Editor’s view: It’s vital that we install an independent IVF regulator

An independent regulator should be created and they must be equipped with the legislative arsenal to hold IVF organisations to account, so Australians going through the often gruelling process can have some confidence in the system, writes the editor.

Lexie and Anastasia Gunn are suing Queensland Fertility Group over claims that the wrong sperm donor was used to conceive two of their sons, who now live with crippling health conditions. Picture by Luke Marsden.

Australians going through the often gruelling IVF process deserve to have confidence in the system.

But the integrity of IVF protocols in this country is now in serious question after a series of extraordinary bungles involving multiple organisations that have left families heartbroken.

And the consequences are real and can have a devastating impact on lives and families, as we reveal today in the case of Anastasia and Lexie Gunn.

Both fierce advocates for a better and more stringent IVF industry after a clinic allegedly used the wrong sperm to conceive their two youngest sons, both of whom suffer serious health conditions.

The consequences of which have been devastating on their family as Anastasia shared in a letter to Federal Health Minister Mark Butler revealing one of her primary school-aged sons had attempted suicide.

“Imagine a boy that young being so sad, not only about his physical pain but the fact that through DNA testing he found out that all three brothers were not fully connected with the same blood,” Anastasia told The Saturday Courier-Mail.

There appears to be an increasingly common and catastrophic problem within the IVF industry.

The Gunns are bravely putting human faces and stories to what is becoming an increasingly common and catastrophic problem within the IVF industry. They originally sounded the alarm in this newspaper last year as they began legal action against Queensland Fertility Group (QFG).

Those revelations, along with further pressure from this newspaper, led to the passage through the Queensland parliament of the Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2024 in September last year.

And this week, Australians were horrified to learn another company – Monash IVF – had transferred the wrong embryo into patients not once, but twice. The first case was revealed earlier this year and involved a Queensland family, the second case only came to light on Tuesday.

Monash IVF chief executive officer Michael Knaap resigned his position in the wake of the second case being revealed. A full review is already under way into what occurred and, it is hoped, the findings will be made public as soon as that process is complete.

But the events of the past week have crystallised one certainty – the regulation and monitoring of IVF cannot be left to the states.

Michael Knaap has exited as chief executive of Monash IVF. Picture Monash IVF Group

Yesterday, Australia’s health ministers ordered a “rapid review” of IVF regulation.

Included in the three month review is the consideration for a national and independent accreditation body and regulatory process.

Surely this has to be one of the urgent outcomes of this review but scrutiny needs to be applied to every aspect of what is a very lucrative industry in this country.

Mr Butler, whose third child was an IVF baby, knows and understands the process and has acknowledged the need to deal with some of the gaps in regulations and a worrying lack of transparency in the sector. And he clearly sees the regulatory role of the commonwealth as important to inject some confidence back into a system which, in Mr Butler’s own words, “delivers joy to so many thousands of families every year’’.

An independent regulator should be created and they must be equipped with the legislative arsenal to hold IVF organisations to account.

Originally published as Editor’s view: It’s vital that we install an independent IVF regulator