The most common form of DNA testing is paternity testing—whereby scientists and lab technicians decide who fathered a particular child based on cotton swabs of cheek cells. Sound dubious? Well, truth be told, websites forthrightly and stalwartly claim over 99% accuracy on certain results (dependent on the closeness of kin being tested). That’s much better than the antecedent of DNA testing: blood type comparison. Even the most uncommon blood type is shared by roughly 10% of the population, meaning that determining lineage or paternity through blood type is not just a shot in the arm, but a shot in the dark as well.
One of the first questions that sprung to my mind with paternity tests was: What happens if the father is unavailable (either through flight, death, or some other unforeseen happening)? How can you establish a paternal connection through DNA tests if you can only analyze the child’s DNA? It seems that lab experts are able to reconstruct the father’s genetic linage in case of his absence—meaning that DNA samples from willing aunts, uncles, nephews, cousins, and (most importantly) parents are culled and put under the microscope. What is the accuracy of results in this case? Some websites purport absentee paternal tests to top out at a 90% accuracy rate. All things considered, that is pretty darn high.
Other questions lingering from previous discussions concerning DNA tests and analysis are, how long does this blood work ordinarily take? How are samples collected? And, how expensive are genetic tests in general? The answers to the first two questions are pretty straightforward. Unless clients place a rush on test results, the lab will typically send the analyzed data within 7 business days. The DNA samples are collected through a range of differing techniques dependent on the age of the subject. Most often, buccal swabs (cheek) are taken. But for newborns, scientists tube up umbilical cord blood (don’t worry; it is completely painless—at least for the baby). And for prenatal patients, a CVS test or Early Amino Acid test is completed. For these last two, a doctor must be consulted and present.
The costs of DNA testing vary from the hundreds of dollars to the thousands depending on which resources you’re interested in, and how much data is already at your fingertips. For instance, the straightforward testing of two individuals will routinely run around $475 (unless, of course, you put a rush on results), while kinship analysis (which analyzes the lineage between various individuals) starts out at $1,550. And, if you are involved in a criminal case revolving around DNA testing, expert testimony, humbly provided by DNA lab technicians, will cost $1,500 a day. More bad news since DNA tests are not covered by health insurance or Medicare, in any way, shape, or form—meaning, be careful whom you accuse.
Analyzing DNA, while expensive, is nonetheless mind-reelingly accurate. And, for those trying to locate family members or establish paternity, costs are (sometimes) not all that important—certainly not as important as accuracy (imagine the chaos bargain basement DNA tests would cause). But while many people find such laboratory analysis scarily intrusive, DNA examinations show absolutely no sign of slowing down, which means, in layman’s terms, a lot more people will be wincing on the tube this year.
By Jean-Pierre Lacrampe