Abstract
Interest in Assisting Reproduction looks at how high complexity reproductive technologies were made accessible to the medical community interested in fertility issues. This chapter covers the period during which the first clinics appeared, the first successful births took place, and in which the association again changed its name to reflect the ongoing changes in its epistemic infrastructure. What once was esterilología—a field concerned with caring for sterility as defined by the medical profession—then became biology of human reproduction—which focused mostly on managing hormonal levels to either prevent or promote conception—and now was (and still is) reproductive medicine.
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Notes
- 1.
The earthquake was produced by the clashing of the Cocos and the North America plates, 18 km deep. It lasted for 4 minutes and was calculated as having a magnitude of 8.1 in the Richter scale. The material loss was estimated at 5 million dollars. An estimated 4500 hospital beds were lost when needed the most. The number of lost lives remains unknown (Cicero Sabido, Padua Gabriell, Rodríguez Martínez, Toledo, & Yáñez Villar, 1986).
- 2.
For example: Alfonso Gutierrez Najar, Genaro García Villafana, Roberto Santos Halisack, Samuel Hernandez Ayup, Pedro Galache, Ricardo Asch, José Balmaceda.
- 3.
NOMs are Official Mexican Norms; these are stipulations of how procedures have to be done.
- 4.
“A los 22 años murió el centro médico más avanzado de America Latina. El conjunto hospitalario más importante […] el Centro Médico Nacional del IMSS […] La gigantesca obra, que logró reunir los últimos adelantos de la medicina y los equipos más modernos y sofisticados, duró 22 años. El sismo lo dejó en pie, pero inservible”.
- 5.
See Chapter 3 for more on the National Medical Centre.
- 6.
Workers of the Gineco 2 have a strong group identity. Up until 2015, they still got together for conferences and social gatherings. There is interesting work around the institution as a healthcare facility and also as a political figure. For more on this see: http://www.gineco2.com.mx/ with its last actualization in 2015.
- 7.
Ayala, A. R. Montaje de tecnología para la fecundación in vitro. Memoria del curso “Avances en Biología de la Reproducción”. Asociación Mexicana para el Estudio de la Fertilidad y Reproducción Humana. 1985, 253–256. Mentioned in INPer’s “Black Book”.
- 8.
Alejandro Reyes Fuentes studied medicine at UNAM between 1962 and 1970, he then did a fellowship in reproductive biology at the University of Pennsylvania between 1972 and 1973. When he returned, he began working at the National Medical Centre. He is a former president of the Academy of Surgeons. His area of research was related to andrology and the morphological and functional features of the sperm.
- 9.
Samuel Karchmer was a gynaecologist who focused most of his work on perinatal issues and was member of the AMEFRH. Jesús Kumate was a general surgeon and politician.
- 10.
The Mexican colloquial expression meaning “you were just what I was looking for” or “you fit perfectly”.
- 11.
He is known internationally for his work in surgical tubal sterilisation, particularly the culdoscopic technique (a.k.a culdoscopic tubal clipping) for which he developed a special forceps that bears his name: the Gutierrez Najar forceps (Frusch, Interview, 2018). This technique, which requited less time, local anaesthesia, and shorter recovery period, was used in many countries where family planning campaigns were implemented.
- 12.
The ABC Hospital (American British Cowdray Hospital) is a private hospital set up in 1952 by the British and American community. A few years later Alberto Kably Ambe also approached the ABC Hospital with the idea of a fertility clinic, and again they refused. It was not until the early 2000s when Carlos Navarro brought them the idea again that they agreed to opening a clinic as part of a modernising project that included opening a new hospital.
- 13.
Samuel García Peláez was designated as medical director.
- 14.
Humana Inc. started out as a nursing home in the 1960s. In 1968, they bought their first hospital, by 1974 they had turned into a hospital owning business and changed their name from Extendicare to Humana.
- 15.
El Pedregal—area of rocks—is the name of this area of the city in reference to its volcanic rock resulting from the eruption of the Xitle volcano some 25,000 years ago.
- 16.
The eighties brought more than just a geological earthquake that collapsed the city, it also brought an economic quake that collapsed the economy. After twenty-five years of relative political stability, economic growth, and investment in infrastructure, the “Mexican Miracle” was no more. Between 1976 and 1982, Mexico’s peso faced two plummeting devaluations: the first in 1976, triggering capital flight and doubling Mexico’s debt, and the second in 1982, when the banks were nationalised.
- 17.
Mexico has a tuition-free education system. Public schools and universities receive tax money from the government. Regardless of the student’s socioeconomic level or income, those who study at the public schools or universities do so tuition-free. This includes UNAM’s School of Medicine.
- 18.
Since the thirties there had been privately owned hospitals for specific communities such as The Spanish Hospital (1932) and the ABC Hospital (1952), neither of these however were for-profit. According to Quijano, a physician quoted in an article in Proceso, there had been two prior attempts at establishing a high-end private healthcare service, but those had been a Mexican initiative with Mexican investors. The first was in the early 1970s (1973–1974), it was organised by Agustin Legorreta with financial backing from the Banco Nacional de Mexico and with cardiologist Clemente Robles as the medical leader. This project never lifted because some members of the bank did not support it and then the 1976 crisis hit. The second effort was Manuel Campuzano’s project of Medica Sur, which eventually was established and is still offering service today.
- 19.
The family Vázquez Raña is one of the richest and most powerful families. They own (or have owned) newspapers, radio stations, television channels, hotel chains, banks, insurance companies. They have invested in the country’s infrastructure (airports and public transport) and have been in very close relationship with the PRI, the party that governed the country during the twentieth century. In 2018, the group held a total of twenty-four hospitals, ten in Mexico City and fourteen in the rest of the country. Grupo Angeles was the first network of private hospitals to exist in Mexico.
- 20.
Her two siblings were also GIFT babies.
- 21.
Later on, there was a slight change in the name of the centre, interchanging reproduction for conception, now the IECH.
- 22.
Conceived at the Clinica del Country de Bogotá and born on 10 January 1985 by C-Section. The physicians Oscar Lombana, and Luz Helena Pérez also participated.
- 23.
Companies founded by families from Monterrey include: Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, a brewery founded in 1890 that today is part of Heineken; FEMSA, Coca-Cola’s largest bottling company established in 1890; VITRO, a glass company founded in 1909 as the main supplier of the brewery Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma.
- 24.
This hospital also has an IVF clinic called CeUMER, Centro Universitario de Medicina Reproductiva de la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León.
- 25.
The term “test tube babies” appears as early as 1948 in the B movie Test Tube Babies directed by W. Merle Connell and produced by George Weiss. Here, the term “test tube babies” is making reference to babies conceived using artificial insemination. One of the posters promoting the movie had an illustration of a large test tube with a baby in it. Then, in 1969, the term is re-signified to make references to IVF children. For example, on the cover of the magazine LIFE there is reference to test tube babies now thinking about IVF.
- 26.
In some interviews with younger physicians and embryologists, I was also told that there was other physician who claimed to have “achieved the first test tube baby”. Other than these oral communications, I have found no other reference to this incident.
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González-Santos, S.P. (2020). Interest in Assisting Reproduction. In: A Portrait of Assisted Reproduction in Mexico. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23041-8_4
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