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Fertility treatment in the UK is an unregulated "jungle" where anxious couples are routinely offered IVF and other methods of artificial reproduction that may actually lower rather than increase their chances of having a baby, according to Britain's leading fertility doctor.
In his strongest attack yet, Professor Robert Winston accused Britain's fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), of incompetence and criticised private fertility clinics for peddling expensive, unproven techniques.
Lord Winston, a Labour peer who helped pioneer the development of fertility medicine within the NHS, says the field is now being driven by profit, often at the expense of patients, while the HFEA has allowed it to happen.
"It's got worse. It has become more and more private and more and more commercial. IVF is being offered as a blanket treatment when there are a whole variety of other things that you could do that might be more effective," he says.
"I think [the HFEA] is not regulating the clinical treatments, which is what it should be doing. I don't think it is competent. I...