# The fertility police: it&#146;s time to lock them away



## Lorna (Apr 8, 2004)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/mick_hume/article2017537.ece

Article calling for the abolition of the HFEA

starts with:

"Among all the arrogant, petty-minded interfering bureaucracies that clutter up life in the UK, it would be hard to conceive of one that has contributed more to the sum of human misery than the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority."

I couldn't have put it better myself!

/links


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## Jinty (May 6, 2006)

Hear, hear!!!!


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## Julie-Anne (Mar 2, 2006)

I agree- hear hear


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## LiziBee (Aug 24, 2004)

Nice quote!
Lizi.x


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## harley (Mar 1, 2005)

sign up and reform them!

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/REFORM-OF-HFEA/

This post contains an unconfirmed link/information and readers are reminded that FertilityFriends.co.uk or its owners are not responsible for the content of external internet sites


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## Lorna (Apr 8, 2004)

I will not be signing the petition.  The HFEA is due to be abolished soon and turned into RATE.  I will go look for a link in a minute, but I might have to go and pick up the boys from School first.  There was a story in the Times, about how bad RATE would be, last Thursday.

The government and the HFEA are experts at manipulating the media.  If you hand this petition over to the government, you play into their hands, and allows them to score points off us, the infertile.  They turn round to the press and say, "hey we listened to the complaints, and did as people asked."  They come out smelling of Roses, and nothing has changed.

Huge media success for the government.  This petition is, IMO, a disaster for the infertile

Now were we to ask for Quantifiable measurable objectives for the HFEA ie targets, and ask a few awkward questions, I think it would be far more successful.


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## Lorna (Apr 8, 2004)

It was in Friday's Times,

Patient safety 'is at risk' from planned merger of watchdogs
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2067005.ece

This post contains an unconfirmed link/information and readers are reminded that FertilityFriends.co.uk or its owners are not responsible for the content of external internet sites


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## harley (Mar 1, 2005)

Understand what you're saying, but one of the reasons for this petition was that we (a group of patients) have been writing, emailing, phoning, attending open meetings of the HFEA for the past year.

We have asked them lots of pertinent questions relating to their statistics, recent clinical inspection reports, court cases against them, SET etc and received no answers. We have written complaints and followed their farsical complaints procedure - that believe it or not can not be escalated outside the HFEA!

We have been lobbying MPs and have received favourable comments and support from among others Lord Winston (not beyond reproach himself, but a respected fertility figurehead in the establishment).

This petition is NOT a disaster for the infertile. It will show the governement that it matters to alot of people/voters and that we are educated and informed, not a bunch of 'desperate, vulnerable' people (BBC said that). 

We (as a patient group) are in this for the long haul, should the HFEA not be sufficiently reformed (and a name change is not sufficient) we will not let the matter go. There is loads of work to do : increase NHS funding, increase awareness of infetility issues, increased sucess rates, patient choice . . . . . This petition is just a part of that, but an importnant part as this is more than just one patient group it is the public.

Therefore I would urge people to sign.


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