Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority – Wikipedia …

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health. It is a statutory body that regulates and inspects all UK clinics providing in vitro fertilisation, 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, there was inevitably some concern about the implications of this new technology. In 1982, the government brought together 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 gave evidence to the committee from doctors, scientists and health organisations to patient and parent organisations and religious groups.

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.[citation needed]

In the years following the Warnock report,[1] 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[2] was drafted from this.

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.

This allows researchers to carry out embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning providing that an HFEA Licence Committee considers the use of embryos necessary or desirable for one of these purposes of research.

The Human Reproductive Cloning Act 2001 was introduced to explicitly prohibit reproductive cloning in the UK.

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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority - Wikipedia ...