I wouldn't describe a 40 per cent increased incidence as 'slight' but 'quite substantial'. Nature selects the strongest sperm of millions to fertilise the safest egg whereas the mad scientist thinks that any old sperm or egg is good enough for the experiment. It's morally irresponsible for that community to go off on some wild goose chase trying to find some other explanation for the defects when it's right there under their noses knowing that more and more infants are going to be born with horrific disabilities using funds that are being denied to those in really desperate need.

km

Thank you for helping me make my case. Your response is as myopic, as egocentric, and as masturbatory as any you've ever made. I really do question you humanity — and your ability to recognize any sound or thought other than the troublesome static btwn your ears.

So the particular point you disagree with is... ?

km

On any other subject, a one percent variance would be declared statistically insignificant. Here it's touted as a 30% increase. The article is yet another tempest in a teapot.

This thread should be relabeled, "the use and misuse of data and percents in biology. When I first saw the 30% I knew it was a secondary number derived from a small increase. A small increase that takes in all IVF data from the beginning and in fact weighted for the early IVF because some birth defects take a long time to show up. The number has built in a percent of birth defects in IVF today which likely will not occur. So the misuse of taking a one percent jump and making it into a 30% increase is laughable because the one percent is likely not real**. But to do it with a biological entity is obscene. Even a true 30% increase is hardly a blip if speaking of data derived from defects in humans.

So I give the article an A in fear mongering and an F in scientific worthiness. I could offer up anecdotal experiences with several IVF children, my daughter for one, that makes this data and the argument it puts forth as foolish but it is only anecdotal. When a child is born there are all sorts of odds for birth defects. A one percent chance is lost in the much larger numbers. Now if I was told my daughter had a one percent chance of being a lawyer, kill me now. [tongue]

** For more on why these data are lying at face value read Stephen Jay Gould's The Median Isn't the Message.

Here we go with red circles and arrows again. Just for you... I disagree with your entire position on this issue. I find it distasteful, disdainful, dismissive, and frankly, disgusting. You have not presented a single point that I find palatable. And if you think I'm going to waste my time trying to explain the obvious to the oblivious (that would be you, in case one more red arrow is needed), think again. But perhaps if I couch my opinion in your own dialect, you might get it: You're wrong again!


Nah, you still won't get it.

Complete rubbish, with respect. Multiple births remain the biggest risk with fertility treatment and its about time that we were more explicit about the dangers of IVF in that respect. The chances of a baby dying before birth or in his or her first week of life is four times higher in twins and seven times higher in triplets. You might benefit from the original report and having read it consider why informed scientific opinion is at variance with your own.

km

Sampling errors don't apply here because the survey analysed birth defects in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study over a 6 year period and used multiple logistic regression to adjust for confounders.


As I said elsewhere it's more like a 40 per cent increase... which is highly significant of course.


Not really... the warnings are those of experts namely scientists from the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and happen to reinforce the warnings of other experts worldwide that ART increases the risk of serious disorders. Those include genetic damage to the unborn child and nuerological conditions such as cerebral palsy for example being three times more probable with IVF than with other children as well as posing dangers to the participants themselves such as an increased risk of ovarian cancer in woman undergoing such procedures.

I dare say there are some who have been taken in by the propaganda of clinics which make most of their money from failure and so may be inclined to deliberately suppress information which threatens their commercial interests. Informed opinion however is more discerning.

km

"U.S. research involving nearly 20,000 births published this year . . . "

Unless they included ALL births and ALL birth defects, sampling errors would most definitely apply.

"The scientists from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta looked at more than 13,500 births and a further 5,000 control cases using data from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study".

So the CDC didn't even do their own "research". Even more chance for sampling errors.

This guy makes me yearn for the days of Testagent and his ilk...