PTI Fact Check: Concept video of 'artificial womb facility' taken out of context, shared as real by social media users

New Delhi, Jan 17 (PTI) A 30-second video on social media claiming infertile couples can conceive a baby from an artificial womb facility and shared widely was found on analysis that the technology depicted in it does not exist yet.

Hashem Al-Ghaili, the biotechnologist who shared the original video on YouTube, confirmed to the PTI Fact Check team that the technology depicted in his video was taken out of context and shared as real by some social media users.

In its analysis, the team conducted an InVid tool search on the video shared on Twitter on December 24 last year. The tweet was viewed 688.3k times and liked by 4449 other users.

The post read: "I said years ago that science would soon produce humans; now we have artificial wombs. While there could be some medical, ethical, and governmental issues surrounding this innovation, I think it will help address complications before, during, and after childbirth; what do you think?" (Sic) The voiceover in the video shared in the tweet said: "Introducing EctoLife, World's first artificial womb facility powered entirely by renewable energy. EctoLife allows the infertile couple to conceive a baby and become true biological parents of their offspring. It's a perfect solution for women who had their uterus surgically removed due to cancer or other complications." The Fact Check team did a Google Reverse Image Search on a keyframe found in the InVid tool and found the YouTube video posted by Berlin-based science communicator and producer Al-Ghaili on Dec 9, 2022. The title of the 8:39-minute video read: "EctoLife: The World's First Artificial Womb Facility." "The world's first artificial womb facility, EctoLife, will be able to grow 30,000 babies a year. It's based on over 50 years of ground-breaking scientific research conducted by researchers worldwide," read the video's caption, which has garnered over 18 lakh views.

The desk then went through the video, which started with the voiceover: "Introducing EctoLife, the world's first artificial womb facility powered entirely by renewable energy." The entire video, shared as real by multiple social media users, continued to explain how EctoLife allows "infertile parents to conceive a baby and become true biological parents of the baby" and showed the animated footage of the facility.

Continuing to scan for more details, the desk reached out to IVF expert and medical director of Aveya Fertility, Dr. Nisha Bhatnagar, for her comment on the claim in the video.

"It is just a concept. It is a theoretical thing," she told PTI.

"As of now, we can grow the embryos in the lab till Day 5 only. Beyond Day 5, we don't have any capacity to grow the embryos in the lab. After Day 5, the outer shell ruptures, which we call hatching, and once it opens up, it needs a uterus to implant - a maternal uterus, not an artificial one," she added.

The desk subsequently contacted Al-Ghaili over email, asking him to verify the claims in his video.

In his reply, Al-Ghaili said: "I created the video myself. The technology depicted in the video doesn't exist yet. This is just a concept at the moment." "EctoLife is a concept designed to showcase how far reproductive technology has come. The main goal of creating the video was to ignite the discussion about emerging technology and to highlight scientific progress in the field of ectogenesis", he added.

"I did my best to alert the audience that this is a concept, not a real-life company. The facility doesn't exist right now," he added.

It was thus found that the video shared was a mere representation of a concept that has yet to be created.

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