IVF Add-ons Racket: New Oversight Needed
IVF add-ons are the dirty little secret in the ‘fertility’ industry. These interventions are the latest in a long history of the industry experimenting on women.
As I moved from IVF patient to patient advocate I’ve had the opportunity to monitor the industry from a unique perspective. You can see it unfold the past decade in The New York Times.
Firstly, there was June 10, 2008. That’s the day The New York Times ran a feature story about my move away from IVF treatment. I spoke about the personal and social challenges in this companion audio feature: patient voices.
From Patient to Patient Advocate
However, it wasn’t long before I realized the industry misled patients. A little more than five years ago The New York Times agreed to run an op-ed authored by me and my fellow patient advocate and friend Miriam Zoll. Our piece Selling the Fantasy of Fertility exposed the distorted reality that fertility medicine equals ‘successful science’
Today I woke up before dawn to see my latest op-ed run in The New York Times. The editors didn’t pull any punches with the headline they wrote: The Big IVF Add-on Racket. The piece landed on the homepage alongside major news around the world. Its placement signals this is not a topic to be taken lightly.
Clinics Prioritize Profits Over Safety
The op-ed reveals the unethical way the industry develops and sells add-ons to patients seeking help to become pregnant.
But, this op-ed is not the only piece making waves. It follows several new papers published this month in Fertility and Sterility, including one I co-authored as part of an international team of researchers, academics and patient advocates. Our article, Do à la carte menus serve infertility patients? The ethics and regulation of in vitro fertility add-ons, raises many tough questions
Companion papers on IVF add-ons run in the December print issue. They include:
– Clinical adjuncts in in vitro fertilization: a growing list;
– Add-ons in the laboratory: hopeful, but not always helpful
– In vitro fertilization add-ons for the endometrium: it doesn’t add-up
Furthermore, the papers, as a package, point to a troubling pattern of the profit-driven IVF industry. They reveal how new procedures and therapies enter clinical practice before their effectiveness or safety had been validated.
So, is it any wonder there are problems when you see Tweets like this from last week:
There is a large financial incentive in doing some of these things – in answer to why are fertility patients receiving treatments without necessary evidence #PETconf19 pic.twitter.com/UGoJvJULD0
— BioNews (@BioNewsUK) December 4, 2019
Call for Change – Will It Be Heeded?
Moreover, there has never been a well-organized constituency calling for change in the IVF industry. Maybe this will happen in 2020. Welcome your thoughts and shares.
As I said in this @nytopinion There needs to be more rigor in how #IVF procedures are developed, researched and put into use. Self-policing by the industry has failed patients. #UnmaskingIVF The Big IVF Add-On Racket https://t.co/iEkGQqDfLv
— Pamela M Tsigdinos (@PamelaJeanne) December 12, 2019
I also haven’t lost sight of the emotional toll that accompanies IVF or involuntary childlessness. You can read my latest on this topic over at Medium: A Socially Unacceptable Grief.
Klara
dear Pamela,
I am so proud of you! Congratulations on the article being published!
We were also sold many add-ons.
In a private clinic in Austria they sold us some very expensive genetic tests. The results came back perfectly fine, nothing is wrong with our genes.
And in Czech Republic – private clinic – they sold us an egg donation. This is something I am really not proud of doing (being depressed and desperate is my excuse). Sometimes I think of a young woman – does she thinks that there is her child out in the world that she doesn’t know? There isn’t… at least not with us. At the clinic nobody bothered to explain us – that in many way this child would be – at least for me – very similar to an adopted one.
sending you lots of love from Europe.
Klara, Childless after 10 failed IVFs
(and thanks also to you – finding my own happiness after infertility again)
Pamela Tsigdinos
It’s smart, strong, honest women like you Klara who share their stories and make the world a better place. xx
Elaine
Dear Pamela, congratulations and thank you for keeping up this important work!
I am so glad that the readers of The New York Times are being educated on this topic.
Wishing you peaceful holidays and all the best for the new year to come!
Pamela Tsigdinos
Thank you, Elaine! So appreciate your kind words. Froehe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch!
Life After Infertility: One Decade, Many Thoughts – Silent Sorority
[…] Know that clinics don’t always fully understand the underlying infertility causes. They can be far too transactional and IVF procedure driven. Many are also too quick to offer (or sell) patients experimental, minimally tested add-on procedures. […]