Weird Adult Stories

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ONE OF THE MOST SICK STORY that i ever read!!
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Father, daughter have child together

Article from: AAP
Print April 06, 2008 09:28pm

A SOUTH Australian father and daughter have revealed they are a couple, and have had a child together.

John and Jenny Deaves reunited 30 years after Mr Deaves separated from Jenny's mother.

Jenny was 31 and just two weeks after meeting, father and daughter had sex.

"John and I are in this relationship as consenting adults," Mrs Deaves told the Nine Network's 60 Minutes tonight.

"We are just asking for a little bit of respect and understanding."

Their nine-month-old daughter Celeste, shown on TV, appears fit and healthy.

Mrs Deaves said soon after reuniting with her father she began to see him as a man first and her father second.

"I was looking at him, sort of going, oh, he's not too bad," she said.

"Like you might look at a man across the bar at a nightclub."

Mrs Deaves brought two children, Samantha and Alex, into the relationship after splitting from her former partner.

Mr Deaves admitted that he "initially" thought having sex with his daughter was wrong.

"Emotions take over, as people no doubt realise, there are times during your life where emotions do rule the heart, it rules the head," he said.

"I knew it was illegal, of course I knew it was illegal but you know, so what."

Mrs Deaves said the physical relationship with her father was like "a sexual relationship with any other man".

For Mr Deaves the sexual relationship was "absolutely fantastic".

A South Australian police media spokesman said "the couple is being monitored".

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Dad-daughter couple had earlier child

April 07, 2008

A FATHER and daughter who have revealed they are couple and have a child together had another baby who died a few days after birth from a congenital heart disease, court documents show.

South Australian couple John and Jenny Deaves with their daughter, John Earnest Deaves and his daughter Jennifer Anne Deaves are at the centre of an incest scandal in South Australia over their seven-year relationship.

The pair revealed their relationship on Channel 9's 60 Minutes program last night, saying they were just asking for some respect and understanding.

In March this year, they were placed on three-year good behaviour bonds after pleading guilty to two counts of incest.

District Court sentencing judge Steven Millsteed said the first count of incest was based on an act of sexual intercourse which resulted in the birth of the couple's first child.

The second count of incest related to an act of sexual intercourse which resulted in the birth of their second child in May last year.

"The first child was born in 2001 but died a few days after birth due to a congenital heart disease," Judge Millsteed said.

The couple had started a relationship together after being reunited in 2000, almost 30 years after Mr Deaves separated from Jenny's mother.

Because of problems with her own marriage, Ms Deaves had gone to live with her father at Yongala, in South Australia.

Their physical relationship developed later that year and both ended their marriages and began living together.

But that has been challenged by Mr Deaves' ex-wife who has rubbished claims he had not seen his daughter for 30 years.

Mr Deaves' ex-wife Dorothy, 69, who he married long after splitting with Jenny's mother, told ninemsn that when she married John Deaves in 1984, the then 15-year-old Jenny stayed with them for a week.

"It was hard to face for a long time," Mrs Deaves said. "It's one of those things everyone's so upset about."

Jenny stayed with them four times before their marriage broke down in 2000 after the father and daughter took a trip to Dubbo together, she said.

"Each of you say that the other has provided care and affection that was missing in your marriage," Judge Millsteed said earlier.

"You also say that although you are father and daughter, that you were virtually strangers when your relationship commenced and that the relationship was based on mutual love and respect."

The couple had their first child while living in Rockhampton, Queensland, before moving to Port Pirie, in South Australia.

After the birth of their second child they moved to Bordertown, near the Victorian border where the Department of Families and Communities became aware of their relationship and turned the matter over to police.

Judge Millsteed said that when contacted by police the Deaves made full admissions.

He said both Jenny and John Deaves told him that they accepted their sexual relationship must end but hoped they would be able to continue to support one another and the children.

But he said while the case was not typical he had to impose a sentence that impressed upon them that any resumption of their incestuous relationship was unacceptable.

"The offence of incest exists not merely to protect children from sexual abuse," Judge Millsteed said.

"In my view, other relevant factors include the need to prevent the high risk of congenital defects in children born of incestuous relationships and to prevent children suffering psychological harm and social stigmatisation."

Revealing their relationship on Nine last night, the Deaves said they were just asking for some respect and understanding.

Mr Deaves admitted that he "initially" thought having sex with his daughter was wrong.

