Aggregated News
This week I feel ashamed. This newspaper has published evidence of widespread bad practice in my own medical speciality, infertility treatment.
And I feel angry because the Government’s regulatory body, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has been inadequate. It has not prevented the disgraceful exploitation of patients, mostly women.
I am also depressed because, 27 years ago, we doctors promised Parliament that we would ensure the highest standards where procedures involved human life and the treatment of embryos.
One of the latest scandals concerns so-called egg sharing.
Egg sharing is offered by some clinics with apparently laudable intentions. The clinics argue that it makes treatment available to women unable to afford IVF and who are ineligible for NHS treatment.
The women agree to have their ovaries stimulated by drugs to produce eggs. Some of these eggs will be fertilised for their own treatment; others will be donated to other patients who cannot produce eggs. These recipients pay for their own treatment and for that of the donor.
It sounds reasonable but, in fact, it is fraught. First, by...