Infertile, Irrelevant Men And A Health Care System That Won’t Help Them

13 May, 2010 by Melissa Clouthier

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So, I’m reading this article about the decline in male fertility. Unfortunately, lots of dudes are shooting blanks. Maybe the whole Beta-Metrosexual Male thing isn’t metaphorical–maybe it’s also literal. The big question: Is it nature or is it nurture? I expect it’s both.

Anyway, the more interesting part of the article, was the UK’s health system. This is what impotent American men have to face in the future and it doesn’t look good:

Rebecca threw herself into researching multiple IVF and ICSI failure on the internet, and concluded that not all clinics are the same.

Ed says: ‘It was important for me to see an andrologist, somebody who specialises in male infertility. But they are not readily available in the UK.’

‘We looked at it very rationally and were prepared to spend :£15,000,’ says Rebecca.

Research had been carried out in the U.S. in hormonal therapy for men with fertility problems. After remortgaging their home, Ed and Rebecca went to the Cornell Fertility Center (www.ivf.org) in New York.

‘I had the first proper examination throughout all our treatment,’ says Ed.

He was put on Clomid, the hormone that women are given when they don’t ovulate regularly, followed by ICSI. Although this created only one embryo, it resulted in the birth of their beautiful daughter, Ruby, now three.

Ed and Rebecca wanted a sibling for Ruby. After another cycle of treatment in New York, their twins, Tom and Rose, were born two days before Rebecca’s 40th birthday.

Ed and Rebecca are very proud parents and thrilled that they defied the odds. But they are also angry.

‘ So many men are denied the opportunity to become biological fathers through an apparent lack of investigation into male infertility,’ says Rebecca.

‘We have met couples who have gone through many failed cycles of treatment at great financial and emotional cost, who have gone on to have “miracle babies” abroad, after being dismissed by UK clinics. It is so sad that the country that invented IVF should have failed to progress much beyond the expensive and impersonal production line of treatment that is currently on offer.’

So not only are the men impotent, but the UK’s health care system is powerless (I could say impotent) to do anything about it.

But that’s what socialized medicine gets ya: no innovation and lots of wait and frustration. Seems symbolic to me.

As the whole system gets more feminized, care-taking and “nurturing”, it loses it’s potency. There are less innovations, less aggressive treatments and less real solutions to problems that fall outside what is deemed “necessary.”

Bodes ill for America’s future.