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No area of medicine has advanced more rapidly, nor created more controversy, than the treatment of infertility. In the 32 years since the birth of Louise Brown, the world's first test-tube baby, at Oldham General Hospital, Lancashire, enormous strides have been taken to help the millions of couples devastated by the discovery that they are unable to have a family. Just last week, one of the pioneers of IVF, Professor Robert Edwards, received the 2010 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his ground-breaking work in treating infertility.
Yet in vitro fertilisation remains the preserve of the privileged few – because of its cost. The NHS has never provided the three cycles of treatment that the National Institute of Clinical Excellence says it should; yesterday, a primary-care trust in Essex stopped all IVF treatment until 2011 in an attempt to curb its overspend.
Private treatment, meanwhile, costs from £3,000 to £10,000 a cycle, and often several cycles are required. It is estimated that only one in five of those who need treatment with IVF receive it in the West, and fewer than...