I don't know anything about selling eggs. But man, it sure seems like some sweet easy cash. Is it easy?

Surgery is never easy.

Im not sure of the specifics of the procedure but it can (at least) cause a woman to lose the ability to concieve. Im willing to bet that the 3K is only for a _successful_ donation as the "harvesting" apparently has a high failure rate.

So, high risk of loss of baby making abilities plus the low success rate make it pretty unattractive

I've read a lot about IVF, and I imagine the egg retrieval process is similar.

They stick a huge long needle through the vaginal wall to reach a follicle developing on the ovary. Over and over again. Yup, a cooter needle.

Yeah, no thanks.

I'd imagine it's the intensive hormone therapy used to encourage follicles that can screw up future fertility. Hyper-stimulation or some such thing.

There have been a lot of published medical journal articles on gamete donation, and I find the topic very interesting.

The use of hormones to induce proliferation of a specific cell type is normal practice in laboratory and clinical medicine. Treating donors for cancer patients involves increasing the T cell population (via hormones) before collecting samples. Researchers that need cells for their work will give donors hormone injections to increase the harvest of cells. So I guess I don't see a problem with that part of it. Although it is argued whether or not the specific hormone therapy before egg donation increases chances of ovarian cancer. But aging itself is an official risk factor.

I think the important biological factor is that it speeds up the onset of menopause, as a donor will naturally deplete her number of eggs more quickly.

Lastly, what I regard as the MOST interesting is that the most frequent reasons for donation were not of a monetary nature. Instead, they were to help someone else by being a donor, help an aquaintance, etc., such as the donors for the cancer patients or for research labs.