Latest news with #AssistedReproductiveTechnology
Time of India
24-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Assam Health Minister issues certificates to 5 institutions to establish ART clinics, surrogacy centres
Guwahati: In a significant step toward improving reproductive healthcare services in the state, Assam Health and Family Welfare Minister Ashok Singhal distributed official certificates to five institutions for establishing Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Clinics, ART Banks and Surrogacy Clinics in a programme held in Guwahati. The institutions that received certification include Apollo Fertility, Guwahati; Downtown Hospital in Guwahati, GMCH Fertility and IVF Centre, Guwahati; The Institute of Human Reproduction in Guwahati and Swasti Hospital in Rangia. During the programme, Minister Ashok Singhal on Friday stated that today is an important day in Assam's health and family welfare sector, as the process of surrogacy has now come under formal government regulation in Assam. He added that the certification of these institutions will help bring hope and happiness to distressed couples who have been struggling to conceive a child. This milestone follows the implementation of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021 and the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, by the Government of India, along with their corresponding rules notified in 2022. In alignment with these national regulations, the Government of Assam established the State Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy Board and the Appropriate Authority for ART and Surrogacy in December 2023. To facilitate the application process for institutions seeking to establish ART and surrogacy services, the Appropriate Authority launched a state-wide drive through newspaper advertisements on January 30, 2025. Applications are processed via the National ART & Surrogacy Portal, where institutions must submit their information online, followed by the submission of printed documents and payment of registration fees. Once verified, the institutions are inspected by the Appropriate Authority before receiving certification. Earlier this year, the first certificate was issued to an intending couple and surrogate mother after evaluation by the District Medical Board in Dibrugarh, marking the beginning of regulated surrogacy services in Assam. Minister Singhal emphasised the government's commitment to ensuring safe, ethical and high-quality reproductive care. He said the state is dedicated to creating a transparent and accountable system that guarantees access to advanced reproductive services for couples in need. The programme was attended Dr. P. Ashok Babu, Commissioner & Secretary, Health & Family Welfare Department; Barnali Shama, Commissioner & Secretary, Health & Family Welfare Department; Dr. Umesh Phangcho, DHS, Asam and Dr. Heremba Bhattacharyya, Joint DHS(HQ) and Nodal Officer, Surrogacy and august presence of Senior Health Officers and other departmental officials.
Time of India
16-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Calcutta High Court allows 61-year-old man to have IVF baby with 49-year-old wife
Kolkata: A 61-year-old judicial officer on Friday was given a 'chance' by the Calcutta High Court to have a child under the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Act, 2021, even though he surpassed the age limit of 55 years. Married for 27 years, the officer and his wife, aged 49, were trying to have a child for a long time with no success. On medical consultation, they were informed of IVF as an alternative means. Their counsel, Achin Jana, submitted before Justice Amrita Sinha, "They have everything. Financial stability, healthy bodies, everything except the happiness of being parents." The petition said: "Even after 27 years of happy married life, the petitioners were unsuccessful in procreating an offspring and, as a result, they do not have any legal heir or anyone to look after them in their old age or anyone to whom they can bestow their legacy or who can inherit their movable and immovable properties in future." It was stated that the father was undergoing a health complication and now that it had improved, and both husband and wife are healthy, they want to have a child. But unfortunately for them, the man is past the age limit. In 2023, they were advised to undergo clinical tests and it was found that they would not be able to procreate naturally. They were advised to opt for ART. The counsel informed the court that the wife has a normal uterus and ovaries. The state opposed the plea on the ground that the officer has not only crossed the statutory age limit of 55, he is also above 60, which would create a problem in the upbringing of the child considering the parents' ages. Jana argued, "He would be getting a donor. His sperm would not be in use… His wife is below the statutory age limit of 50." To which, Justice Sinha replied, "Not just in the process. When a child is born, it would require the love and affection of both parents. You are ageing. The average expectancy recorded is 70 years. God forbid you do not die at 70 and go on till 100. The gap between the child's age and the father's would be huge. " Ever since a case in Nov 2024, where a 57-year-old man and his wife, in her 30s, were allowed to avail of IVF — considering his wife was below the statutory age of 50 years — the court has been flooded with couples where either of the spouses has crossed the age limit. After verbally stating her worry regarding the age of the man, Justice Sinha considered the plea and ordered the IVF facility to permit the couple to avail of the service. She treated the 2024 case as a precedent and allowed the couple a chance at having a child.
