The Economist,英国著名杂志《经济学人》，内容犀利不乏诙谐，立场坚定而不失客观。听说现在的时髦不是LV，不是宝马，而是一个家庭有没有阅读The Economist的习惯。

今天，和你一起精读一篇《经济学人》医学相关的小短文。

早在2014年，就有媒体爆料称女神姐姐林志玲冷冻了9颗卵子，因为她当时并没有结婚生子的打算，但是担心自己将来可能会后悔，想要一个属于自己的孩子，于是悄悄冷冻了自己的卵子以备不时之需，于是“冷冻卵子”瞬间成为热门话题。

到了2019年的今天，冷冻卵子已经成为了越来越多年轻女性的选择，生育产业也因具有“巨大的商业价值”而成为了资本新宠。今天这期经济学人就为我们揭开了“冷冻卵子”商业价值背后的一些秘密。

文章开篇讲到了纽约的一家冷冻卵子的诊所Trellis。但是这个诊所最大的特征就是：

不像个诊所

（non-clinical）

一起来看看它的环境如何：

Bright-blue letters greet women at Trellis, an egg-freezing studio in New York. “It’s up to each of us to invent our own future,” they enjoin. No baby pictures here, of the sort that adorn joyless waiting rooms at traditional fertility clinics.

Enjoin意思是“命令；强烈建议”，是非常正式的一种用法。常见用法有两个：

①命令别人做某事enjoin sb. to do sth. 如：

She enjoined me strictly not to tell anyone else.

她严令我不准告诉其他任何人。

②严禁别人做某事（常用于法律）enjoin sb. from doing sth. 此处可以联想stop/prevent等词的用法，如：

The judge enjoined Varityper from using the ad in any way.

法官禁止Varityper公司以任何方式使用这则广告。

Adorn是及物动词“装饰；装扮”，也是一种正式用法，名词形式是adornment。

Adorn的常见用法是adorn sh./sth. with sth.，如：

The walls were adorned with paintings.

人们一走进这家店，就能看到墙上的醒目的bright blue letters，几行蓝色的大字：

Photo: Courtesy of Trellis

Instead the client-experience manager, Casy Tarnas, invites visitors to grab a charcoal（深灰色）-coloured “fertility-friendly juice”. Turkish-cotton robes await. If this feels like a spa rather than surgery, that is the idea. Egg-freezing, which promises to preserve young women’s healthy eggs until they are ready to start a family, is supposed to be “an empowering experience”.

Another view of Trellis’s waiting room, featuring a fully stocked juice bar.

Photo: Courtesy of Trellis

这个桌上的瓶瓶罐罐应该就是Trellis特制的“fertility-friendly juice”。整个过程不像是在做手术，反而舒服地像在做spa。

Trellis’s reception, with offices to the left.

Photo: Courtesy of Trellis

生育产业面向的人群有哪些？

大致分为三类：

第一类，生育能力不足；

第二类，不婚者或者同性夫妇；

第三类，就是那些为了打拼事业或者因为一直在等待Mr. Right而选择推迟生育年龄的年轻女性，她们想通过冷冻卵子来保存生育能力：

The fertility business has always peddled hope to people who struggle to conceive naturally. It still does, extending the promise to singles and same-sex couples as social norms shift, and increasingly—as in the case of Trellis—to the much larger clientele of young women who wish to postpone childbearing while they pursue a career or await “the one”, and are therefore likelier to need help when they do eventually want babies.

Peddle有两个意思，第一个是“兜售；叫卖”，通常是指那种挨家挨户的上门推销，或者巡回销售；第二个意思是“宣传；传播（思想，消息）”，希望人们能够接受这种观念或思想，如：

He’s travelled all over Europe peddling his racist views.

Conceive也有两个意思，一个是文中的“怀孕”，另一个是“想出（主意、计划等）；构想，想象”，如：

He conceived the idea of transforming the old power station into an arts centre.

他想出了一个把旧发电站改造为艺术中心的主意；

I cannot conceive what it must be like.

我想像不出它会是什么样子。

Conceive这个词的两个意思让我不禁想道这样一个段子：

生育产业的市场潜力无限，逐渐成为了资本新宠：

Data Bridge, a research firm, predicts that by 2026 the global fertility industry could rake in $41bn in sales, from $25bn today. Today one in 60 in America is born thanks to in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other artificial treatments. In Denmark, Israel and Japan the figure is more than one in 25—and rising. In China revenues could double to over $7bn by 2023, according to Frost & Sullivan, a data firm.

in vitro fertilization是体外受精，使卵子在母体外受精后再放回子宫内发育，in vitro是形容词“体外的”。

生育产业成为资本新宠的原因是什么？

一是因为有高昂的利润，二是因为人们繁衍后代的天性，所以这个市场的需求永远存在，且不受经济衰退的影响（recession-proof）。

Add high operating margins（利润）—of around 30% in America for a $20,000 round of IVF—plus the recession-proof nature of the desire for offspring, and investors are understandably excited.

Recession意思是“经济衰退；经济萎缩”，如：

The economy is in deep recession.

经济正处于严重的衰退之中。

-proof前面可以加一个名词构成复合名词，意思是“防……的；抗……的”，如：

rainproof / windproof clothing 防雨/防风服装；

The car has childproof locks on the rear doors.