"Emotions take over, as people no doubt realise. There are times during your life where emotions do rule the heart, it rules the head," he said.

"I knew it was illegal. Of course, I knew it was illegal but you know, so what."

- Agencies

Dad-daughter couple had earlier child | The Australian

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Woman becomes a mum at 64
December 3, 2007 - 10:13AM

MUNICH - A German woman aged 64 has given birth to a healthy baby girl, a national record and her first child after years of unfruitful attempts and false pregnancies, a report said today.

"Mother and child are doing well," said doctor Elias Karam at the Aschaffenburg clinic in southern Bavaria, quoted by the internet site of the Der Spiegel weekly.

The baby was born on Thursday by caesarian section and weighed two kilograms, the report said.

While the woman became the oldest German to given birth, it was far from a world record.

At the end of 2006, a Spanish woman of 67 gave birth to twins, pipping the record made the year before by another twin-bearer, this time a 66-year-old Romanian.

The German birth came thanks to the donation of ovules by a 25-year-old donor but used the sperm of her husband, who is also aged 64, Spiegel Online reported.

The ovule operation happened abroad because it is banned in Germany, the report said.

"This woman came to me because she needed my help. As a doctor, I gave it without question," said Karam.

AFP

Woman becomes a mum at 64 - World - BrisbaneTimes - brisbanetimes.com.au

[stinger78]

haha, really weird..

thanks bro

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Case of the disappearing dads
April 10, 2008

It might be a man's world, but could his reproductive days be in decline? Exposures to pesticides, herbicides, industrial agents, tobacco, alcohol and metals - even mobile phone use - are being increasingly blamed for abnormal sperm and falls in sperm counts.
Australian and overseas biologists have long argued the male testis, DNA and sperm are under attack from environmental contaminants, and the end game could be the male sex-defining Y chromosome's destruction.

Counsellors trying to help couples conceive have been desperate to give would-be fathers more precise advice on chemicals to avoid and lifestyles to lead - but are now learning that in some cases the damage to men's fertility may have happened way back in their mother's womb.

The discovery has been made in the new science known as "epigenetics", which strongly suggests chemical damage is causing abnormal sperm and male infertility via a pregnant woman's exposure to contaminants, passing infertility not only to her son but successive sons - overturning old assumptions about biology and DNA.

Until recently, it had been assumed a gene had to be mutated for a disease to be inherited. But studies on pregnant rats exposed to pesticides show male offspring can inherit reproductive disorders, and pass them on to their children and grandchildren, through an abnormality that affects the activity of genes but leaves the sequence of the DNA code unchanged.

Long-held fears of declining sperm numbers in Western countries are just one part of the problem for men's reproductive prospects. In 1992, a meta-analysis, published in the British Medical Journal, of the world literature reported that between 1938 and 1990 there was a halving of sperm concentration in human semen. A review by researchers in the United States in Environmental Health Perspectives in 1997 reanalysing the data over the same period suggested a 3 per cent per year decline in Australia and Europe - twice that of US - on limited Australian data.

But the claims of falling sperm were dismissed as "extravagant" by a Sydney researcher, Professor David Handelsman of the ANZAC Institute. In a 2001 paper published in the journal Reproduction, Fertility And Development he criticised the way disparate studies had been aggregated, and the US researchers toned down earlier estimates. Yet Handelsman conceded some cancer registry data indicated a gradual rise in testicular cancer, which he could not explain.

Male infertility is a common problem. A 2005 Andrology Australia national survey of

5990 men aged 40 and over found almost 8 per cent had tried and been unable to have children. This was "the first real estimate of infertility prevalence in Australia", the authors suggested, but it was unclear which partner was infertile, and no historical Australian comparison exists. Thirty-four per cent of the 40-plus men who had no children still wanted to be fathers.

Among Western couples, roughly one in seven seek treatment for infertility, at least half due to a male problem, and one in 35 babies is now born with assisted conception.

In Australia and New Zealand in 2005, there were 21,420 assisted reproduction technology cycles in which an oocyte or embryo was transferred which involved ICSI - intracytoplasmic sperm injection. This involves a single sperm being injected into an egg for fertilisation outside the body and replaced in the uterus, usually because the male has a low sperm count, it is abnormal or has poor motility. In recent years, ICSI has outnumbered in-vitro fertilisation involving an oocyte or embryo transfer. In 2005, it outnumbered by nearly 4500 IVF transfer cycles.

