The IVF Pioneer Who Says His Own Industry Is Lying - Professor Robert Winston

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Robert Winston (0:47)

Well, the fact of the matter is we as a professional, I'm not telling the truth. I'm very disappointed. We all agree that a lot of people needed this and we were not going to charge private money. Unfortunately, it became massive industry. The truth is that a vast amount of in vitro fertilization is unnecessary. It fails, but then a few months later, somebody gets pregnant spontaneously. After six attempts at in vitro fertilization, only 34% of patients have a baby after six attempts.

Now, that's never said anywhere.

Konstantin Kisin (1:17)

How long do you think it's going to be, Robert, before, you know, people walk into a clinic and they've given the menu and say, look, we can dial this up, this particular gene up, you can dial this gene down and even just go, well, you know what, we've got two girls who would really like a boy. I want a son.

Robert Winston (1:34)

That's already happening. We're not saying it's happening, but I'm sure it is happening.

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Francis Foster (2:04)

Professor Robert Winston, what a pleasure is for us to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Robert Winston (2:09)

Thank you for having me.

Francis Foster (2:10)

It's great to have you. Lots to talk about. We really want to talk about science and medicine, and particularly in the area of fertility, and maybe a little bit more. But before we get into that, can you tell, because I think it's important for people to understand your expertise, a little bit about your medical career. You're pioneer of several things as part of IVF.

Can you tell us a little bit about your experience and your life in medicine, and particularly in this area?

Robert Winston (2:36)

I mean, going into medicine was a complete mistake. I didn't expect to do that. I mean, I had a bad time at school, and I think it's partly because my father died when I was eight, and I missed that male figure in a very male society, which I was in, because I was in one of these elite schools. My mother had no money because she was supporting three children, and I was the oldest, and I got a scholarship, which was very helpful.

But I always had this odd feeling that I was going to die at the age of 42, because that's what my father did, and therefore, you know, why bother to try? And I wasn't academically inadequate, but I stopped scoring during my time at school. So by the time I'm in GCSEs, or the equivalent, the O levels are all right, but I don't want to bore you with all this stuff. But when it came to A level, I really performed very badly in the mock A levels, and my school said, well, he's never going to the university, and just sort of pretty well wrote me off, actually, which was quite common in those sorts of schools. And so I left school actually with quite good A levels, because I suddenly realized I had to work.

But with no clear idea what I wanted to do. I had a place at Cambridge, but I wasn't sure that I wanted to do natural sciences. And I thought, actually, medicine is so glamorous, you know, and it was that it was very interesting people. It was nothing to do with what you'd now ask a medical student. And I think it's very important that we understand that it's really useful for young people not to know where they're going, not to be too concerned about, you know, the usual channels to get into a particular place, and to remember that if you're sensible, you're going to change the direction again and again anyway. And I think I've done that a bit. And so, I mean, during school and then later on, because I wasn't doing my academic work, I got really involved with theater, and I decided I really wanted to do theater. In fact, at university, I produced plays and ended up doing a play at the University, which did incredibly well commercially. And I then came to my senses and realized, actually, I should be doing something, which is what I've been trained to do. So I went in to do clinical medicine, but that was unsatisfactory because it wasn't really a challenge in the way that I wanted. It was the intellectual side which turned out to be really interesting. I wasn't the great scientist, of course not. But it was just the way of thinking about puzzles, about stuff and thinking, well, that really does mean something because you could change things. And so I was incredibly lucky because when I came from Edinburgh, I couldn't get a job because I've been a hippie. And I've been four years trying to get jobs in medicine and doing that for a while. But once I've been to Edinburgh, nobody would take me on an interview. And I wanted to do women's health because it seemed to me to be an unused area of medicine which was not very popular.