President Trump Eliminated the CDC's Assisted Reproductive Technology Surveillance team

Today, President Trump terminated staff within the Department of Health and Human Services specifically pertaining to the CDC's Assisted Reproductive Technology Surveillance team (this team was established by Congress in 1992). This surveillance team is critical in monitoring how well IVF works across the United States and this eliminated department maintained an “IVF success estimator” for patients to use as a tool for determining IVF success.  This cut is a loss to patients who are suffering from infertility and those seeking IVF treatment as it eliminates a credible sources for patients to help make informed decisions about their treatment.

Barbara Collura, the president and CEO of Resolve (a leading infertility association), says the following about this cut, “This is a big handicap for the administration as they embrace IVF and want to expand coverage,” Collura said. “These are the right people to have at your side.”

Below are some helpful resources on efforts to try and change this policy from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine:

It is important to remember that SART began collecting IVF outcomes data before the federal government realized its importance and decided to require it. For a time, the CDC even compensated us for that work. We don’t yet know the future of the ART outcomes reporting at the CDC (the entire team working on it has been let go). Please be assured that SART is committed to continuing the collection and publication of this crucially important data.

While we will be challenged to match the resources available through government funding, the ASRM Research Institute has a robust funding program and resources specifically designed to fund projects NIH could not or would not fund. We will soon announce a program to enhance our research efforts and help members and their projects that have lost government funding. We will also ask you to help support those efforts financially.

 With your help, ASRM and SART are committed to advocating for the restoration of these vital government programs and to continuing and increasing our efforts to provide research, education, and service programs to assist our members and the field of reproductive medicine.

Finally, we are collecting stories to demonstrate, through our outreach to media and policymakers, the real-world impacts of these cuts. If you are an ASRM member who has lost their job, we would like to hear your story. Please use this form [asrm.informz.net] or send an email to publicaffairs@asrm.org.

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