New guidelines tackling the dishonesty of the IVF industry have been issued by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). IVF clinics have failed to be transparent regarding the true “success rate” of in vitro fertilisation, says the watchdog.
IVF clinics should not “guarantee success”, according to new official guidance, and could be breaking the law if they do, says the CMA, in conjunction with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
A review of IVF clinics has revealed that the industry exaggerates the success rate of IVF, often guaranteeing women a baby or claiming to be the number one clinic in the UK in terms of success rate.
The CMA noted that IVF clinics “cherry-pick” success rates from good years, or rates from certain groups, instead of presenting an average and true rate of “success”.
The UK watchdog has now given the IVF industry six months before reviewing the sector again, threatening to take legal action if it continues to break the law.
The Advertising Standards Authority has also published an enforcement notice requiring clinics to comply with the Advertising Code by November.
Spiralling costs and misleading claims
Sally Cheshire, ex-chairman of HFEA, recently called out the IVF industry for taking advantage of vulnerable women, as reported by SPUC.
The ex-chairman accused clinics of charging “eye-watering” prices and taking advantage of women who had “lost a year of their lives” due to COVID-19 lockdowns and health service delays.
Just one IVF cycle can cost over £20,000 in the UK.
“All patients deserve to have the information they need to make the right choices for them and be treated fairly”, said Louise Strong, the CMA’s consumer director.
The human price tag
Only around 20% of IVF cycles in Britain lead to a live birth – an 80% failure rate.
Each cycle also carries a massive human price tag. In each IVF cycle, multiple human embryos are discarded, with only one in 25 embryos created through IVF surviving to birth.
In 2017 alone, 174,622 embryos were discarded during treatment, or after they had been taken out of storage, in the UK. The number of embryos destroyed between 1991 and 2017 was 2,753,560.
SPUC has repeatedly condemned this “profoundly unethical technique”.
The “exploitation of vulnerable couples” for profit
Last April, Lisa Riley, actress from the ITV television soap Emmerdale, spoke out about the heartbreak and emotional cost of IVF, which she says her fiancé almost “lost” her to. He “would never want me to go through IVF again because he said he lost the girl he fell in love with”, Riley said.
Michael Robinson, SPUC’s Director of Communications, said: “IVF comes at a huge emotional cost for women, as well as their partners.
“The dodgy dealings and dishonest marketing techniques employed by the industry are nothing short of a disgrace.
“As well as making a commodity out of babies, the majority of which are discarded before they are born, the IVF industry is founded on the exploitation of vulnerable couples.
“HFEA statistics show that, out of roughly 51,000 patients undergoing IVF treatment every year in the UK between 2016-2018, only around a third had a successful live birth.
“Such facts go missing when the IVF industry trades on the desperation and heartbreak of women, in particular, who are treated as susceptible paying ‘consumers’.
“IVF does nothing to address the actual causes of infertility and so we would better serve couples in this difficult situation by promoting ethical alternatives, such as NaproTechnology, which actually do seek to treat the root causes, and which avoid the destructive wastage of human life and exploitation of women.
“While the latest CMA guidance is to be welcomed, it does not change the fact that IVF is an exploitative industry that misuses the embryo, which is a human being, and mis-sells its product to couples for profit.”