Draft IVF bill attracts further criticism

The draft IVF bill as proposed by the Maltese government has attracted further criticism, this time by Italian IVF expert Luca Gianaroli.

In an interview with The Times, Gianaroli said that egg freezing was not an efficient alternative to embryo freezing and that the IVF Bill was restrictive and did not advocate good clinical practice.

Gianaroli echoed previous comments made by local IVF practitioner Josie Muscat to MaltaToday, who described the draft bill as "painting women into a corner".

But in a reaction to Gianaroli's comments, the Health Ministry said that the interview "didn't carry updated details".

It added that Gianaroli himself had outlined the training and equipment needed at Mater Dei Hospital to offer egg freezing services.

"This is documented in the minutes of meetings held. A report, which outlined the training and equipment needs at MDH to offer such a service was presented by Dr Gianaroli, to Minister Cassar on 14 October 2011," the ministry said..

It added that it had long been engaged in active discussions with various interested parties, including Gianaroli. 

Gianaroli had been earlier involved both in giving evidence on one of the Parliamentary select committees and later on in advising the Ministry on the establishment of IVF services at Mater Dei.

"During the last six months of 2011, the MHEC and Gianaroli's clinic, SISMER, had exchange visits in view of developing IVF services at Mater Dei Hospital," the ministry said.

"The cornerstone of the consultations and all arising discussions was clearly that the IVF services at MDH were to be based on the practice of oocyte vitrification."

Yet, oocyte vitrification is viewed by Gianaroli as an expensive procedure that will "reduce pregnancy rates by 30%".

"Since 50 per cent of the patients that we are treating in Europe, and I suppose in Malta as well, are older than 35, half of your patients will not benefit from oocyte freezing," he told The Times.

He added that data from the Italian national registry showed a statistically significant choice in favour of embryo freezing.

Malta's draft law will ban embryo freezing and instead opts for the vitrification of oocytes, limiting their fertilisation to just two ova, while the rest of the ova are frozen for later fertilisation.

However, the government will be considering increasing the number of oocytes that can be fertilised in a bid to increase the efficiency of the in vitro fertilisation process that it is proposing in its bill.

Justice minister Chris Said said that while the law will be fine-tuned, "the principle of protecting life from the very start will not be changed."

The health ministry is set to meet Gianaroli in the coming weeks.