...I think this is a little "conspiracy-theory" for me.

The ones in practice are not the ones who would be finding definitive answers anyway.

I guess that's why I stopped just short of saying it!

Seriously, I doubt there's any ORGANIZED conspiracy trying to keep the medical profession from finding answers to infertility issues. At the same time, I don't think there is a sense of true urgency, either. Nothing like the kind of panic that accompanies the search for cures for stuff like, say, erectile dysfunction. Assisted Reproduction is big business. Big and profitable business.

Authors of books about how women must hurry, hurry, hurry to have babies while they still can probably have NO link to the business of Assisted Reproduction, but they know that its a hot button that will create a big buzz and sell copies. So they do it. And it creates a lot of uncertainty and panic among women that is not deserved or realistic. Yet from my understanding, known causes for infertility can be attributed more or less equally to male and female dysfunction. This fact doesn't create hype, however. Remember the thread a few weeks ago on LBYM about how women need to be less selfish and pop out babies while we're young or we'll end up bitter unhappy barren crones? That dude got SLAMMED, and deservedly so. But there's too many people out there that don't see through the hype.

In recent years, medical research has been much better at providing more resources toward the study and cures of women's health issues, most notably breast cancer. Was there ever a "conspiracy" to let women's issues slide? Probably not, IMO. I'm really not much for conspiracy theories, actually. It just wasn't a priority to the male-dominated field at the time (again, IMO, some will disagree). But women's issues are still decades behind where they could be. I'd love to see a "race to the cure" for many common infertility problems. Why isn't there one?

Meanwhile, there are authors capitalizing on people's desperation. There are doctors and clinics making fortunes capitalizing on people's desperation. And those that do seem to be targeting women much more than men, but the fact that they do it at all is what makes me sick.

I WILL go so far as to extrapolate this opportunism to include individual practitioners such as OB-GYN's who are well aware of how important this is to their patients, yet DON'T stay as up-to-date on the latest research as they could, and who in some cases will have patients take every test under the sun, over and over, and who will recommend procedures that provide little hope of success. For every competent and ethical practitioner there are several who are motivated by more than simply successfully treating disease and dysfunction. Sad but true.

Sassy