ethics of offering money ‘for’, or in association with, the provision of human tissue for research and treatment.
Concerns in these debates include whether offers of money in this context: exploit poorer populations; act as an undue inducement; compromise individual autonomy and the ability to give properly informed consent; persuade women to offer eggs, which involves undergoing IVF-like processes even when they have no therapeutic need for IVF. However, a highly influential Nuffield Council on Bioethics report in 2011 noted that various interventions to promote tissue donation, including the offer of money, are not necessarily unethical provided some key factors are considered.
Despite these wide-ranging bioethical and other debates on human tissue and money, until recently there was no systematic knowledge of how women who volunteered to provide eggs for research viewed such issues themselves, let alone of how they made the decision to volunteer in the first place. This study will explore the relevance of the bioethics debates and the financial aspects of the provision of eggs to scientific research with women who volunteer to do so for mitochondrial disease research in Newcastle.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EE/0207
Date of REC Opinion
19 May 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion