Social Science & Medicine 59 (2004) 2617–2626 Policy formation in gamete donation and egg sharing in the UK—a critical appraisal Eric Blyth a, *, Marilyn Crawshaw b , Ken Daniels c a School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK b Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK c Department of Social Work, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Available online 17 June 2004 Abstract This article considers two key policy documents concerning donor-assisted conception in the UK, The British Fertility Society’s Recommendations for Good Practice on the Screening of Egg and Embryo Donors and the Human FertilisationandEmbryologyAuthority’s Guidance for Egg Sharing Arrangements.Itdiscussesboththeprocessandthe evidence used in formulating those sections of the documents which relate to donor anonymity. The paper concludes that psycho-social policy developments in assisted conception, such as those relating to donor anonymity, should be subjected to comparable levels of rigour and scrutiny to those that are applied in the formulation of medical and scientific policies. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Human fertilisation and embryology authority; British fertility society; Donor anonymity; Egg sharing; UK Introduction TheHumanFertilisationandEmbryologyAuthority, theUK’sstatutoryregulatorybodyforassistedconcep- tion and embryo research, published the fifth edition of its Code of Practice in 2001 (HFEA, 2001). While the fiftheditionofthe Code of Practice retainedmuchofthe contents of previous editions, it also included new material, in particular: Guidance for Egg Sharing Arrangements, previously published by the HFEA as a stand-alone document in 2000 (HFEA, 2000) and the British Fertility Society’s (BFS) Recommendations for Good Practice on the Screening of Egg and Embryo Donors, included in Annex F: ‘Guidelines from Profes- sional Organisations’, and which was previously pub- lished in Human Fertility (Aird, Barratt, Murdoch, & British Fertility Society Committee, 2000). The British Fertility Society is the principal multi- professional body in the UK concerned with issues concerning assisted conception and embryo research. Because of the Society’s origins as a body for medical practitioners, this group remains dominant within BFS both in terms of current membership and influence on policy.TheBFSregularlyproducesguidelinesandother adviceforitsmembers,suchasthe Recommendations for Good Practice on the Screening of Egg and Embryo Donors. Whileadherencetotheseisnotmandatory,self- evidently they represent the Society’s views on current ‘best practice’. In this paper, we consider these documents and the process that led to their formulation and conclude that the use and appraisal of existing knowledge was surprisingly lacking in rigour when formulating evi- dence-based statements on psycho-social matters. We discuss possible reasons for that. Before doing so, we provide a brief overview of the legislativeandregulatorycontextofgametedonationin ARTICLE IN PRESS *Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1484-472457; fax: +44- 1484-472794. E-mail addresses: e.d.blyth@hud.ac.uk (E. Blyth), mac7@york.ac.uk (M. Crawshaw), ken.daniels@canterbury.ac.nz (K. Daniels). 0277-9536/$-see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.04.010