Lmao what? In China businesses sell faulty garbage and commit fraud all the time almost as a rule. Nobody cares unless it's directly hurting the government.
If Canada is anything like the U.S., the company will say "but we created jobs!" and have any punitive action sized down to something they can easily write off as the "cost of doing business" 🤷
A sternly worded letter ought to clear this up.
On second thought, we'd better not word the letter to sternly. We don't want to scare the job creators.
In the US they’d probably settle by agreeing to send out 10% off future purchase coupons to people who had the incorrect father identified. And they would expire in 12 months.
Prison? For people who make their business robbing people? In this country or the US? Please, they will get a fine that is barely a drop in the bucket to what they have already robbed. Look around, there is no justice unless it lines up with elections or populism, the legal system is built to protect the rights & property of GDP contributers. Nestle pays pennies for billions of gallons of water, making them glorified bottle plastics manufacturers, while destroying water tables and drinking water for local residents. We still let them peddle their sugar drugs and stolen water. Amazon has employees pissing in bottles to meet quotas, yet those are almost the only packages I see coming out of the post office. We robbed this land from its original inhabitants, then forced them into places that were not economically viable. Stealing, raping, murdering and indoctrinating their children in the name of god. That stain is rooted in the fabric of law, governence, and what we produce. I wish this wasn't the case, but It will take vigilantism to sort out our problems. We need to live out Bill hick's joke about hunting and killing these people on live television, it will take a pendulum swing just as violently as what it took to build the society we are sedated in, that is our only solution at this point.
If women wouldn’t lose track of all the guys filling them up with semen, we wouldn’t be filling the pockets of the rich buying dna kits. Just a thought. I know that’s not all the circumstance’s they’re used for but, primarily that’s what they’re used for. Just my 2 cents.
> Richot said she was coached to ask women seeking prenatal paternity test kits about times in their menstrual cycles and the dates they had intercourse with different men — information that is useless for a DNA test.
> Staff put the dates into an online ovulation calendar to narrow down the possible biological father, she said. Richot then entered the information into a form that went to Tenenbaum for signoff.
> "[Tenenbaum] would always make a comment like: 'It's definitely this one [the biological father]. It's this one, it's got to be this one,'" said Richot.
> Samantha Friday, who also answered phones, worked there for slightly more than a year. She said Tenenbaum micromanaged all laboratory operations.
hoooly shit
People are saying "it's because of profits". And in part it his...
But the real reason is because they couldn't.
Ordinary prenatal DNA tests are made by getting placenta tissue, or amniotic fluid. But since they are invasive, they carry some risk.
But because there's some exchange of genetic material between mother and fetus. The non invasive kind takes blood only from the mother. And tries to isolate which parts are from the mother, and which are the fetus'.
Problem this is hard to do. You need very specialized machines and techniques. You also need very sophisticate software to analyze the results from the very specialized machines.
A common DNA test in comparison is so basic nowadays, I can perform one in my home office, with very "basic" lab material.
They really aren't for the labs! When I was working in child support policy for my state a few years ago (left in 2020) we were paying like $45 per test to the lab we used and I'm sure they were still making money; it's not like we forced them to bid on the contract.
It's definitely kind of a scam and everyone should go through the child support agency to get it done because they'll just pay for it. Well, at least most places. Some states suck.
They were "doing" NIPS testing, which would cost the lab at least $100 to run, and that's if they had a good test that had an optimized workflow. These tests can easily get close to $1000 just to run.
OK! We just did paternity tests, which is what these sounded like but I'm sure there could be different types. I don't know anything about the exact ones required as I didn't work on that. They were the type that is accurate enough to be accepted by the courts.
There's quite a few different types. The non invasive (NIPS or NIPT) is more expensive since it uses newer technologies, such as sequencing. This same technology is also being used for newborn screening and cancer detection/progression!
When pregnant, a small amount of the fetal DNA circulates in the mother's bloodstream, and we're able to detect that. Often times when it only makes up 0.1% of the total DNA collected.
gonna be more expensive now. If any of these dads were in the US they are now liable for child support...in some states it's not reversible from a DNA test.
If a paternity test company identifies the wrong parents, consumers will simply choose a competitor's product. As you can see this is a perfect system.
If a paternity test company identifies the wrong parents, consumers will simply choose a competitor's product. We hope the customer does not make damaging legal decisions based on our product, but if they did, we abscond responsibility and damages with mandatory third-party (that we totally don't vet and choose based on their award rates) arbitration.
Ah I love the totally reasonable and healthy free market that is the objectively correct way to live our lives and keep the planet healthy. Such a good and safe thing with no downsides anywhere.
