Sperm with cancer-causing gene used to conceive almost 200 children
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A sperm donor who unknowingly harboured a genetic mutation that dramatically raises the risk of cancer has fathered at least 197 children across Europe, a major investigation has revealed. Also on the programme, 5alf a million people have been forced from their homes in Thailand and Cambodia as their deadly border conflict escalates; and, the politics of typeface fonts.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:10.6 | Hello and welcome to News Out from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:13.4 | We're coming to you live from London. I'm Sean Lay. |
| 0:17.0 | Around 200 children across Europe, born from sperm, donated by the same donor, face an elevated |
| 0:23.2 | risk of cancer. Some have already died. The donor who began giving sperm as a student in 2005 |
| 0:29.5 | was unaware at the time of a genetic mutation found in one-fifth of his sperm. Those born from |
| 0:36.0 | the affected sperm faced a 90% risk of developing cancer |
| 0:40.5 | before their 60. The sperm was sold by Denmark's European sperm bank and used by 67 fertility |
| 0:47.1 | clinics across 14 countries. Selim, which is not her real name, is a single mother in France |
| 0:53.3 | whose child was conceived 14 years ago. |
| 0:56.0 | She received a call from the fertility clinics used in Belgium, |
| 0:59.3 | urging her to get her daughter screened, her words are voiced by one of our production team. |
| 1:04.1 | We don't know when, we don't know which one, and we don't know how many. |
| 1:08.6 | I understand that there's a high chance it's going to happen, |
| 1:11.8 | and when it does, we'll fight, and if there are several, we'll fight several times. |
| 1:17.2 | The most unacceptable thing for me is that I was given sperm that wasn't clean, that wasn't safe, |
| 1:23.1 | that carried a risk that hadn't been properly tested. That's the most unacceptable thing for me. |
| 1:29.3 | He was not aware, I believe, that he was a carrier of a mutated gene, so I have absolutely no |
| 1:35.0 | hard feelings towards him. Well, I spoke to Dr. Edwidge Casper, who's a cancer geneticist |
| 1:41.3 | at Rouen University Hospital in France. She presented the initial data that the sperm donor had carried the cancer-causing pathogenic |
| 1:48.7 | variant and that it had been passed on. |
| 1:51.8 | Since we have exposed this case last June, reported new families with new children |
... |
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