The adverse influence of "xenobiotics" - molecules foreign to biological systems - on male fertility was first recognised in the 1970s, when male workers who had been directly exposed to an agricultural pesticide, 1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane, suffered severe disruption of sperm development, says Professor John Aitken, the director of the Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development at Newcastle University.

More recently, genital abnormalities have been found in male alligators in Florida swamplands where the poisonous chemical DDT has been tipped. In Ontario, male mice breathing unfiltered air on a highway downwind from two steel mills developed

60 more DNA mutations than mice that breathed filtered air - a pointer, some scientists believe, to the potential environmental impact of heavy industry on men's fertility.

Mobile phone use is also implicated. A preliminary study of 361 men published in January in the journal Fertility And Sterility found the more hours men spent on a mobile phone, the lower their sperm count and the greater their percentage of abnormal sperm. However, researchers were quick to point out they had found only an association, not proven cause and effect.

Aitken says sperm is vulnerable to attack from contaminants both within male germ cells in the mature testis, which make the sperm, and after it has been released into the female reproductive tract because it lacks a protective coating.

The science is inexact, but the nature of damage to the male germ line - complete deletions of sections of the Y chromosome which cause "5 to 15 per cent" of severe male infertility, as well as oxidative stress - suggest they are the result of "spontaneous DNA damage" by environmental factors, Aitken says.

Naturally, age may simply weary sperm quality and numbers, given men do have a biological clock. It is not a uniformly sharp decline in natural fertility, but a decline in tissues, nonetheless. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, published a study in 2003 of 97 healthy, non-smoking men from which they concluded sperm motility (movement) declines with age. The chance of sperm motility being clinically abnormal was 60 per cent by age 40, and 85 per cent by age 60.

Aitken says that DNA damage in sperm cells increases with age and exposure to environmental contamination such as exhaust fumes. "That has an impact not so much on a man's ability to produce sperm, but to produce normal sperm," he says. "So to give a classic example, if you're a man and you smoke heavily, it doesn't have a dramatic impact on your fertility, but it induces DNA damage in your germ line, and your children have a five-fold increase chance of developing cancer."

In Australia there are concerns with detergents such as nonylphenol, which is used in some household and industrial cleaning products - "but we have no idea what impact it has on male DNA quality" - as well as microwave radiation from mobile phones. Preliminary data suggests eating unsaturated fats - as opposed to saturated fats, which are bad for the heart - causes problems in male DNA germ lines, Aitken says.

Separately, Aitken and colleagues also suggested in detail in another paper in Nature back in 2004 that pregnant women exposed to xenobiotics passed on testicular dysgenesis syndrome, which has features including poor semen quality and testicular cancer, to their male offspring.

How this happens is also very uncertain. But epigenetic modification - in which small chemical tags are attached to the DNA, altering the activity of nearby genes - may hold fresh though sobering answers.

In 2004, Monash Institute of Medical Research scientists in Melbourne knocked out a gene that was an epigenetic regulator in breeding mice. "The mice were born, they looked fine, but the males were all infertile," recalls researcher Moira O'Bryan. "That wasn't what we were expecting."

Epigenetics "controls how tightly your DNA is packed", O'Bryan explains. "Imagine that genes are like the hardware in a computer. Epigenetics is like the software. If you muck up either, you'll get infertility. It can be affected by things like diet and lifestyle, but its only become clear in the last couple of years it can be affected by what your parents did, and what your grandparents did. The frightening thing is some environmental pollutants seem to affect epigenetic regulation."

At Washington State University, a team led by Michael Skinner reported in the journal Science in 2005 that female rats exposed to vinclozolin, a fungicide used in vineyards, and methoxychlor, a pesticide, produced males with low sperm counts - likewise the grandsons and great-grandsons.

In human studies published last December, scientists at the University of Southern California in the journal Public Library of Science One also suggested epigenetic changes trigger male infertility. They found sperm DNA from men with abnormal or low sperm levels had high levels of methylation, while normal sperm samples showed no methylation abnormalities. "Exposures to chemicals as a foetus may lead to adult diseases," suggested author Rebecca Sokol.

Matthew Anway of the University of Idaho told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston in February that garden chemicals caused rats inheritable problems such as damaged and overgrown prostates, infertility and kidney problems, which were present up to four generations later. He, too, had pinpointed vinclozolin exposure as a cause of female rats producing infertile sons via epigenetic modification.

But the conference was reminded that fathers might also pass on health problems to their children, via the more traditionally understood mutation of the male germ line. Another scientist, Cynthia Daniels of Rutgers University in New York, warned both would-be parents to stay away from unnecessary chemicals, but made a point of addressing budding fathers: "If I was a young man I would not drink beer, I would not be smoking when I'm trying to conceive a child."

Case of the disappearing dads - Health - Life & Style Home

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It's no hoax: man is pregnant:

confused:

April 2, 2008 - 9:50AM

A transgender man who kept his female reproductive organs, despite his transformation, is now five months pregnant and will appear on Oprah Winfrey's television show, the talk show said.

"I'm a person and I have the right to have my own biological child," Thomas Beatie, of Bend, Oregon, said in excerpts from the show, which airs on Thursday.

Sceptics questioned whether the story was an April Fool's hoax, but the Chicago-based talk show said Winfrey interviewed Beatie, his wife Nancy and their obstetrician, as well as with friends of the couple. Beatie also did an interview with People magazine.

Beatie, 34, and his wife recount how she was unable to conceive because of a hysterectomy, according to the excerpts.

"If Nancy could get pregnant, I wouldn't be doing this," Beatie said.

The Hawaii-born Beatie related his struggles with various doctors, family and friends in a letter published last week by The Advocate, a magazine for gays.

Beatie, who was formerly Tracy Lagondino, had chest reconstruction surgery and began taking testosterone, he wrote.

Upon deciding to have a child, he halted bimonthly hormone injections and resumed menstruating, then artificially inseminated himself with anonymous donor sperm from a sperm bank. A first attempt failed.

"When my brother found out about my loss, he said, 'It's a good thing that happened. Who knows what kind of monster it would have been?' " Beatie recalled.

A second attempt was successful, and he expects to deliver a girl about July 3.

"Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire," Beatie wrote.

Reuters

It's no hoax: man is pregnant - World - BrisbaneTimes - brisbanetimes.com.au

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No more happy finish
April 10, 2008 - 2:41PM

JAKARTA - Massage parlours in an Indonesian town are asking their female masseuses to padlock their skirts and pants to make it clear that sex is not on offer.

But the move has been opposed by the women's affairs minister of Indonesia, where massage parlours are often a front for prostitution.

"It is not the right way to prevent promiscuity," Meutia Swasono told today's Jakarta Post. "It insults women ... as if they are the ones in the wrong."

At least one parlour in the tourist town of Batu on Java island has required its masseuses to padlock their skirts or trousers to make it clear it does not tolerate prostitution.

Others in the town started following suit after local officials suggested it was a good idea at a recent meeting with parlour owners.

TV footage and photos have shown several masseuses with small padlocks in the zip of their pants or skirts in recent days.

"The padlocking phenomena has been seen at various parlours and it is something we like," said Imam Suryono, the head of the town's public order authority.

He denied media reports he formally ordered them to wear padlocks.

AP

No more happy finish - World - BrisbaneTimes - brisbanetimes.com.au

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Women tell of embarrassment over 'secret' sex films

PerthNow; by Todd Cardy

April 10, 2008 07:07pm

THREE women have told of their embarrassment over being filmed, allegedly without their knowledge, having sex with a Tuart Hill man.

Christian Pinkerton, 29, today stood trial in the Perth Magistrates Court on charges that he created sex tapes using a hidden camera while not telling the women he was filming them.

Mr Pinkerton has pleaded not guilty to 29 counts of breaching the Surveillance Devices Act.

The court heard he taped himself having sex with the women in the lounge room of his Tuart Hill unit on separate occasions between June 2006 and January this year.

Mr Pinkerton's lawyer, Curt Hofmann, conceded to the police prosecutor that his client did not deny filming the girls, but he argued that they knew they were in front of a camera.

He told the court Mr Pinkerton was a graphic designer who enjoyed making films of all types.

All three women denied suggestions by Mr Hofmann that they were too embarrassed to admit that they agreed to being filmed.

Each testified she did not see the camera, agree to being filmed or had ever agreed to being part of a sex tape before.

A 20-year-old student said she felt "very betrayed’’ after police told her about the tapes. "The whole thing is humiliating,’’ she told the court.

"I didn’t want any of my friends or family to know. It made me feel stupid.’’