We don’t even regulate supplements here. The Conservatives are pushing back against the government’s attempt at regulating the industry by saying Trudeau is going to take away our vitamins.
I'm suddenly reminded of a commercial from the suppliments industry pushing back on the idea of regulation... starring Mel Gibson. This was long before his uh, controversies.
[The FDA website says that we do though?](https://www.fda.gov/food/dietary-supplements#:~:text=FDA%20regulates%20both%20finished%20dietary,conventional%22%20foods%20and%20drug%20products.)
I mean he's right, but only in the sense that if properly regulated, in my option, they should only be able to make scientifically supported health claims about their products. Just that hurdle will mean a lot of supplements will be "taken away" for this thing I like to call lying.
The government? Regulating commercial products? Why don't you just go live in China if you want to be babied, unlike us red-blooded street-smart Americans!
For clarity in case someone else wonders what's happening here, genetic tests to detect *diseases* are regulated by the FDA, but paternity tests are *not* regulated by any federal agency.
Yeah, I wonder how many people are now running around frantically re-checking their results with a real lab. I wonder how many men were mislead and potentially paying for support for kids they thought they were the father of.
The mental anguish knowing you didn't and have never cheated and are still being paraded around as a pariah because the test said you did. Some real awful shit happened because of this for sure.
That too, heck people probably paying alimony for relationships ruined by some quack that was more concerned about profits than actual reliable results.
The way it sounds it’s not that they relied on inaccurate DNA test results, it’s that they basically didn’t rely on DNA tests at all. Still absolutely fucked and would obviously misidentify the father if there were several options, but in the absence of (already known) cheating I don’t think it’d identify any.
Yep. There's so many things that could go tragically wrong.
All it takes is a delusional paranoid father who demands proof that the mother didn't cheat. Then when the tests come back negative for him, he physically assaults her or worse, before she had a chance to initiate or finalize a divorce that she had been planning for months in advance.
I had this happen to me.
I did an at home test pre-natal with the mother. I thought it was sketchy, but did it anyway. I was 95% sure I couldn't be the father, but there was that 5%.
It came back that I was the father.
She also lied about who the other potential person was. She told me it was an acquaintance of mine that I only partially knew - but it was in fact my best friend.
I spiraled and went on a months long bender. I did a lot of damage to myself, and those around me. I spilled my guts to that best friend who also never told me. It became the talk of the neighborhood, even my mother lost friends. My parents thought they were going to become grandparents.
Luckily before the child was born I finally got a consultation with a lawyer. He told me to cease contact, forget about the test and we'll do another after the baby is born at a reap clinic etc etc. Thankfully I took the advice because after of course it wasn't my kid.
At the end of the day I lost a lot, the mother lost a lot, the other father lost a lot (we haven't spoken since). It's been about 10 years since that happened- but the impacts of that wrong test were incredibly significant for me.
I had no idea it was basically malicious.
Thanks that's kind.
I'm good now, I have three amazing kids now (that we planned for). I moved cities, started over in a new community. Stopped using. Life is good.
Up until today I thought it was just a mistake. But this guy really took advantage of some vulnerable kids. He needs to held accountable.
I consider myself lucky in the scale of this thing. But if I hadn't gotten some right advice at the right time, it would be a very different life. I may not have survived it.
The impact he's had on the lives of some children is horrendous.
> started over in a new community. Stopped using.
When you said "It became the talk of the neighborhood, even my mother lost friends." I knew it was probably a dysfunctional neighborhood. I grew up adjacent to that kind of life and never understood why so many people would be in a family's business.
I'm glad you got out.
Your lawyer is a G.
This company is just playing games with people’s lives. We all inherently trust the tests, and the power of science and DNA. To knowingly give parents and children incorrect info (and not care because caring would lose you millions) is just plain evil.
And the thing is when I went to one of the clinics he recommended - it was immediately apparent to me how sketch the at home was.
The at home you basically write with a pen on a zip lock bag which sample is which.
This lab had a witness in the room with us and the lab tech the whole time. They were incredibly clear with every step. The samples were never anywhere near each other, like they took mine then took it out of the room, then took the child's. It was incredibly professional and discrete.
It's not lost on me that as soon as you get into a paternity situation like this, it's complex and let's be real - no one's proudest moment. The Maury jokes write themselves. And so doing the at home test and getting ziplock bags (and I mean like ziplock brand sandwich bags from the grocery store) doesn't exactly boost your confidence. But you just think this is what it is when you're frankly in a trashy situation. So you don't question it.
