An eight-month investigation revealed how medical tourism companies skirt strict local bans, such as those in the United States, by transferring patients to countries like Albania. The procedure inserts a patient's genetic material into a donor egg to utilize healthy mitochondria and build a viable embryo. Reporting uncovered internal dynamics through patient interviews and unpublished data from Pavlo Mazur, a former embryologist at a Ukrainian clinic that led the industry prior to the 2022 Russian invasion.
Key points
Agencies aggressively promote mitochondrial replacement therapy to older women despite mi…: Agencies aggressively promote mitochondrial replacement therapy to older women despite minimal evidence that it resolves age-related infertility.
Reproductive tourism networks evade strict national bans by coordinating patient treatmen…: Reproductive tourism networks evade strict national bans by coordinating patient treatments across nations with permissive regulations like Albania.
Bioethicists express alarm that international patients are paying large commercial fees s…: Bioethicists express alarm that international patients are paying large commercial fees simply to act as unvetted research subjects.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
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Inside the global fertility industry using women as ‘guinea pigs’
Heidy Willis was struggling to get pregnant. And after several rounds of failed IVF, she was willing to try anything.
So Willis flew to Albania for a process known as mitochondrial replacement therapy, or MRT. Willis’ genetic material was inserted into another woman’s egg cells. The idea is that the donor’s healthy mitochondria power the embryo into a healthy fetus and, eventually, a baby.
MRT is not legal in the U.S. But medical tourism agencies charge thousands of dollars to connect women to clinics around the world. Many of these…
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