The Hill
08-05-2025
- Health
- The Hill
Democratic senators ask Trump administration to rehire CDC IVF team
A group of more than a dozen Democratic senators is asking the Trump administration to rehire a team of scientists at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dedicated to conducting research on in vitro fertilization (IVF), which it disbanded in April. The Department of Government Efficiency's mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have gutted maternal and reproductive health programs. Last month, HHS laid off 10,000 people, a move that included the CDC's six-person Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Surveillance team. CDC's ART Surveillance team has collected and analyzed information on nearly every IVF procedure performed in the U.S., including patient demographics and success rates, since the early 1990s. The team operated under a congressional mandate issued in 1992. Thirteen Democratic Senators sent a letter addressed to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday with a list of 11 questions regarding the firing of the ART Surveillance team. Senators asked when the department plans to reinstate the entirety of the ART team, how many of the team members were fired and how the agency plans to continue to monitor IVF data as mandated by federal law. Lawmakers stressed that the HHS's firing of the team will have 'devastating consequences' for people trying to become parents. 'Because IVF is a complicated and expensive process, the American people deserve access to the best information possible to inform their family building journey,' Senators wrote in the letter. 'Your actions threaten hopeful parents and families' ability to access high-quality, safe and effective fertility care. The American people deserve assurances that their rights under the [Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992] will continue to be guaranteed, as Congress intended,' the letter continues. The thirteen Senators who signed the letter include: Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Corey Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn), Patty Murray (D-Wash), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.). President Trump has pledged to support IVF in the past and even referred to himself as the 'fertilization president.' But the recent firings at the CDC, particularly to the ART Surveillance team, have made lawmakers and health experts alike question the president's commitment to making the procedure more affordable and accessible to Americans. 'Unfortunately, hollowing out National Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Surveillance System capabilities and capacity is consistent with Donald Trump's deceitful and disingenuous rhetoric on IVF,' the letter from the senators reads. HHS did not immediately respond to questions from The Hill about the letter.
Mint
27-04-2025
- Business
- Mint
A Baby Boom? In This Economy?
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The US birth rate is near a record low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Wednesday, with only 1.6 children born per woman, below the 2.1 needed to sustain the population. This is no surprise — the birth rate has been falling since 2007. What is surprising is the inconsistent — and contradictory — set of policies the Trump administration is employing to try to address it. Among the proposals the administration is reportedly considering are a 'baby bonus' in the form of a $5,000 tax credit to every American mother after the birth of a child, a plan to 'educate' women on their menstrual cycles so they're better prepared to conceive, and reserving a share of Fulbright Scholarships for married parents. The pronatalist push started at the Department of Transportation where Secretary Sean Duffy, the father of nine kids, issued a memo in February dictating that 'communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average' be given preference in transportation funding. I don't doubt these policy makers are sincere. President Donald Trump has proclaimed that he wants to be 'the fertilization president.' Elon Musk, the father of an estimated 14 children and head of Trump's quasi-government Department of Government Efficiency, has said 'civilization is going to crumble' unless we raise the birth rate. And Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation agenda Trump is following, wants the president to use government policies, including the tax code, to 'restore the family as the centerpiece of American life.' But they are trying to usher in a Trump baby boom at the same time Musk and DOGE are slashing federal programs that help women have more kids. The list of cuts is long: DOGE has slashed funding to the Maternal and Child Health Bureau in the Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Center for Disease Control's Division of Reproductive Health. Even after Trump issued an executive order promising to make in vitro fertilization more readily available and affordable, DOGE gutted the CDC's Assisted Reproductive Technology team, which monitors the effectiveness of IVF programs across the country. DOGE has also laid off federal workers running programs for expectant mothers on Medicaid, canceled funding for maternal and postpartum care, and eliminated more than $12 billion from state health departments, including $2 billion earmarked for child vaccination programs. These shortsighted cuts will hardly help reverse declining birth rates. One of the people the Trump administration has consulted on this effort is demographer Lyman Stone, director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the conservative Institute for Family Studies. His own research suggests that the White House is being far too cheap in its plan to offer families a $5,000 'baby bonus.' 'More money does yield more babies,' Stone wrote in 2020. 'Anybody saying otherwise is mischaracterizing the research. But it takes a lot of money.' Stone argues that low fertility rates in the US and other high-income countries are due to low marriage rates and a decline in young men's income. He's been a proponent of subsidies that encourage marriage and he backs the American Family Act, a Democratic plan to expand the child tax credit and give parents with more kids higher tax credits. Government-provided incentives for kids would cost the US billions, but this approach has been tried with some success in many other countries, he notes. A 'baby bonus' in Australia boosted fertility, but cost more than $100,000 per child. A British study found that 50% higher per-child spending on welfare in the UK yielded 15% higher births. Russia's policy of giving 'maternity capital' of $11,000 to mothers of second or third children since 2007 has boosted second childbearing by 2.2%. But Singapore's plan to pay baby bonuses to couples with three or more children has had only limited success. Stone concluded in 2020 that to reach the replacement rate needed to sustain the US population without immigration, the fertility rate would have to rise to 2.07 children per woman. 'To accomplish this, we would need the present value of child benefits to increase by somewhere between 52% and 400% of household income,'' he wrote. 