Two medical experts on IVF

On August 27 The Times reported an Italian expert, Luca Gianaroli, saying that an IVF programme based on egg freezing will be “expensive and inefficient”’.

Egg freezing is preferred as a technique as it avoids creating extra human embryos which may not all be implanted into the mother during IVF. The Italian Bioethics Committee states that three out of 10 embryos die when thawed. Besides, what do we do with the thousands of unclaimed frozen extra human embryos?

Dr Elena Porcu from Bologna, who has practised embryo freezing in the past, later successfully pioneered egg freezing as a viable proven alternative technique.

Dr Gianaroli, it seems, has never used the egg freezing technique, yet he claims it is inferior to embryo freezing.

Dr Porcu’s presentation at a public lecture held earlier this month disproves this claim with a barrage of valuable official statistics that show a comparable success rate to embryo freezing. Dr Gianaroli however has not supplied any evidence to back up his claims.

Dr Gianaroli was reported to have said that IVF treatment using egg freezing will cost twice as much as that using embryo freezing. Again Dr Porcu contradicts this view, stating that it costs between 15 and 25 per cent more to use the more ethically sound technique of egg freezing. Even if Dr Gianaroli is correct, how much is a human life worth to Maltese

MPs when they come to debate the IVF Bill?

Are we willing to allow the degrading, life-threatening and deeply unethical technique of embryo freezing simply because it may cost the taxpayer marginally less?

Both Dr Porcu and Dr Gianroli are from Bologna. Competition within the IVF services sector is fierce. Medical clinics invest heavily intellectually and financially in their respective field of expertise and change always comes at a price. This may be especially so when a newer technique directly threatens to affect ones market segment.