Britain's leading foetal medicine expert has condemned the IVF industry for 'exploiting women' by offering them unproven and expensive treatments.

Private IVF clinics are 'exploiting women' - Observer

Extract:

"Britain's leading foetal medicine expert has condemned the IVF industry, saying some private clinics are exploiting women desperate to get pregnant by offering them unproven and expensive treatments.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Professor Charles Rodeck, founder and head of the unit for foetal medicine at University College Hospital London, has expressed particular concern over some of the drugs and tests being offered to infertile couples.

'The commercial world of IVF provision is a very competitive one, so some clinics try to keep a step ahead by offering more interventions than their competitors, even if they know those procedures might not work,' he said.

Rodeck transformed the use of foetal medicine in Britain by initiating the use of ultrasound for foetal therapy and diagnosis of malformations in the late Seventies. He went on to set up the first foetal medicine unit in the early Eighties, as well as setting up clinics specialising in the care of young women.

'Even though I have no evidence that the mothers or babies are being harmed by the extra hormones and steroids they are increasingly being given by these clinics, you can't be sure what happens to a baby when you put unnecessary and unproven medicines into its mother's body,' he said.

His work has left him open to attacks from the anti-abortion lobby but he is defiant. 'The truth is that not all human life is totally sacrosanct,' he said. 'Nature has a mechanism called "miscarriage" which eliminates many of its early errors but it is not always totally efficient and so some of these errors survive. What we are trying to do simply use technology to assist Nature.'

Rodeck also criticised some private clinics for giving poor information to couples. 'Offering these interventions becomes exploitation when clinics do not spell out the pros, cons and limitations of these interventions because couples so desperately want to get pregnant, that they will pay for virtually any treatment if they think it will increase their chances,' he said.

There are 85 licensed fertility clinics in the UK, in an industry worth up to £500m a year. According to latest figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, in 2004 more than 30,000 patients underwent more than 40,000 treatment cycles, each costing up to £8,000.

Rodeck says he agrees with the concerns voiced earlier this year by Lord Winston, professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London, that the IVF industry has been corrupted by money. He pointed to a growing range of expensive clinical practices offered to couples at private clinics, despite there being very limited evidence that such interventions work."

It's good to see a doctor warning that prescribed drugs can do harm.

If a woman is subfertile because she is overweight/obese, avoiding salt and salty food would help because this would reduce the fluid retention that is the cause of obesity.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
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Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

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