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The truth about IVF treatment
Infertility clinics have become big business over the last two decades with 20% IVF growth every year, but the technology has failed to deliver. Explore this busy IVF site for more - many pages and video.
IVF couples want human cloning for infertility - video
Ever since the first test-tube baby was born in 1978 there have been hopes that almost every couple could one day have their own children, but the reality is far different. The failure rates with IVF can be appalling in some clinics, yet couples continue to spend a small fortune seeking help because they see it as their only hope.
The IVF industry is powered by photographs of beautiful babies held by proud parents, and being childless is so traumatic for many that almost any cost can seem worth paying. And indeed the birth of a desperately wanted child is a priceless miracle for a couple who have otherwise given up all hope apart from IVF. Every year many thousands of couples become delighted parents through IVF. This is a trully wonderful thing.
Two mums and one dad make one baby
However there have been growing rumbles for some time that parts of the IVF industry are running out of steam with low success rates in some centres, high costs, serious drug-related side effects and poor regulation in some nations, for example over persuading women to "sell" their eggs for free treatment.
Now these fears are confirmed in a damning IVF report by the Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy published.This follows a fierce debate on health rationing with at least one health authority banning infertility treatment on the NHS.
Critics of this decision may be forced to think again. After all, what is the point of pouring large amounts of money into IVF techniques which hardly work? Of course the answer is to invest in clinics that are getting the best results.
Infertility is common and distressing. One in six of all couples seek medical help because of childlessness, and one in twenty will never have a child despite all that medicine can offer. Thus it entangles the emotional and physical lives of tens of thousands of people every year, affecting their sex lives, causing tension in relationships, creating guilt, embarrassment and feelings of shame or inadequacy.
The commonest reason for infertility in women is Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) which now accounts for one in five of all gynaecological admissions.
This chronic and sometimes silent infection is often caused by ly transmitted organisms such as gonorrhoea or chlamydia which can damage the fallopian tubes.
Other causes include infection from abortion, contraceptive coils or giving birth.
Even where damage is slight, surgical repair has a success rate that can be as low as 10-20%. The alternative is IVF where the ovaries are simulated, eggs are collected through an endoscope, fertilised, cultivated and replaced.
Such treatment cycles take place around 30,000 times a year in Britain, at a cost of up to £2,500 each. The industry has a £75 million turnover, yet success rates are so low that if this were any other area of medicine, the IVF clinics would probably be closed down.
Pregnancy rates per IVF cycle of 25% or more are quoted by Dr Mercia Page, Medical Director of Serono Laboratories, which has 80% of the market in infertility drugs. However she admits that this figure is achieved only by "good" clinics with women under forty and men with normal fertility. She said last week that live birth rates "are as good or better per cycle as nature".
Similar claims are made by others in the industry but the reality is that a mere 12.7% of treatment cycles in many clinics actually result in a live birth of a baby, as thousands of couples are discovering to their cost. Even more disturbing is the fact that the birth rates for individual IVF clinics over a six month period can vary from 0% to 50% according to recent reports of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
There is nothing at all controversial in medical treatments with low success rates: indeed we see it all the time for some kinds of cancers but of course we plough on, striving for better. The difference is that when it comes to IVF in countries like the UK, the treatments are usually private, not covered by state care nor by medical insurance, the couple are paying out of their own pockets, and the pressures are there for clinics to keep busy even when their own success rates are not as good as the people they treat may be hoping. And the treatments are very expensive. | 
