HFEA

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health in the United Kingdom. It is a statutory body that regulates and inspects all clinics in the United Kingdom providing in vitro fertilisation (IVF), artificial insemination and the storage of human eggs, sperm or embryos. It also regulates human embryo research.

After the birth of Louise Brown, the world's first IVF baby, in 1978 there was inevitably some concern about the implications of this new technology. In 1982, the government formed a committee chaired by philosopher Mary Warnock to look into the issues and see what action needed to be taken.

Hundreds of interested individuals and organisations, including doctors, scientists and health organisations to patient and parent organisations and religious groups, gave evidence to the committee.

The final report has been much admired around the world for the depth and delicacy of its consideration of these very controversial and emotive issues.

In the years following the Warnock report, proposals were brought forward by the government in the publication of a white paper Human Fertilisation and Embryology: A Framework for Legislation in 1987. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was drafted taking the report into account.

The 1990 Act provided for the establishment of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), an executive, non-departmental public body, the first statutory body of its type in the world. The HFEA is the independent regulator for IVF treatment and human embryo research and came into effect on 1 August 1991. The 1990 Act ensured the regulation, through licensing, of:

The Act also requires the HFEA keep a database of every IVF treatment carried out since that date and a database relating to all cycles and use of donated gametes (egg and sperm).

In 2001, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Research Purposes) Regulations 2001/188 extended the purposes for which embryo research could be licensed to include “increasing knowledge about the development of embryos”, “increasing knowledge about serious disease”, and “enabling any such knowledge to be applied in developing treatments for serious disease”.

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