Police prosecutor Senior Constable Paul Cook asked another woman who Mr Pinkerton had dated for about two years: "Were you aware that you were being filmed?" "No, not at all - positively not at all,’’ she replied.

Police seized 29 tapes found locked in a box of an alarmed room along with a fish-eye camera which was linked to a VCR.

A pink inflatable cushion sex toy - which was used in the taped activities - was also seized.

The court was told an investigation had been launched into Mr Pinkerton after one of the women found the tapes sprawled on the floor of the unit, with one still in the VCR.

One tape shown to the court shows Mr Pinkerton in his lounge room placing pillows and a towel on a couch, before a girl joins him. If found guilty, Mr Pinkerton faces a fine of $5000 or 12 months jail for each count.

The trial continues before Magistrate Paul Heaney.

Women tell of embarrassment over 'secret' sex films | PerthNow

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Drunk driver was 'sleep driving'

April 11, 2008

THE controversial sleeping pill Stilnox may have caused a Sydney man to drive involuntarily while he was still drunk, a judge has found in a landmark ruling which will raise further concern about the dangers of the medication.

Robert James Kingston was found not guilty yesterday of driving with a blood alcohol limit of 0.105 - twice the legal limit - after Judge Colin Phegan found on appeal there was a "real possibility" he was "sleep driving" after taking a Stilnox tablet.

The judge said further evidence had emerged on the effects of Stilnox - including increased government warnings about its side effects - since Mr Kingston was originally found guilty of drink driving by a local court.

Judge Phegan said in the NSW District Court he was satisfied the scientific evidence was strong enough to at "least raise a possibility, a real possibility, that the explanation for what happened on this occasion was a state of sleep-driving caused by the use of the drug".

Mr Kingston was charged with a mid-range drink driving offence after being involved in a collision last April near his Lane Cove home. He had been on the wrong side of the road, and was in shorts and a T-shirt despite frosty temperatures.

Before the accident, he had made a bizarre phone call to a friend who had just left Mr Kingston's house after visiting for dinner. During the call, Mr Kingston complained to his friend that several couples were waiting outside his home wanting to rent rooms from him.

After the accident, the friend suggested Mr Kingston get a blood test, which showed traces of Stilnox in his blood.

Judge Phegan said Mr Kingston's state of undress, his apparent hallucination, the fact he was on the wrong side of the road and his inability to remember anything were consistent with a state of "automatism" - where a person has no control over their actions - caused by taking the drug. This was different to being heavily intoxicated, where a person still has some control over their actions, he said.

Annabel Stafford

Drunk driver was 'sleep driving' - National - BrisbaneTimes

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WHy all the not so good news for men only?
read this:..............


Rising to the challenge
April 10, 2008

SOME men suffer falls in the number, function and quality of their sperm due to infections such as influenza, says Rob McLachlan, director of Andrology Australia at the Monash Institute of Medical Research.

A dose of mumps after puberty can be a "serious assault on the male gonads", leading to permanent infertility. Cancer treatment, too, can destroy sperm cells.

The issue of age harming a man's fertility has been "somewhat oversold", McLachlan argues.

"The majority of cases are genetic. Usually their fathers or brothers don't have infertility; it's usually just that particular man."

However, the cause of perhaps 90 per cent of genetic male infertility is unknown, "and that's frustrating because we can't treat things when we don't know the cause".

The advice of Andrology Australia (Andrology Australia) is that smoking, alcohol consumption, sexually transmitted diseases, heat stress from tight-fitting underwear and vaginal lubricants can all be harmful to sperm.

Steve Dow

Rising to the challenge - Health - Life & Style Home - brisbanetimes.com.au

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Cut down on your mobile

Heavy mobile phone use tied to poorer sperm
February 7, 2008 - 7:10AM

Spending hours on a mobile phone each day may affect the quality of a man's sperm, preliminary US research suggests.

In a study of 361 men seen at their infertility clinic, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found an association between the patients' mobile phone use and their sperm quality.

On average, the more hours the men spent on their mobile phones each day, the lower their sperm count and the greater their percentage of abnormal sperm.

The findings, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, add to questions about the potential health effects of mobile phones and other wireless devices.

Some studies, for example, have linked long-term mobile phone use to a higher risk of brain tumours, though many other studies have found no such connection.

