The IVF Directors Group and the Council of the Fertility Society of Australia have approved an Advertising Code of Practice for IVF units.

Both organisations believe the following rules are in the public interest and adherence could be required for accreditation by the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee (RTAC).

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is expected to circulate the Code of Practice to State Consumer Affairs Departments.

It is a matter for individual practitioners and clinics whether they choose to advertise.
The Code of Practice states:

1. IVF Clinics are bound under NH&MRC Guidelines to provide members of the public who are intending to undergo treatment with clinic-specific results upon request, but it is not compulsory
for a clinic to advertise its results.

2. All data used in or given in advertisements and other forms of information-provision to the public
must be verifiable by the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee (RTAC) at any subsequent clinic accreditation visit.

3. Data given in advertisements and other forms of information-provision must be based on a statistically meaningful data set, and if provided on small numbers, must carry the following disclaimer:

This success rate is based on small numbers and could therefore be unrepresentative. The data must include over 12 months experience and include numbers.
(Note that the data set must nevertheless be verifiable to RTAC; data from different geographic areas or from different years can be combined to overcome the numeric criterion, as long as this is not done selectively)

4. Data given in advertisements and other forms of information-provision must
not continue to be quoted beyond the time that the clinic has more recent comparable information, without adding to or replacing the previous data set.

5. Data given in advertisements and other forms of information-provision must not be given for a selected set of satellites without including or quoting separately the data for that clinic’s satellites elsewhere, and for the total program overall.

6. Clinics are strongly discouraged from using advertisements that carry personal endorsements. Clinics should avoid paid advertisements in the same paper as a personal story.
7. Clinics should avoid initiating the public announcement of "breakthroughs" except when contemporaneously substantiated by presentation at a conference or in a recognised medical journal.

8. Clinics must avoid misleading advertising, particularly by representing a restricted experience as a general one, or by seeking in other ways to unreasonably raise the expectations of infertile couples.

9. This Code of Practice applies to advertisements and any information prepared for the public.

10. Consumers are referred to the information notes for the mechanism for handling any complaints.