汽车后门装有防止儿童开启的锁。

生育产业的投资重点有哪些？

治疗不孕不育和保存生育能力。

The money is flowing not just into treating infertility (as IVF clinics do) but also preserving fertility (egg-freezingclinics) and, even further removed from conception（conceive的名词形式）, diagnosing if either treatment or preservation might be needed one day (tests and trackers).

保育行业兴起的原因

快速冷冻技术提高了精子和卵子解冻后的存活率，为女性打开了一扇新的窗户，给自己留下成为母亲的机会。

The second type of fertility business—preservation—was spawned by more recent breakthroughs in flash-freezing（快速冷冻） sex cells, which dramatically increased the survival rates of frozen sperm and eggs after thawing（融化；解冻）. Egg-freezing clinics purport to sidestep a dilemma faced especially by women who wait beyond their mid-thirties, when egg cell deterioration（退化） can accelerate, to have a baby. Traditionally such women could improve their chances by buying young, healthy eggs from donors, or accept longer odds（机会；可能性） with their own eggs. Egg-freezing lets young, healthy women donate to their future selves.

Spawn作名次使用的话意思是“（鱼、蛙等产下的）卵”，作动词的一个意思是“（鱼、蛙等）产卵”，另一个意思就是“导致；造成；引起”，如：

Tyndall's inspired work spawned a whole new branch of science.

由廷德尔富有创见的著作发展出了一个崭新的科学分支。

Purport意思是“声称；自称；标榜”，常见搭配是purport to do/be sth.,如：

The report purports to be objective.

言下之意是这份报告“自称”是客观的，但事实也许不是如此。

Sidestep，横跨一步躲过，侧移一步闪开，也就是“回避；躲避（问题）”的意思，如：

Did you notice how she neatly sidestepped the question?

你有没有注意到她多么巧妙地回避了那个问题？

然而生育产业也不是万无一失，由于监管并不完善，出现了不少纰漏，一起来看看都发生过哪些乌龙：由于储存故障，损失了许多精子和卵子；胚胎移植错了母体，莫名其妙地怀了别人的孩子……

All fertility businesses stir（引起） controversy. Last year Pacific, a fertility clinic in San Francisco, and the Cleveland Medical Centre, in Ohio, lost many eggs and embryos to faulty（出故障的） storage. CHA Fertility, in Los Angeles, has been accused of implanting the wrong embryos, which led to the birth mother having to give up twins who were genetically related to two other couples. Peiffer Wolf, an American law firm representing several families involved in similar cases, says the industry, which can face fewer rules in America than nail salons, urgently needs some.

除了可能存在的风险，生育辅助技术真的像那些诊所所说的那么万能吗？其中也不乏吹嘘的成分：

Clinics in America and beyond are also accused of playing up success. Like motorists and asset managers, most claim above-average results. As for their newfangled extras（额外收费）, the British regulator, which uses a traffic-light system to grade 11 popular IVF add-ons（附件）, has yet to give one a green light, meaning it is both safe and effective. The newer breeds of fertility firm are similarly criticised for misleading customers. In fact, existing egg-preservation techniques are expensive, invasive, often ineffective—and regularly oversold.

Play up sth.意思是“夸大；渲染”，含有一点贬义，如：

It was only a small achievement though our CEO tried to play it up.

拓展一下play up这个短语的另外几个意思：

① 强调：During the interview, try to play down your weaknesses and play up your strengths.

② 制造麻烦：The children have been playing up.小孩子调皮捣蛋。

③ 产生疼痛：My back has been playing me up again. 我的背又开始疼了。

Whenever it rains, my arthritis starts playing up. 一到下雨，我的关节炎就犯了。

Newfangled用来形容那些看上去非常新奇但其实太过复杂或是没什么必要的事物，比如年轻人使用的一些流行网络语，the newfangled speech used by teenagers；亦或是某些层出不穷，更新换代极快的电子产品：newfangled gadgets.

97469080_100061956

oversell，顾名思义，过分贩卖，意思就是“过分吹嘘；过分宣扬”，和play up意思相近。

有些生育产业的初创企业甚至会在“大V”冷冻卵子时提供优惠，以此让“大V”帮他们在社交平台上打广告（就像微博上很多大V都在给电动牙刷打广告一样…）：

Some startups（新兴企业） give Instagram influencers subsidised （给予补助的）treatments in exchange for touting the service to millennial followers.

Tout作动词时有三种意思：

① 标榜；吹捧；吹嘘

② 兜售

③ 卖黄牛票

哈哈，那你能猜到中文里的票贩子——“黄牛”怎么说嘛？

就是tout，或者说成ticket tout，不过这是英式用法，美式说法是scalper。

即便如此，生育产业对于投资者、男女性带来的吸引力却未曾减弱：

None of which dampens the fertility industry’s appeal to women, men—or investors.

Dampen大家熟知的意思是“使潮湿”，这里使用的是它的另一个含义“降低；减弱（热情，激动等）”。想象一下满腔激情如烈火般熊熊燃烧，却当头泼过来一盆冷水，你的热情是不是顿时就“减弱”了呢？

然而，目前生育产业吸引资金也不是一件坏事，对生殖领域的研究进程也会因此而大大推进：

With luck, the capital currently flowing into research on reproduction, a surprisingly mysterious aspect of human biology, will hasten（加快） the process.

References: