Several health authorities in the Netherlands knew for years about the latest identified mass sperm donor, 43-year-old Simon from Groningen, but apparently did nothing with the information. According to NOS, UMC Groningen refused to work with him five years ago because it was clear he was a mass donor. And the Ministry of Public Health, Welfare, and Sports already knew that he had conceived too many children as early as 2017. Despite that, he ended up on a committee evaluating the donor law on behalf of the government in 2019.

Since last year, Dutch law prohibits sperm donors from conceiving children in more than 12 families. Fertility clinics also work with the guideline that donors are not allowed to conceive more than 25 children. Research by Nieuwsuur identified at least 121 children sired by Simon. Over the weekend, the man himself claimed he sired 199 children.

In the committee advising the government on the sperm donation law, Simon pushed to scrap the 25-child limit, arguing for a more “flexible number” to prevent waiting lists, among other things.

The Ministry told Nieuwsuur that it was not involved in the composition of this committee. “Nevertheless, this gentleman should of course never have gotten a seat on this supervisory committee,” Health Minister Sophie Hermans told Nieuwsuur. “I deeply regret that this happened.” She said that it “must be thoroughly investigated” how this happened.

The University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) told NOS that it reprimanded Simon in 2021, when he came to the hospital with a couple who met him online. UMCG refused to work with Simon. “We discovered that he was active at more centers and with more women than allowed. We pointed that out to him at the time.” Through UMCG’s own sperm bank, Simon had already sired seven children with five women at the time.

Asked whether the hospital reported the man to the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ), the UMCG spokesperson said that they did not. “The agreement is that the center where the donor is most active contacts the inspectorate.” The spokesperson could not say whether they contacted other clinics about the man.

Simon also donated at Rijnstate in Arnhem; several mothers and Ties van der Meer of the Donor Child Foundation told the broadcaster. The Rijnstate hospital refused to comment. The IGJ previously told Nieuwsuur that it was unaware of this mass donor.

The Donor Child Foundation, known as Stichting Donorkind in Dutch, is considering filing a lawsuit against Simon. The foundation previously successfully sued mass donor Jonathan Meijer. The court banned him from donating sperm again and imposed a penalty of €100,000 for each violation of that ban. “But we are going to discuss this with the mothers first: do we find what he says – that he has stopped – reliable, or not?” Van der Meer told NOS.