[extropy-chat] "Legal limit destroys 6642 embryos"

Damien Broderick thespike at satx.rr.com
Sun Sep 25 22:23:28 UTC 2005



Legal limit destroys 6642 embryos

By Carol Nader
Health Reporter, Melbourne Age newspaper
September 26, 2005


VICTORIAN IVF clinics have discarded more than 6600 embryos since state 
laws banned their storage beyond five years.

Since the legislation came into effect in 1998, at least 6642 embryos that 
had been frozen in Victorian IVF clinics have been destroyed.

Previously, embryos created in IVF clinics could be stored indefinitely.

The Age has found that only 5 per cent of couples choose to donate their 
embryos to couples who have been unsuccessful in creating an embryo through 
IVF.

However, clinics say that since they obtained licences from the National 
Health and Medical Research Council to use embryos for stem cell research, 
more couples who have completed their families are donating embryos to 
research.

Since 1998, Monash IVF, which had nine sites but has merged them into six, 
has disposed of 4099 embryos. Melbourne IVF's two clinics have disposed of 
2520 embryos.

Ballarat IVF, which has existed for only four years, has disposed of 23.

The statewide number could be slightly higher because Mildura Reproductive 
Medicine has not recorded the information. It is believed that only a small 
number have been destroyed at the clinic. Monash IVF managing director 
Donna Howlett said 917 couples attending that clinic had chosen to dispose 
of embryos since 1998.

As awareness of stem cell research had grown, she said, the proportion of 
couples donating unwanted embryos to research had grown from about 30 to 60 
per cent in the past year.

Couples can apply to the Infertility Treatment Authority to extend storage 
beyond five years if they have not completed their family.

Both parents are advised when the five-year duration of storage is 
approaching and asked for consent before the embryos are destroyed.

Ms Howlett said there had been a stock of embryos that the clinic had felt 
uncomfortable about discarding because it could not locate the parents to 
obtain their consent. The 1998 law enabled the clinic to dispose of those 
embryos.

Melbourne IVF spokesman John McBain said of the 2520 embryos discarded at 
the clinic, about 200 were being used for research. Most of the 45,000 
embryos frozen at the clinic had been thawed and transferred to the 
patient. While the proportion of couples donating their unused embryos to 
research was growing, donating embryos to other couples was not, Dr McBain 
said.

Ballarat IVF director Russell Dalton said most couples in the area chose to 
donate embryos to other couples rather than destroy them.

Right to Life Australia spokeswoman Margaret Tighe said excess embryos 
should not be produced and frozen "like manufactured commodities".




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