Some fertility clinics exploit vulnerable couples: expert

Men and women desperate to have a child are being exploited by fertility clinics, quoting inflated success rates and suggesting expensive tests that will not increase the chances of having a baby.

The president of the Irish Fertility Society (IFS), John Waterstone, has said the “increasing commercialisation” of assisted reproduction urgently needs to be tackled through regulation.

“It is all too easy to attract patients by quoting inflated and unsubstantiated ‘success’ rates and then relieve them of thousands more euro than they had anticipated spending,” said Dr Waterstone.

“This can be achieved by suggesting a variety of add-ons to IVF treatment… all expensive but none likely to increase the chance of taking home a baby.”

Some of the tests and treatments Dr Waterstone was referring to included tests for immune problems, IMSI (intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection), embryos being placed in a time lapse incubator, and routine pre-implantation genetic screening.

In his speech to the 10th annual conference of the IFS, the medical director of the Cork Fertility Centre also harshly criticised the Child and Family Relationship Bill (CFRB) as “flawed” legislation and “a missed opportunity” and warned it will be constitutionally challenged.

“The CFRB, as originally drafted, set out to clarify the legal parentage of children born after surrogacy and donor conception,” said Dr Waterstone.

“The bill failed to confine itself to simple specification of legal parenthood.

“The bill which emerged is so draconian in its efforts to ban anonymous donation that it threatens the funda-mental rights of subfertile couples to privacy and autonomy and is unlikely to withstand constitutional challenge.”

He also accused the Department of Health of locking fertility experts out of the crucial stages of the consultation process leading up to the drafting of the CFRB and assisted reproduction guidelines.

A meeting between department representatives and fertility professionals took place in July last year and amounted to little more than “a window-dressing exercise”, he said.

Dr Waterstone also warned that, in the past two years, fertility clinic sare increasingly under foreign ownership.

“Increasingly, it seems, IVF units will be under foreign ownership: Will their raison d’etre be to maximise profits for investors or to optimise care of patients?” said Dr Waterstone.