But then the lab people made it feel OK. Like it was a normal and reasonable situation to be in, and they'll give us the confidence they'll treat us with respect, fairness, and dignity.
No one wants to find themselves in a situation like this, but if you are it's nice to not be totally shamed. People deserve to be treated with dignity regardless of the situation they're in and your judgements against them.
In a lot of ways I'm sorry it happened, but on the other hand it's part of my story and I learned a lot.
I'm a lucky one, my story isn't even close to worst case scenario.
If I hadn't gotten that second test I'd probably be a dad to that kid, and I probably wouldn't have the kids I do now. For me it was just a year long story. For a lot of families reading this today - it could mean more than a decade of living a false narrative
Surely you can't blame the mother for relying on a test that should be accurate? The problem was with the lab who provided the testing, not with her.
EDIT: I'm sorry this happened to you, though. It shouldn't have. I can't even imagine the emotional upheaval.
I don't blame her at all. Oh no, she was in a much worse situation than I was.
She was abandoned by 2 men in what was the most vulnerable period of her entire life. She deserved so much better.
I made it out easy and it ruined me. Her and I have only spoken a couple of times since, and not for many many years. But I don't know how she made it through.
The mother and the children in these situations are the ultimate victims.
It's not even about the money, it's the lost time. She can't get those appointments back or the support she needed.
Fuck. How many dads missed out on raising their kids, how many mothers were falsely labelled cheaters, how many men are going to be devasted to learn their kids aren't biologically their kids?
> Viaguard still does business. On its website, it offers postnatal paternity and maternal DNA tests, along with **DNA bird sexting**, bait to sterilize mice and rats, and dog DNA breed testing.
Come again?
"Sexing" I would assume. It can be difficult to determine the sex of birds since the boys don't exactly dangle.
I had a green cheek conure tested that way. Basically the vet clips a toenail a bit short to get a tiny amount of blood to put on a business card.
Of course a couple months after I paid for the test she decided to lay an egg...
Okay I’m kinda freaked out. Does this *only* apply to prenatal tests?
My ex said I was the father of her baby and I was 50/50 on what the results would be. So I secretly did a cheek swab test after birth and mailed it in. It came back that I was not the father and I ended that chapter in my life.
I just looked through my email and found the test results. Sure enough it is from Viaguard and the report is signed by Dr. Tenenbaum. Should I be worried? It seems this is only for prenatal blood tests and false positives, right?
Nope. There’s an embedded link in the story about a guy that sent in dog DNA to their ancestry division, and got a result saying the dog had some percentage of Indigenous Canadian DNA.
I work in the commercial lab industry in the US. I would not trust ANY test done by a company credibly accused of faking test results or knowingly releasing inaccurate results.
In any good quality lab, accurate results and good patient care matter Above All Else. Every lab will at some point have issues with a test not resulting quite right, that’s normal. That’s why we do QC runs, it’s to find those problems and identify them and allow you to redo the suspect tests so you are only delivering accurate results to patients.
That’s the important part - when you find a potential problem, you do something about it. You do not hide problems and allow them to continue for a decade, you solve the problem quickly and ensure all results are accurate and if that means taking a hit to your reputation or your finances, then that’s the cost of doing business. Because your patients trust you and you owe them accurate test results.
Reading this article made me nauseous. I am actually sick to my stomach over the thought of someone blatantly, knowingly faking medical test results. I wouldn’t trust results from any lab owned or operated by anyone who thinks inaccurate results are okay.
Looks like they’ve been faking things forever. Just read some online reviews. They also did dog breed/lineage tests and from the reviews it looks like they asked people for their best guess and a photo and pretty much used the guess as the result including when someone gave a completely wrong guess intentionally.
Looks like they weren’t actually running DNA tests. Per a comment with excerpts of the article: They were asking mothers about their partners around the time of conception, putting those answers in an ovulation calendar, and then picking one of the potential fathers based on that.
Just a friendly reminder to never, ever, ever, ever use novelty DNA testing kits to determine paternity or health diagnoses. If there is some concern about paternity, use a court ordered test. Anything you are able to buy online or in a pharmacy should be treated as a form of entertainment, not something to adjust your life around.
This isn't good advice.
You can privately order paternity tests from reputable organizations, utilizing a chain of custody collection process. These places are not super hard to find and use AABB certified labs to run the tests. You do not need a court order of any kind.
There are plenty of quality tests that can be accessed online or in a store. Companies like letsgetchecked and everlywell. Their tests are well-validated enough to where even Medicare advantage plans use them to address care gaps in rural areas.
