Bangalore, July 27: As the world celebrated the 25-th anniversary of the first test-tube baby Friday, a doctor who pioneered the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) technique in India says "scientific ignorance and bureaucratic arrogance halted India's progress in this field". "While the birth of Louise Brown on 25-th July 1978 in the UK was a turning point in human history, so was the birth of Durga on 3rd October 1978 in Calcutta," T.C. Anandkumar, former director of the Institute for Research in Reproduction (IRR) in Mumbai told.
"The 67 days separating the birth of the world's first and second test tube baby clearly indicate that the two groups were working independently but the Calcutta group was severely criticized and proscribed from carrying out any further work on IVF," Anandkumar said.
He said that the Calcutta team had used some very innovative and novel methods to achieve their goal. "They were the first to successfully use gonadotropins for ovarian stimulation in an IVF cycle, use at Ransvaginal approach to reach the ovaries for Oocyte harvesting, and use frozen embryos for IVF." Bureau Report