'For the median woman, this would mean providing a child benefit for the first 18 years of a child's life worth approximately $5,300 per year in addition to currently-provided benefits, with the range running from $2,800 more per year to $23,000 more per year.' That kind of money is probably impossible to come by, Stone admitted, so he suggests that government pursue additional policies, such as removing obstacles to marriage by reducing the marriage tax penalty for two-income families and expanding the child tax credit into something he calls a 'parenting wage.' Other scholars say the scope of solutions should include expanded paid parental leave and subsidized child care, as well as more affordable housing to lower the cost of family formation. Of course, the choice to create a new life isn't only a financial calculation. It's also a profound act of hope. And Americans are not feeling especially hopeful right now. Polls show that more than half of the country is worried about a constitutional crisis. Wall Street is nervous; consumer confidence is at the second-lowest point on record; and most Americans aren't confident in Trump's handling of the economy. Only 15% of the youngest Americans think the country is on the right track. You'd think the Trump administration would want to focus on increasing — not cutting — funding to maternal and child health, repairing its self-inflicted economic wounds, and lowering the cost of living for working families before asking young people to forget all their troubles and bring children into the world. This lack of situational awareness is not just ironic, it's irresponsible. More From Bloomberg Opinion: This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades. More stories like this are available on First Published: 27 Apr 2025, 06:30 PM IST
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
HHS layoffs undercut Trump's pledge to be ‘fertilization president'
President Trump has championed access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and even dubbed himself the 'fertilization president' early in his second term. But Department of Government Efficiency-induced layoffs at the Department and Health and Human Services (HHS) have decimated maternal health and reproductive medicine programs, including teams that report on fertility outcomes of IVF clinics, as well as those that track maternal health and mortality data. Public health experts and reproductive health advocates say the cuts will have lasting consequences and make it more dangerous to be pregnant in the United States. They questioned how Trump's promises to expand IVF, as well as the White House's reported interest in boosting a lagging domestic birthrate, can be reconciled with the gutting of crucial tools that could help achieve those goals. The HHS suddenly laid off 10,000 people at the start of this month, a sweeping move that included about three-quarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) reproductive health division, former CDC employees told The Hill. Former fertility-focused agency employees who lost their jobs April 1 said they thought it was a mistake. 'Trump said he was the fertility president. How does cutting this program support the administration's position?' one former CDC employee said. 'We fully expected that the team would be brought back once there was awareness that it had been eliminated. But as time has gone on, apparently there's no intention of bringing anyone back,' said another. The CDC's six-person Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Surveillance team was eliminated, as was the 17-person team that worked on the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System. The agency also lost teams studying contraception use. As a result, couples trying to conceive may not be able to get trustworthy information about IVF clinics or their chances for success. There are now fewer people monitoring pregnancy health outcomes or doing deep research on why some women die in childbirth. Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which represents fertility medicine providers, said the loss of those programs and staff will create a massive blind spot for women's health. 'I think the women and children of this country are going to be less healthy, going to die sooner, and I think it's going to take us longer to fully understand the ramifications of that,' Tipton said. 'It is a deep, dark, black hole with no solutions,' he added. 'It's hard to reconcile the statements of the self-proclaimed fertility president with the policy moves his administration has implemented.' The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among high-income countries, with 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the most recent data available from the CDC. Many health experts have called maternal mortality in the U.S. a 'crisis,' which disproportionally impacts Black and brown communities. Maternal mortality rates are particularly high for Black women, rising to 49.5 deaths per 100,000 deaths in 2022 and 50.3 the following year, CDC data show. That crisis will only worsen if there are fewer people working to make pregnancies safer, experts said. The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics is still releasing its annual maternal mortality report. But the report provides 'surface level' information on maternal deaths that is compiled from death certificate data and does not dive deeply into root causes. 'That's not looking at deaths among women who are pregnant or why,' one former CDC employee told The Hill. That work is up to members of the maternal mortality review committees who could all be laid off as part of proposed HHS budget cuts, a leaked version of the budget shows. An HHS official said the work of 'critical programs' from the CDC's Division of Reproductive Health will continue under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 'alongside multiple agencies and programs to improve coordination of health resources for Americans.' But the official did not give details on how the specific functions of those programs would continue, especially when relevant experts have seemingly been fired. The CDC's ART Surveillance team was tasked with collecting and analyzing information on every IVF procedure performed in the country, including patient demographics and success rates. The team had operated under a congressional mandate since 1992. 'We had 12 projects in the works, which have all just stopped,' a former agency employee said. 'There's no one else doing them. There's no one else to do them.' Barbara Collura, the president and CEO of Resolve: The National Infertility Association, said the science of IVF is advancing rapidly and the data analyzed by the ART team is a major reason why. ART data helped make IVF safer, more efficient and more accessible, Collura said, which is exactly what the Trump administration purportedly wants to do. In February, Trump issued an executive order that pledged support for IVF and called for a report on how to make it more accessible and affordable; but there were no funding commitments or specific ideas presented. 'If I want to put forward policy recommendations on IVF, I want the best people surrounding me, giving me advice and info,' Collura said. 'You had them for decades, and now they are gone.' There are some nongovernmental efforts to collect and share IVF data. The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology collects similar information about fertility clinics. But participation is voluntary, and advocates fear without the force of the federal government behind it, there will be fewer and fewer clinics reporting. The IVF industry is already facing increased scrutiny, especially in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court decision last year that found frozen embryos are people. But advocates said they worry about growing distrust in the industry if the federal government is no longer tracking patient outcomes and providing some oversight. 'I don't think this [is] a time we want to have less oversight and regulation and data,' Collura said. 'If you're all in on [expanding] access, let's make sure you have great data.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
