Inside the global business of ‘three-parent IVF’ | A STAT investigation | STAT (opens in a new tab)

statnews.com · 2026-11-02

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Inside the global business of ‘three-parent IVF’ | A STAT investigation | STAT

statnews.com · 2026-11-02

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Multiple potential source studies identified.

Several studies match details in the article, but none could be confirmed as its source. The claims have not been assessed against a source study.

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Claim 1 of 4Not checkedA pioneering IVF technique developed to reduce the risk of children inheriting sometimes-fatal mitochondrial diseases from their mothers is being marketed online as a fertility procedure for older women, despite scant evidence it works.View evidenceHide evidence

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No source study was confirmed for this article. This claim remains unverified, rather than assessed as supported or unsupported.

Claim 2 of 4Not checkedThe procedure, popularly called “three-parent IVF,” is illegal in the United States, but an Illinois-based company has facilitated a sprawling for-profit tourism industry, connecting women in the U.S. and Europe to clinics abroad.View evidenceHide evidence

As statedsprawling

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Claim 3 of 4Not checkedSTAT’s investigation found examples of shoddy record keeping by a clinic providing the procedure, incomplete data published in marginal journals, and in one case, a puzzling ancestry test result that called into question the source of a child’s DNA.View evidenceHide evidence

As statedincomplete data

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Claim 4 of 4Not checkedThe technique, known as mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRT), was originally developed to spare children from rare inherited mitochondrial diseases, but more recently has been marketed as a solution for age-related fertility issues despite scant evidence of safety or efficacy for infertility treatment.View evidenceHide evidence

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