Really, who is your daddy?
I blogged about home paternity tests a while back, but now there has been a 30-state launch of similar tests in various drug stores. MSNBC reports that these tests, which requires mailing genetic samples of a child and suspected father to a lab, are selling quite well.
Sales in three western states — Washington, Oregon and California — were so brisk last fall that Rite Aid Corp. expanded the product this week to some 4,300 stores in 30 states across the country.
…“Everyone is purchasing the tests because they’re curious,” said Fogg [CEO of Sorenson Genomics, manufacturer of these tests], who expects to sell at least 52,000 tests this year. “They’re looking to establish questions about their own child or their own paternity.”
But for genetics experts, drugstore marketing of DNA testing raises questions of accuracy and ethics.
“From our perspective, direct-to-consumer genetic tests raise all the same issues for lax government oversight, potentially misleading or false advertising and the potential for making profound medical decisions on the basis of poorly interpreted or understood results,” said Rick Borchelt, a spokesman for the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University.
At the very least, the kits have the potential to complicate the lives of the people who use them, legal experts cautioned.
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