The big thaw
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Rating
The big thaw
Our Review Summary
This story delivers a clear conclusion: "Bottom line, a woman who wants to conceive a child at some point in the future should carefully consider the options — the risks, costs, and unknowns."
Why This Matters
In the face of a practice "gaining in popularity," this story did a public service by explaining how much is not known about the practice of freezing eggs, and by issuing a clear caveat to consumers. This method could be applied to many health news stories every day.
Criteria
Satisfactory
Excellent. Estimate of $10,000 or more per procedure and states that insurance usually doesn’t cover it.
Satisfactory
The story says there are "few reliable statistics" in one place and "there are no reliable numbers for how many women have chosen to have their eggs frozen so far" in another and "there are no guarantees" in a third place. So when you don’t know the denominator and are unsure of the numerator, it’s hard for women to pinpoint the potential benefits.
Satisfactory
The sidebar has a list of bullets of "things to consider before freezing your eggs" that is, in essence, a list of potential harms.
Satisfactory
The story is quite clear about the unclear picture of the evidence for egg freezing: "few reliable statistics…two professional groups still consider egg freezing experimental…there are no guarantees."
Satisfactory
No disease mongering in the story.
Satisfactory
Several good independent sources cited.
Not Applicable
Not applicable. The story didn’t really compare egg freezing with other fertility approaches, but that’s OK because it really focused on questions about the egg freezing trend. The story did touch on several advances "nudging the use of egg-freezing forward" and on several methods to test the genetic viability of both eggs and embryos.
Satisfactory
The story is clear about the availability: "half of 282 US fertility centers surveyed offer egg freezing."
Satisfactory
The story states that it "is new enough that there are few reliable statistics." Good context. And, at the end, it says that "Still, several advances are nudging the use of egg-freezing forward."
Satisfactory
This story did not rely on a news release.
Total Score: 9 of 9 Satisfactory
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