BioEdge: British IVF clinics on a "sauce train": Robert Winston



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On July 25, the 40th anniversary of the birth of Louise Brown, the world's first IVF, was the opportunity to crack bottles of champagne and congratulate the media. But a British pioneer of IVF, Professor Lord Robert Winston, argues that the celebration should be much more moderate.

In an interview with The Irish News, he says that "people are sucked into IVF without a full recognition of the success rate is". The private sector fertility clinics, he says, are on a "sauce train" in the UK. Mixing the "desperation" of couples for a child and the "greed" of private practice is a "dangerous combination".

"The HFEA [Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority] records the success rate by embryo transfer, but this is in itself misleading. a large number of women start a cycle but never reach the stage of embryo transfer, either because their ovaries do not respond or because the eggs do not fertilize. "

A major problem with treating infertility is that it could have" 50, 60 or 70 different causes "- and some of them could be treated with means that are less invasive and stressful than IVF

"The first thing we need to change, what we do not do in reproductive medicine, is to consider infertility as a symptom … for now, we consider this as a diagnosis and it is fundamentally wrong to offer treatment on the basis of symptoms – because the underlying cause of the symptom will vary …

"In many cases, in vitro fertilization does not occur. is not the best [treatment] – but it's the most cost-effective … Unexplained infertility is nonsense; it's a failure to make a diagnosis.People are reluctant to conducting investigations that, in my opinion, are warranted, because for the moment, many patients do not fall s pregnant with an in vitro fertilization cycle and become pregnant once IVF is complete

. important issues is to make a diagnosis and find other more simple and effective remedies, but most clinics are now prepared to do IVF, so that they do not actually treat the problem under -jacent. "


Michael Cook
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