The concern is that, over time, the electromagnetic energy emitted from mobile phones could theoretically harm body tissue -- by damaging DNA, for example.

However, the new findings do not prove that mobile phones somehow damage sperm, according to the researchers.

"Our results show a strong association of cell phone use with decreased semen quality. However, they do not prove a cause-and- effect relationship," lead researcher Dr Ashok Agarwal said.

He and his colleagues based their findings on semen samples from 361 men who came to their infertility clinic over one year.

All of the men were questioned about their mobile phone habits.

In general, the researchers found, sperm count and sperm quality tended to decline as daily mobile phone hours increased.

Men who said they used their phones for more than four hours each day had the lowest average sperm count and the fewest normal, viable sperm.

"We infer from our results that heavy cell phone use ... is associated with a lower semen quality," Agarwal said.

But whether mobile phones somehow directly affect men's fertility is not clear.

Agarwal said he and his colleagues have two studies underway aiming to shed light on the issue.

In one, they are exposing semen samples to electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones to see what, if any, effects occur.

The second is a follow-up to the current study that is assessing a larger group of men.

Agarwal said this study is more rigorously designed and will account for certain other factors like lifestyle habits and occupational exposures that might affect sperm quality.

SOURCE: Fertility and Sterility, January 2008.

REUTERS

Heavy mobile phone use tied to poorer sperm - World - BrisbaneTimes

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Young girls required to engage in sex in Texas sect temple


AP, SAN ANGELO, TEXAS
Friday, Apr 11, 2008, Page 7

Young teenage girls at a polygamist compound in west Texas were required to have sex in a soaring temple after they were married in sect-recognized unions, newly unsealed court documents showed.

The temple “contains an area where there is a bed where males over the age of 17 engage in sexual activity with female children under the age of 17,” an affidavit released on Wednesday said, quoting a confidential informant who left the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Agents found a bed in the temple with disturbed linens and what appeared to be a female hair, the affidavit signed by Texas Ranger Leslie Brooks Long said. The Rangers are the state’s investigative law enforcement arm.

The temple also contained multiple locked safes, vaults and desk drawers that authorities sought access to as they searched for records showing alleged marriages of underage girls as young as 12 or 13 to older men and births among the teens. The affidavit unsealed on Wednesday mentions a 16-year-old girl who has four children.

Texas law prohibits polygamy and the marriage of girls under 16.

Also on Wednesday, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers completed a weeklong search of the 700-hectare grounds, spokeswoman Tela Mange said.

Lawyers for the sect had wanted to cut off the wide-ranging search as it dragged on but agreed in court on Wednesday to the appointment of a special master who will vet what is expected to be hundreds of boxes of records, computers and even family Bibles for records that should not become evidence for legal or religious reasons.

Gerry Goldstein, a San Antonio lawyer flanked by nine other attorneys the church hired, said the search of the temple was analogous to a law enforcement search of the Vatican or other holy places.

The church lawyers described in documents three men being dragged from the temple as law enforcement officials sought entry for the search.

Taipei Times - archives

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Disclosure law may spark flight of sperm donors

Natasha Wallace Health Reporter
December 3, 2007

PEOPLE who donate sperm or human eggs, who are already in short supply, may be forced to disclose the names of their spouses and children under new legislation tightening rules governing assisted reproduction.

A health policy and family law expert, Jenni Millbank, criticised the NSW legislation, saying if the provision was adopted it would be a "huge incursion" on the privacy of spouses and children of donors.

A professor of law at the University of Technology, Sydney, Professor Millbank said it had the potential to allow donor offspring to track down their biological parents through that person's ex-partner long after they had separated. "There's a lot of devil in the detail. The regulations are going to have a profound impact on these privacy issues," she said.

While she was not opposed to a register of donor names - which the law stipulates must be kept for 50 years - she felt the net had been cast too wide. "It's absolutely unclear who's going to keep that information and how much information will be included," she said. She said the requirement, if adopted, would further decrease sperm donations. The numbers fell sharply after January last year when donors had to agree to be identified so offspring could contact them once they turned 18.

A spokesman for the NSW Health Minister, Reba Meagher, said the health department would begin drafting regulations under the new legislation next year. "This question of whether donors will be required to provide details of their spouse an children is a matter that will be the subject of consultation, the outcomes of which will inform the Government's decision," he said.

