* NOW MAN OR WOMAN 'NOT INCLUDED':

        The founder of a controversial UK-based website is claiming to be the first to offer a worldwide database of human eggs for sale to infertile women. The service is a spin-off of another website, mannnotincluded.com which sells mail order sperm to infertile couples, lesbians, and single women. The new website, called WomanNotIncluded, is believed to be the first of its kind.

        John Gonzalez,founder of the two sites, says that 40 egg donors from the UK, Italy and France, have registered at the site so far. To become an egg donor at Woman Not Included, women must detail their medical history, ethnic origin and their hair and eye colour. They can also include information about their academic achievements.

        Arrangements are then made for the woman to anonymously donate her eggs at a fertility clinic where screening, IVF and implantation take place, all paid for by the recipient, who will already have paid a subscription fee of around £145 and between £600 and £1,200 for searches of the database and any introductions they receive.

        The donor receives only a reimbursement of her expenses, as allowed by UK law, but she cannot be paid for donating her eggs. In the UK, sperm and egg donation procedures must take place at clinics licensed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), and the law prohibits payments to donors of more than £15, plus loss of earnings and travelling expenses. A spokeswoman for the HFEA said that 'as long as the donor is not being paid or coerced in any way, these arrangements are perfectly legal'.

         Mr Gonzalez, who is based in London's Harley Street, said that he had always intended to set up a sister-site to ManNotIncluded, in order 'to help women looking for egg donors, because that is a huge problem, certainly in the UK and the rest of Europe'. 'We believe this is the world's first comprehensive online provider of human eggs', he added. He claims that ManNotIncluded, launched in June 2002, has so far resulted in six births.

- The Evening Standard 23/2/2004 'Human eggs for sale on the net'
- The Evening Standard:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/9287505?source=Evening%20Standard
- BBC News Online 18/2/2004 'Human genome data to be released'
- BBC News Online:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3499877.stm
- The Scientist 19/2/2004 'Celera defends human sequence'
- The Scientist:http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040219/02/
- Science 13/2/2004 'Incyte throws in the towel on genomics, trims workforce'