CDC’s IVF team gutted even as Trump calls himself the ‘fertilization president’

A team that tracked how well in vitro fertilization worked across the U.S. was abruptly cut Tuesday as part of the sweeping layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

The elimination of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Assisted Reproductive Technology Surveillance team — a group of six epidemiologists, data analysts and researchers — shocked public health experts and IVF advocates who said they had felt encouraged by President Donald Trump’s comments supporting access to the infertility treatment.

Just last week, Trump declared himself “the fertilization president” while touting efforts to expand IVF.

“Fertilization,” Trump said at a White House event on March 26 to commemorate Women’s History Month. “I’m still very proud of it, I don’t care. I’ll be known as the fertilization president and that’s OK.”

But Barbara Collura, the president and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, a nonprofit group for reproductive health, said one of Trump’s best assets to address IVF was now gone.

“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.”

Aaron Levine, a professor of public policy at Georgia Tech who has worked with the CDC team over the last decade, called it an “immediate loss” for patients who want to make a well-informed decision. 

“The data was produced at the clinic level every year, so you could say, ‘Is this clinic successful 15% of the time, 20% of the time, 25% of the time,’” he said. “And you can imagine that is super valuable information for patients considering IVF, or maybe considering IVF at multiple clinics, and trying to make their choices.”

Dr. Brian Levine, founding partner and practice director of CCRM Fertility of New York, said about 1 in 6 people experience infertility both globally and in the U.S.

IVF was first used in the 1970s. It involves combining eggs and sperm in the lab to create embryos. Those embryos are then implanted in a woman’s uterus. 

IVF is the most common type of infertility treatment in the U.S., according to the CDC. More than 8 million babies have been born via IVF since 1978, according to the Cleveland Clinic. 

The success rate varies, with age being the strongest factor. Women younger than 35 have a success rate of around 46%, according to the Cleveland Clinic. That drops to 22% for women at age 38.  

Patients deserve to know the success rates of each clinic, and the elimination of the CDC group gives them one less resource, Brian Levine said.

“Patients are highly motivated for treatments because they want a family, but they’re also walking in a state of sometimes despair,” he said. 

Knowing the success rates also helps keep clinics accountable, forcing them to make changes that could help improve the quality of care.

“When you have a pervasive disease like this, it gives a lot of women angst,” Brian Levine said, referring to infertility. “We typically report to the CDC, so I know that my colleagues across the country are practicing to the same standards.” 

A ‘tremendous resource’

The Assisted Reproductive Technology Surveillance team was mandated by Congress in 1992. It worked under the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health, which was also gutted Tuesday. 

The team was responsible for monitoring and tracking outcomes related to IVF, including whether women gave birth to multiples or delivered prematurely, to ensure both the safety and success of the procedure. 

It also provided tools to the public, including an “IVF success estimator” that allowed people to plug in information about themselves and get an estimate of how well IVF would work. People could also look up each individual clinic’s success rates across the U.S.

It also did research on different IVF topics, including how to make it more efficient with fewer side effects, and how to make the extremely expensive procedure more accessible.

“They’re a tremendous resource within the government,” Collura said. “They’re also public-facing. All the content is on the CDC website; they’re putting out all the information for patients.”

“I rely on their information and their data to do my work,” she added. “I’m not sure what that’s going to look like now going forward.”

One CDC worker on the team who was terminated Tuesday tried to reconcile Trump’s comments on IVF and the mass layoffs.

The worker, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak with the media, said the group was preparing to publish new data on the success rates of IVF across states, but now that work has stopped indefinitely. 

“It’s surprising to me,” the worker said. “President Trump said he was the fertility president. How does cutting this program support that?”

An official at the Department of Health and Human Services said that “the work will continue” — although they didn’t provide details on how or when the administration would continue to track and collect data on IVF. 

“We are focused on implementing and bringing Secretary Kennedy’s high-level vision of HHS’ transformation to life,” the official said in. an emailed statement. “The Department is mapping out what each of the 15 redefined divisions will look like at a detailed level and will share more information soon.”

Aaron Levine, of Georgia Tech, noted that there are other groups that track IVF outcomes, such as the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, a professional group, although the data appears to be more limited.

In a statement, Micah Hill, president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, called the cuts to the IVF group  “dangerous and devastating.”

“The depth of expertise held by CDC personnel will be difficult to replace,” Hill said. “In many ways, the American public health system has been the global leader, and we are now in danger of throwing that away and doing so in a manner that may be very difficult to recover from.”