Crackdown on the IVF cowboys after probe reveals financial incentives to entice women into giving away eggs

The fertility watchdog last night launched a major crackdown on clinics exposed by the Daily Mail for exploiting desperate women.

It censured doctors after our undercover reporters revealed that financial incentives were being used to entice women into giving away their eggs.

One clinic has been banned from offering ‘egg sharing’ – a scheme giving women free or discounted treatment if they agree to donate half their healthy eggs.

Reporters had discovered that the clinic was targeting couples on low incomes and telling them never to put in writing that they were donating for financial reasons alone. They were also offered rip-off high interest loans to fund treatment.

The fertility watchdog emphatically endorsed the Mail’s findings, adding: ‘The allegation the centre is “exploiting desperate women on low incomes”, is accurate.’

Other clinics were reprimanded for giving desperate women false hope by exaggerating their success rates with frozen eggs. The regulator said doctors were selling expensive egg-freezing treatments to women using information that had no statistical validity and was misleading.

One was accused of ‘promoting egg freezing to enable patients to...