It is unclear who will give consent for the donor's spouse and children to be included and whether any subsequent children would also have to be registered. A clause of the Assisted Reproductive Technology Act, which was passed in the upper house last Wednesday, says a donor "must not obtain a gamete [cell] from a gamete provider, unless the … provider has obtained such information about the gamete provider, the gamete provider's spouse (if any) and any offspring of the gamete provider".

Professor Millbank said she was also "mystified" as to why NSW legislation limited the use of donated gametes and embryos to five families for each donor, half the amount stipulated under the national Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee's code of practice. "NSW has really just plucked a few things out of the air and gone on a frolic of their own," she said.

"It's kind of crazy. There's nothing to indicate where they came up with this figure and why they decided to depart from the national standard, which is also an international one now the UK has also adopted a 10-family limit and the European Union has recommended it," she said. "If they wanted to ban the use of donor gamete, they should have said so."

Disclosure law may spark flight of sperm donors - National - Home

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Remote control birth control
Louise Hall | February 10, 2008

VASECTOMIES could be a thing of the past thanks to Australian scientists who are developing a remote-controlled contraceptive implant for men. The device stops and starts the flow of sperm with the push of a button, similar to locking a car with a key fob.

Researchers at the University of Adelaide say the valve would remain shut most of the time to act as a contraceptive barrier. A man would use the remote control to open the valve and allow the sperm to pass through when he and his partner wanted to conceive.

The implant, still in laboratory testing, would provide a much-needed alternative to vasectomy, a surgical procedure not easily reversed if a man changes his mind. Australia has one of the highest vasectomy rates in the developed world.

A Marie Stopes International (MSI) survey of 1000 men in 2005 found 29 per cent of men aged 40 to 49 and 34 per cent of men aged 50 to 59 had had the procedure. MSI acting chief executive Jill Michelson said women tended to bear the burden of preventing unwanted pregnancies and men needed to take more responsibility. "Any new form of contraception is always a good thing," she said.

The implant being devised by the team of biomedical engineers is made from a specially coated silicone-based material to reduce the risk of infection or rejection by the body. No larger than a grain of rice, it would be inserted into the vas deferens - the duct which carries sperm from each testicle to the penis - using a hypodermic needle. A transmitter outside the body would send a coded radio frequency pulse to an ID tag inside the body, causing the valve to open and close in response to a unique code.

Project founder Professor Derek Abbott said the valve didn't need a battery as the energy comes from the radio signal. But he said after a while the valve may clog with protein and remain shut, rendering the man permanently infertile.

Remote control birth control - National - Home - brisbanetimes.com.au

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Sperm, egg donors allowed to trace children
Carol Nader | December 18, 2007

SPERM and egg donors will still be permitted to initiate contact with children they helped conceive, after the State Government rejected the recommendation of a report it commissioned that the law be overthrown.

In Victoria, anyone who donated sperm or eggs that were used in the conception of children born from July 1988 onwards can apply to the Infertility Treatment Authority for information about the child.

Once the child turns 18, the authority is required to write to them, requesting consent to release identifying information to the donor. But there are concerns that people who are not aware of their genetic origins would face possible trauma upon learning of their history. Studies have shown only about a third of parents tell their children how they were conceived. The first people affected by the law turned 18 last year. The authority launched a public awareness campaign, encouraging parents to tell their children and offering support.

The Victorian Law Reform Commission in its report argued it would be "intrusive and unenforceable" to legally oblige parents to inform their children of their genetic origins. It recommended that only children be allowed to initiate contact, but donors should have a 12-month period to apply for information. It said donors should be encouraged to tell authorities if they became aware of a genetic condition that might have been transmitted and the information would be passed on.

The Government last week announced it would make surrogacy available and ease restrictions on single women and lesbians to access fertility treatment. But it won't accept the commission's recommendation about sperm and egg donors' access to information. A spokesman for Health Minister Daniel Andrews said: "There have been a number of changes over a period of time in this area. To change the laws again would be confusing and destabilising."
Melbourne IVF clinic medical director John McBain has been trying to persuade the Government to repeal the law and intends to write to Mr Andrews. Dr McBain said by refusing to change the law, the Government was effectively frightening people into telling their children about how they were conceived.

The authority has so far received fewer than 10 applications from donors requesting information about children who have turned 18. Chief executive Louise Johnson said donors making the applications to date had been sensitive.

Sperm, egg donors allowed to trace children - National - BrisbaneTimes