CRACKDOWN ON ROGUE IVF CLINICS

Probe ordered after Mail revelations women over frozen eggs Clinics ‘dupe’ MPs call for tough new laws

ROGUE fertility clinics that exploit desperate women by asking them to donate eggs for cash and free treatment are to be investigated following a Mail exposé. Industry watchdogs yesterday launched an urgent investigation after we revealed women were being offered IVF at no cost – if they agree to give away half the healthy eggs they produce.

The probe by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) comes as we today reveal that clinics are also using ‘false information’ to convince women who want to delay motherhood to freeze their eggs.

An undercover reporter was told doing so would give her a ‘very good’ chance of having a baby in her forties.

One doctor claimed she would have a 65 per cent chance of having a child if

WOMEN who have been convinced to donate eggs for free IVF last night told of their guilt and distress.

They contacted the Mail after we exposed clinics’ egg sharing schemes, which offer treatment at no cost in return for egg donations.

One said: ‘I lie awake at night thinking of the children who share my DNA but have been raised by other women.’

Staff convinced her to share her eggs three times by saying donation was ‘like giving blood’ – the same words used by IVF nurses who tried to sell treatment to undercover reporters.

A consultant convinced the 26-year-old – who could not afford IVF – that she would be ‘wasting’ her eggs if she didn’t donate them.

Ten years on, she is yet to forgive the consultants who led her to believe there were no long-term consequences.

Yesterday, the Mail revealed how women on low incomes are offered free or discounted IVF if they donate half the eggs they produce.

The egg-sharing schemes allow clinics to charge other infertile couples up to £7,500 a time for treatment with the donor eggs.

In the UK it is illegal for IVF clinics to pay women outright to donate their eggs.

Donors who give away eggs

‘My life was incomplete’

altruistically can be paid a maximum of £750 in compensation to make sure they are not left out of pocket.

Clinics can offer donors free or discounted treatment – a big incentive as IVF usually costs around £3,000 per cycle.

One woman contacted the Mail after our investigation to tell how she agreed to share her eggs three times because she and her husband could not fund treatment.

The woman, who asked not to be named to protect her family, said lengthy NHS waiting lists forced her and her husband to seek treatment at a private clinic in 2007.

Leaflets advertising egg sharing as ‘Free IVF’ were on show there. She said: ‘All I could think about was how incomplete my life was without a baby. I reached for the leaflet offering egg sharing and the doctor said I would be a great candidate.

‘I now know that it was in his interests to say that because they’d be making a healthy profit from another couple who were essentially buying my eggs.’ She went on to egg share three times and fell pregnant with her daughter, now 8, during her second IVF cycle. The recipients on her first and third cycles both had babies with her eggs.

A doctor said she should share eggs as they ‘die inside the body if not used’.

‘I wish someone had presented all the scenarios to us,’ the woman told the Mail.

‘I’ve explained to my daughter in very basic terms that I had a broken belly and another lady had a broken belly and I gave them eggs so they could have babies.

‘She has asked me a few times “What’s your other daughter’s name?” That’s heartbreaking to me.’

Sally Cheshire, chairman of the HFEA, said regulatory action would be taken against any clinics where there has been poor practice, adding: ‘If any patients at these clinics have worries about their care, they should contact us while we investigate further.’

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘I urge anyone with concerns to contact the HFEA without delay.’