Dr. John Waterstone:

I might just come back to one specific point. Reference was made not just to IVF but to other treatments that are out there and that are available. One point that was made in the Irish Fertility Society submission, which others may have made also, is that simple treatments like ovulation induction which are carried out by GPs with Clomid fairly regularly are not covered by any controls at the moment. There is a lot of fuss about how many embryos we can put back on IVF treatment. If we put back too many embryos we get too many twins and sometimes we get triplets. We do not want that. There are simple treatments like Clomid that are dished out by GPs and general gynaecologists, often without any supervision at all, that can also generate multiple pregnancies. Luckily, with Clomid one does not often get triplets but one does sometimes. I have seen audits of the numbers of triplets in the UK a number of years ago and a third of them were due to IVF but another third were due to Clomid.

Therefore, if we are to be regulated in terms of how many embryos we can put back, which is very controllable, the practice of ovulation induction by Clomid should also be regulated as part of the whole system of regulation because it, too, can cause triplets, which are a problem.