Family Fact: Frozen, and Unchosen

Family Quote: In Defense of Dignity

Family Research Abstract: Looking at IVF

According to a new study conducted by SART (Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology) and the RAND, there were 396,526 cryopreserved embryos in the United States as of January 2003.  This is roughly twice the previously estimated total of frozen embryos.

(Source:  David I. Hoffman, Gail L. Zellman, C. Christine Fair, Jacob F. Meyer, Joyce G. Zeitz, William E. Gibbons, and Thomas G. Turner, "Cryopreserved Embryos in the United States and Their Availability for Research," Fertility & Sterility, vol. 79, no. 5 [May 2003], 1063-1069; www.meddevel.com/site.mash?left=/library.exe&m1=1&m2=1&right=/library.exe&action=home&site=fns&jcode=fns.)

"[F}ew seem to care about what it means for a society increasingly to regard a child not as a mysterious stranger given to be cherished as someone to take our place, but rather as a product of our will, to be perfected by design and to satisfy our wants."

(Source:  Leon Kass, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics, Encounter Books, 2002, p. 11.) 

"Retinoblastoma is a malignant tumour of the retina that occurs in childhood.  Since 1945, the incidence of this disease in the Netherlands has been constant at around 1 per 17 000 livebirths.  In most cases (60%), the disease is non-hereditary and affects only one eye.  However, in the 40% of hereditary cases, both eyes are usually affected."

"In the Vrije University Medical Centre, where about 95% of all patients with retinoblastoma in the Netherlands are treated, we diagnosed retinoblastoma in five patients born after IVF between November, 2000, and February, 2002."

"Incidence of the disease was 2.6 per 100,000 children in the first year of life, 0.9 per 100,000 in those aged between 1 and 4 years, and 0.1 per 100,000 in 5-9 year olds."

"Every year, 3,000 women in the Netherlands are treated with in-vitro fertilisation (IVF)..."

"In the Netherlands, an estimated 1-1.5% of children are conceived after IVF.  We calculated that 0.69 retinoblastoma cases would be expected in children conceived after IVF between 1995 and 2001 using numbers of births since 1995 and the 1-year age-specific mortality rates in the Netherlands (obtained by calendar year and sex from Statistics Netherlands), the estimate that 1% of all births are conceived by IVF, and the sex-specific and age-specific retinoblastoma incidence rates."

"On the assumption that the five patients we saw at our clinic represented all cases in the Netherlands born between Jan 1, 1995, and Dec 31, 2001, we calculated a significantly increased risk ratio (RR) of 7.2 (95% CI 2.4-17.0). If we used the upper estimate that 1.5% of all births are after IVF, then the RR was 4.9 (1.6-11.3).  These might be conservative estimates of the true risk since some retinoblastoma cases could have been treated in other hospitals, and the oldest child with retinoblastoma was born in 1997.  However, because we based the expected number of cases on all children born from 1995 onwards, we believe our results are conservative."