AbstractIVF survivorship is a novel concept in the field of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and their attendant autoethnographies. It also disputes the ART industry’s preferred narratives of ‘curing’ infertility and ‘delivering on baby dreams’, ideas that play well in cultures that celebrate parenting. The ART industry was able to expand with impunity for decades by…
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Three IVF memoirs provide the basis for new analysis and scrutiny surrounding the IVF consumer journey experiences and ‘IVF survivorship’ Jennifer Takhar, Associate Professor of Marketing and Communication at ISG Business School and a research affiliate at the Linguistic and International Resources Center at the Graduate School of Communication and Journalism (CELSA) of the Sorbonne…
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Harvard Law’s Petrie-Flom Center recently hosted an event focused on IVF Add-ons. This event included several experts in reproductive medicine for a discussion of the scientific, ethical, regulatory, and legal considerations of IVF add-ons, with a particular focus on the add-on procedure known as PGT-A, preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy. Eli Adashi, Professor of Medical…
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Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash Lucy van de Wiel’s research, published in New Genetics and Society, provides a chilling look at the role of money in the IVF and egg freezing fields. She notes that venture capitalists and private equity firms see big financial returns and choose to fund egg freezing companies because unlike…
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Will IVF clinics continue to mislead consumers? At today’s annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) embryologist Johanna Devroe from the University Hospital of Leuven, Belgium, presented a study showing that couples embarking on IVF to treat their infertility tend to overestimate their chance of success. The message to clinics:…
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ReproTechTruths co-founder Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos wrote this op-ed for The New York Times. Titled The Big IVF Add On Racket, it brings much needed attention to the unethical way IVF add-ons are developed and sold to patients seeking help to become pregnant. This piece calls attention to several new papers published this month in…
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At the 2019 American Society for Reproductive Medicine Scientific Congress in Philadelphia Dr. May-Tal Sauerbrun-Cutler presented her study, “IVF clinic websites: buyer beware the system is broken.’ You can download her paper here. Buyer Beware Medscape Medical News reported on Sauerbrun-Cutler’s study of 361 IVF clinics. Excerpt below. Not all in vitro fertilization (IVF)…
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The following essay comes from a former IVF patient. She underwent multiple failed IVF and ‘donor’ egg cycles. In the years since, she has endured a series of health issues. The IVF industry’s failure to collect health data leaves patients who’ve undergone assisted reproductive technology procedures with guesswork and unnecessary suffering. The lack of longitudinal…
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Elaine lives in Switzerland and was 35 when she started treatment. She began writing a blog about her life without children, grief and other related topics. Her goal is to break the taboo of involuntary childlessness and to provide a safe place for other women on a similar journey. She works in a cultural institution…
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Susan Bewley, an Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Women’s Health at Kings College London, witnessed the first women to die after IVF and has since written about the adverse outcomes from IVF. She gave a talk on abuse in the IVF industry at a recent gathering in London and provided permission to share her remarks…
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