A Danish sperm donor unknowingly carrying a genetic mutation that heightens the risk of cancer fathered nearly 200 children across Europe, according to reports.
Sperm donor 7069, alias Kjeld, first started donating to the Copenhagen branch of the European Sperm Bank in 2005.
At the time, he passed all the donor medical tests, which didn’t detect the mutation of the TP53 gene in some of his sperm that increases a person’s risk for getting cancer, the European Broadcasting Union said Wednesday.
The mutation causes Li-Fraumeni syndrome, which gives children a 90% chance of developing cancer at some point in their lives, according to Euronews. His sperm has been blocked from use since 2023 after new testing confirmed the presence of the mutated TP53 gene in some of it.
“It’s a very, very severe and rare hereditary predisposition to cancer, and it’s characterized by a wide tumor spectrum. We have many children that have already developed cancer, we have some children that have developed two different cancers and some of them have already died at a very early age,” Edwige Kasper, a biologist in France and a researcher in the 7069 case, told the EBU.
Kjeld’s sperm was used to father at least 197 children at 67 clinics across 14 countries, with some of the donations exceeding established caps for how many children a donor could father, according to the EBU.
In Denmark, his sperm fathered 49 children across at least 33 families until 2013 and 50 more children for women who weren’t Danish residents but sought treatment at Danish clinics.
In Belgium, his sperm conceived 53 children born to 38 families, both Belgian and foreign, and in Spain his sperm conceived 35 children, according to the EBU.
In total, the sperm was sent to clinics in Albania, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, North Macedonia, Poland, Serbia and Spain, according to the BBC.
