That's right... and 30% more birth defects.

km

Not really... the English language allows for both literal and figurative writing and it allows an author to mix them up,


Okay well taking those points in reverse order I don't remember saying "they got it all wrong" so I don't need to defend that form of words. To say "they thought they knew it all" is to say that they had some knowledge but not enough and, yes, "they failed" because they played God but brought children into the world with horrific disabilities.


if one in one thousand events in an experiment is unacceptable then the experiment itself is a 100 per cent unacceptable.


Well, you're not suffering from a cleft lip caused by a mad scientist, are you.


No. I reject the whole idea of IVF as dangerous and unnatural... the fact that it's giving rise to birth defects is why it has to stop without further ado. There needs to be debate about the best alternative destination for the resources.


Call then statistically minor flaws if you like but you're not suffering from Angelman Syndrome are you.

km

Nice hyperbole. Since the number is 2.5% of births, then 30% of 2.5 is what? .75% of the births. .75% sounds better than a whopping 30% number, but doesn't create so much ooh ahh.

I don't believe you'd think we'd fall for that.

Desperate? A person dying of some painful disease is desperate.


Correct - that's self-evident.


No, that's not a right - they have to be vetted to make sure they're suitable.


Stealing? I never said that... what I said is that the resources could be put to better use.


No, I'm saying they should be diverted because not all uses of public funds have equal rank. In Britain the National Health Service has finite resources so any money spent on one area of medicine necessarily prejudices another.


Well "fallout" describes the bundle of unacceptable consequences... if you want to personalise them you'd call those affected, I dunno... "victims" I suppose.


Gays and Lesbians? Holocaust survivors? What have they got to do with it? You're the one advocating birth defects not me - I'm arguing for their prevention.


Alright you'd spend the last £3,300 of the NHS budget on another IVF experiment with all attendant risks of human suffering and I'd spend it on providing medical care for someone already suffering - patrons can reach they're own conclusions about who's cold and dispassionate.

km

Not to me it doesn't - it sounds the same, but actually the numbers are 2.5 per cent birth defects in the general population and 3.5 per cent in ART cases which was headlined as 30 per cent more but is actually 40 per cent more.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority (HFEA) say that about 20 per cent of ART procedures result in births so if the article's right that there are more than 10,000 such births in Britain every year there would be 50,000 procedures. Okay shoot, what have we got... of the 10,000 ART births in Britain every year 1 per cent or 1,000 are born with the kind of horrific avoidable disabilities described in the survey.

The annual total cost of the treatments would be about 50,000 @ £3,300 or £165,000,000 so the cost of each disabled child works out at at about £1,650,000 not counting after care costs. Absolutely bizarre - spending public money creating disablement when health funds are supposed to prioritise medical cures and treatments.

km

1 per cent of 10,000 is 100, not 1,000. No-one wishes it on even 1.

Speaking as someone with a disability (probably caused by cosmic particles - some cell failing to divide when I was -6 months old popped me out with some missing muscles), your life is what you and those around you make it. Having life is a pretty good opportunity.

I suspect that of those 100 births involving disabilities, there's a whole range from minor to major, many not requiring loads of expensive care.

Whoops! - Okay, 100 cases every year.


Quite agree... everything should be done to prevent a handicap or inhibit any detriment from it but if it's unavoidable one needs to handle it as best one can with all the support that can be offered.


I don't think anyone knows the cost of that.

km

You know, these and all the other arguments you've puked up in this thread only confirm that you were born with neither sole nor compassion nor imagination. To what do we attribute so many birth defects in one body? Up 'til now you've been entertaining in an annoying way. Sometimes marginally thought-provoking. After this thread, I find you only pitiable.

Yes. That's a totally personal response. Not whit of fact or statistical content in it. But why waste time presenting realities that you will only refute since they are never consistent with what you "know" to be the only "truth" in your poorly ventilated mind.

You'll call it a personal attack. I call it your biography.

I thought you were a clear communicator? I 've got no idea from that ridiculous response what part of my post you're taking issue with; whether you're disputing a 100 birth defect cases every year, whether you agree that number but find it acceptable... or generally wtf you're going on about other than apparently trying to prevail in a discussion with non-specific smear generalisations?


Oh yeah, I want to stop 100 birth defects every year in Britain and I lack compassion - you on the other hand piously shake your head at the fallout offering no comfort to the afflicted whatsoever, knowing that the resources could be applied to end intolerable suffering of children already in need, and all of a sudden you're Mr. Imagination. No one's going to buy that.

km

So far all there's been is statistical research suggesting that among children conceived through IVF there's a slightly higher instance of birth defects than otherwise.

There's no clear indication as to why this is, whether the cause is the IVF, or whether, for example, it's connected with the parents' inability to conceive in the more usual manner, or a host of other possible contributive causes - what are the lifestyles of the parents, what is the pollution level where they live, diet, weather patterns (don't laugh at that one - people who are born nearer the poles and were carried through winter are statistically more likely to be schizophrenic - it's a sunshine thing) etc. etc. Has this trend increased, decreased, stayed the same, since IVF was first introduced?

Statistics have a tendency to hang over the edge of facts like a muffin-top, implying that they are telling us a lot more than they are really capable of doing. It should be a cause for concern if IVF pregnancies have a slightly higher tendency to result in birth defects, but there's loads more work to be done before any fingers get pointed.

Meanwhile, 9,900 children born without disabilities, who would not otherwise be born. 100 born with a greater or lesser range of disabilities, who would not otherwise be born - and any of whom (statistically speaking) might have been born with disabilities anyway. If the goal of the experiment is 100% success, then it has yet to reach that goal (as has 'natural' conception), but it is obviously not a 100% failure in the meantime.