Daddy?
I am interested to see how this new mail-order DNA paternity test works out. Technically, mail-order tests provide privacy and convenience. However, the market is not yet monitored by the FDA, and the test referred to in the linked article is not FDA approved. This means that test results, although said to be between 98-99% accurate, could be anything but.
The way it works is this: you buy the kit at your local drug store, you do the cheek-swab yourself, and then you send the swab to the lab. The results are later made available to you.
Until there is an FDA approved paternity test, anyone considering using an over-the-counter paternity test should take the results with a grain of salt. These tests, while not extremely difficult, can be affected by procedural errors, and unless you’re dealing with an accredited lab those procedures could be anything. The possibility that lives could be changed based on erroneous information is just too great.
Now, we know that mail-order testing can and does work for many people. Home HIV tests started becoming available back in the late 90’s,and have been a great service to many people. However, unaccredited testing services rapidly swamped the market and made it very difficult for the average person to know a good test from a bad one.
The only sure-fire way to know that a test will give you the highest quality results is to do your research before you buy. Also, consider getting any results confirmed with a second opinion from a doctor or even a second at home test. False-positives and false-negatives are prevalent in research laboratories. That’s why researchers always replicate their results several times over. There’s no reason why a consumer who is looking for a life-changing result shouldn’t do the same.
Filed under Esoterica | Comments (3)3 Responses to “Daddy?”
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Great topic, Kristin!
I’ll add that I have both received results from at-home DNA tests and written the materials that accompany at-home DNA tests. If the material that accompanies the results isn’t written well, the results can be confusing even if they are accurate.
I work for Identigene and in my opinion there are many reasons people can be comfortable with out paternity test and trust the results. We are accredited with the American Association of Blood Banks we also are ISO 17025 certified. There is no FDA regulation for this type of testing at this point however our lab does testing for police and other government agencies. We follow strict guidelines and have double blind testing which make us very comfortable in saying that our testing is as accurate as possible.
I have done some basic research on these – non lab tests that are been used by our “1 hour trained” Police officers and the results were poor at best. Major weak areas were sample quality / quantity and of course contamination, unlike the sales PR hype from the manufacturers. Who’s your daddy when you take a test at home? my bet is it wont yeild the result expected and emotional councilling and lawsuits will be the order of the day. Why cant people use trained professionals?.