Inside FSANZ 2025: Research, Regulation and What’s Next

Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand Conference

Rarely has a conference been held in such a challenging environment. The Sword of Damocles hung over the conference- and fell three days later- with the removal by Health Ministers of RTAC from accrediting IVF clinics, and replacing that by 1 January 2027 with a federal government commission.

Nevertheless, the FSANZ conference was a triumph, with many extraordinary presentations. I was fortunate, as well as doing my duty as Secretary of FSANZ (and therefore busy throughout) to have spoken as part of the panel during the Scientists in Reproductive Technology meeting about risk, and co-chaired a session in the conference about diversity and inclusion.

A popular exhibit was Besin Healthcare, with delicious Messina gelati being served up.

There was amazing original research by fertility counsellor Miranda Montrone, about surrogacy. Miranda was honoured by being made a life member of FSANZ.

And further original research by fertility counsellor Narelle Dickinson, which showed that contrary to myth, traditional surrogacy is not risky.

Kate Wilford from Genesis International spoke at the Vitrolife dinner that thwere was an 80% success rate with eggs imported by Genesis from Malaysia, and a 90% success rate by one clinic with those eggs.

I was the first to win the prize of a pair of chopsticks, when I attended the Asian Egg Bank stall. The skill required was to pick up a ping pong ball. As I have used chopsticks since I was about 6 or 7, this was easy peasy.

A particularly persuasive man is Prof Bill Ledger, who was honoured with a life membership. For 5 years, Bill persuaded me to be a lecturer at UNSW between 2017 and 2022 in Ethics and the Law in Reproductive Medicine {for which I received a teaching prize in 2019].

It was good to catch up with colleague Sarah Bevan, who is also President of Surrogacy Australia.

And with the crew from City Fertility.

It was joy to have caught up with Dr Uliana Dorofeyeva from Ovogene Egg Bank, where she has pioneered the use of AI with egg selection.

And finally, to have caught up with Vanessa Ferguson and the crew from Adora Fertility was awesome!