“I could have lost my child” because of a false DNA test result

A woman who received faulty DNA test results that identified the wrong man as the father of her unborn child told the BBC that the error could have resulted in her losing custody of her child.

“Sarah” – not her real name – lives in the West Midlands but is one of dozens of people who claim to be victims of unreliable tests advertised online and processed by a laboratory in Canada.

She said there was a point during the legal battle where her child’s biological father requested sole custody, adding: “The fact that I could have lost my child over this was very, very important.”

The company, now trading as Accu-metrics, did not respond to BBC requests for comment.

When Sarah discovered she was pregnant in 2019, she faced a dilemma.

“I was seeing two men at the time,” she said. “I was engaged and having an affair, so I didn’t know who the father was.”

To reassure herself, she searched for prenatal paternity tests online and found a company based in Canada that had a UK website and phone number.

She offered a blood test costing £350 to confirm the paternity of her unborn child.

Sarah, who is in her 30s, said: “They told me it was non-invasive and that they could tell me as early as seven weeks pregnant. “It was 99.9% accurate and would not harm me or anyone,” or the baby, which was the most important part.

“They really sold me everything, they told me everything I wanted.

“I was so worried and mentally not in a good place. They were my golden ticket to finding out what I needed to know.”

Sarah and her fiancé used a home testing kit to collect blood samples with a finger prick and mailed the samples as instructed.

When the results came back, they confirmed the baby belonged to her fiancé.

“I think it was a relief because it was the answer I wanted. But no matter the outcome, it was a child I wanted to bring into this world,” Sarah said.

However, after the baby was born, the man involved in the affair requested a second DNA test – with the help of a UK-based company.

The results showed he was the biological father, not Sarah’s fiancé.

She said: “It’s been life-changing, completely life-changing and completely messes up the logistics of life, I think, because there’s another person to think about.”

Sarah, who has since married her fiancé, was involved in a protracted legal battle over custody. The courts decided that the data must be shared with the biological father of her child.

She described the situation as “difficult” and said: “We don’t talk to each other, we don’t talk, so we have to be able to figure out how our lives cope with all of this and I hope that we can do that in time. “, at some point it will get easier.

At the beginning of this year a Investigation Canadian broadcaster CBC News found that the company Sarah used for the first test had communicated incorrect results to a number of customers.

CBC News reported that the company knew the tests were unreliable, yet continued to sell them and routinely identified the wrong birth fathers.

The Government of Canada’s Department of Health said companies or laboratories that provide genetic testing services are not regulated by Health Canada.

It states: “They are under the jurisdiction of provinces or territories as these governments are responsible for the provision and management of health services, including laboratory services.”

The BBC reached out to the Ontario Ministry of Health, but said its regulatory work in this area only affects laboratories with clinical purposes. It said prenatal paternity testing was not considered to have a clinical purpose.

Neither organization has been able to identify who is responsible for regulating the laboratories and companies that provide results from genetic testing kits, suggesting that there may not currently be a regulatory framework in Canada that covers this activity.

The Standards Council of Canada, which offers accreditation but is not a regulator, said the company – Viaguard Accu-metrics – is no longer accredited by the SCC because it has not met its accreditation requirements.

The previous accreditation only applied to DNA testing and not to all tests offered.

Denise Syndercombe-Court, professor of forensic genetics at Kings College London, said a blood test was not the most reliable way to establish paternity before a child is born.

She said it is best to do testing after birth, but if a prenatal test is desired, an invasive test is more reliable.

Prof Syndercombe-Court said the best methods of determining paternity before birth were an amniocentesis test, where a small sample of amniotic fluid is taken, or a chorionic villus sampling, where a small sample of cells from the placenta is taken and tested.

Both tests carry a small risk of miscarriage, which is why some people choose less reliable, non-invasive methods.

“Online, people don’t say how reliable [blood testing] is,” said Prof. Syndercombe-Court.

“I have seen a company claim that they are 100% accurate, but I know this is not the case.”

Years later, Sarah tries to move on with her life but says it’s “terrifying” that the company she originally worked with is still in operation.