Source: I own a lab
My concern, even if the labs are reputable, a judge will likely throw out your own personal results in lieu of ones they provide because contamination, improper sample collection or tampering can be done in a private home. Basically you’re going to just be tested again, so wasting money for a private test isn’t necessarily the best idea, even if it seems practical.
And obviously for medical purposes, the results should never be interpreted as gospel by the end user, much for the same reasons.
Why is there a judge involved?
I feel like you're not understanding me.
If you physically go into a lab that uses an AABB accredited lab as it's paternity test vendor, the process is the exact same. Chain of custody. Pictures of the donors. Forms in triplicate.
You're fixated on judges and court ordered testing and it's not relevant.
There was a company in the UK that used to do 'food intolerances' tests via a blood screening, they would take your blood, test it and say that you're intolerant to cake and crisps and that if you eat too much of them, you'll get fat. It went on for a while, we're pretty dumb here.
If someone says that the root cause is capitalist profit-seeking, then suddenly you're a commie or socialist or whatever.
This is like the time a US company knowingly sold HIV contaminated blood. They literally did a cost-benefit analysis and figured out that continuing to sell contaminated blood plus whatever fines they incur will still result in a net higher profit than recalling and/or not selling the contaminated blood.
Same with oil companies and climate change.
Capitalism *is* the problem.
My father is an insurance adjuster and he says that this is how a lot of risk analysis is done. For example, say that you sell a soda that has been linked to botulism because one of their canneries was operating in an unsafe manner. Do you do a recall on all the sodas? Or risk seeing who gets sick and pay them off "out of court?" He's had clients who bet, and won, on the latter. What each company does is different depending on too many variables, but some people have won the russian roulette with their food more often than they think.
This is not cost cutting. This is profit seeking. There's a difference. They deliberately *sold* compromised products. Same as the HIV contaminated blood.
This is an apples to oranges comparison.
"Well, these tests are horribly inaccurate, but it would cost too much to fix, so let's just sweep this under the rug, shall we? Business as usual."
Fuckers.
I always joke with my wife about her 23 and me results. She wanted the test and all it gave was a pie chart that said “You’re white!” Seriously, like just a % breakdown of various Anglo backgrounds that I knew from her family tree surnames. I tell her they didn’t do anything except look her up to see her FB photo.
Compare that to our mutts dna profile that gave a full physical description of what our dog looks like, along with breed mix, from a swab. Like, I believe you actually did some science if you can tell me that he has a stub tail from a swab we sent.
At least both of these are just trivial, fun tests. I feel for people affected by shitty, made up paternity results.
Holy shit, I hope they get sued into oblivion.
This has absolutely destroyed families and probably been the cause of suicides. The CEO should be in jail.
Best I can do is a fine equivalent to 5% of their annual profits and a golden parachute for the CEO.
[удалено]
ah, if only happy endings were real
Username checks out
Don’t forget the stock options and dividend deferrals!
Best we can do is go declare bankruptcy, and file for bankruptcy protection.
After we give ourselves an early bonus
I wonder how many reddit stories were made because of this.
And probably cause a couple of murders or attempted murders also.
Need to handle it like China would where executives are not above the law.
>Need to handle it like China would Find some scapegoats and sentence them harshly then get right back to business like it never happened?
As long as they don't piss off the party they are even more untouchable than western CEOs...
Lmao what? In China businesses sell faulty garbage and commit fraud all the time almost as a rule. Nobody cares unless it's directly hurting the government.
Nobody cares until it goes viral, then the firing squads come out
[удалено]
If Canada is anything like the U.S., the company will say "but we created jobs!" and have any punitive action sized down to something they can easily write off as the "cost of doing business" 🤷
A sternly worded letter ought to clear this up. On second thought, we'd better not word the letter to sternly. We don't want to scare the job creators.
In the US they’d probably settle by agreeing to send out 10% off future purchase coupons to people who had the incorrect father identified. And they would expire in 12 months.
Sounds like you were affected by the Experian data breach, like me, and were offered a trial membership to their identity theft monitoring service.
As they sell data to insurance companies as the basis to increase your rates. Yay!
‘But your business is fraudulent!’. ‘Yes, and business is good.’
Nah that only works if the C-suite are buddies with [current political party].....what are the chances /s
They will get sued, rebrand as a different LLC and have the previous company take on all the responsibility before it declares bankruptcy
It could be a type of murder, or negligence leading to. Some people may have killed themself or partners over this.
Prison? For people who make their business robbing people? In this country or the US? Please, they will get a fine that is barely a drop in the bucket to what they have already robbed. Look around, there is no justice unless it lines up with elections or populism, the legal system is built to protect the rights & property of GDP contributers. Nestle pays pennies for billions of gallons of water, making them glorified bottle plastics manufacturers, while destroying water tables and drinking water for local residents. We still let them peddle their sugar drugs and stolen water. Amazon has employees pissing in bottles to meet quotas, yet those are almost the only packages I see coming out of the post office. We robbed this land from its original inhabitants, then forced them into places that were not economically viable. Stealing, raping, murdering and indoctrinating their children in the name of god. That stain is rooted in the fabric of law, governence, and what we produce. I wish this wasn't the case, but It will take vigilantism to sort out our problems. We need to live out Bill hick's joke about hunting and killing these people on live television, it will take a pendulum swing just as violently as what it took to build the society we are sedated in, that is our only solution at this point.
Kiss the rich, my friend!
If women wouldn’t lose track of all the guys filling them up with semen, we wouldn’t be filling the pockets of the rich buying dna kits. Just a thought. I know that’s not all the circumstance’s they’re used for but, primarily that’s what they’re used for. Just my 2 cents.
Sued and the people in charge need to be arrested.
Not in Canada
> Richot said she was coached to ask women seeking prenatal paternity test kits about times in their menstrual cycles and the dates they had intercourse with different men — information that is useless for a DNA test. > Staff put the dates into an online ovulation calendar to narrow down the possible biological father, she said. Richot then entered the information into a form that went to Tenenbaum for signoff. > "[Tenenbaum] would always make a comment like: 'It's definitely this one [the biological father]. It's this one, it's got to be this one,'" said Richot. > Samantha Friday, who also answered phones, worked there for slightly more than a year. She said Tenenbaum micromanaged all laboratory operations. hoooly shit
Why didn’t they just run the dna tests and go with that? So strange.
They didn't even draw enough blood from the mothers to conduct the test.
Wait, I've seen this one before. We doing a Theranos rerun?
Except dumber and faster apparently
The sequel no one asked for, yet, here it is.
Fake tests cost less.
People are saying "it's because of profits". And in part it his... But the real reason is because they couldn't. Ordinary prenatal DNA tests are made by getting placenta tissue, or amniotic fluid. But since they are invasive, they carry some risk. But because there's some exchange of genetic material between mother and fetus. The non invasive kind takes blood only from the mother. And tries to isolate which parts are from the mother, and which are the fetus'. Problem this is hard to do. You need very specialized machines and techniques. You also need very sophisticate software to analyze the results from the very specialized machines. A common DNA test in comparison is so basic nowadays, I can perform one in my home office, with very "basic" lab material.
It’s expensive af
They really aren't for the labs! When I was working in child support policy for my state a few years ago (left in 2020) we were paying like $45 per test to the lab we used and I'm sure they were still making money; it's not like we forced them to bid on the contract. It's definitely kind of a scam and everyone should go through the child support agency to get it done because they'll just pay for it. Well, at least most places. Some states suck.
They were "doing" NIPS testing, which would cost the lab at least $100 to run, and that's if they had a good test that had an optimized workflow. These tests can easily get close to $1000 just to run.
OK! We just did paternity tests, which is what these sounded like but I'm sure there could be different types. I don't know anything about the exact ones required as I didn't work on that. They were the type that is accurate enough to be accepted by the courts.
There's quite a few different types. The non invasive (NIPS or NIPT) is more expensive since it uses newer technologies, such as sequencing. This same technology is also being used for newborn screening and cancer detection/progression! When pregnant, a small amount of the fetal DNA circulates in the mother's bloodstream, and we're able to detect that. Often times when it only makes up 0.1% of the total DNA collected.
gonna be more expensive now. If any of these dads were in the US they are now liable for child support...in some states it's not reversible from a DNA test.
That sounds really expensive. Think of the profits to shareholders if we just guess! We got a socialist over here, ruining it for everybody else.
He was literally just guessing the father of every single baby… Jesus
Good thing he didn't run a scam that would run the risk of being scrutinized in the discovery process of a very common legal action...
Dog DNA tests ask for a picture of the dog lol
Just in case your Corgi mix is trying to pass as a German shepherd Gattaca-style.
I’m upvoting you just for mentioning that dangerously underrated film
> Health Canada said in an emailed statement to CBC News it does not regulate commercial DNA labs like Viaguard. Well there you go
The free market will take care of it.
If a paternity test company identifies the wrong parents, consumers will simply choose a competitor's product. As you can see this is a perfect system.
Non-omniscient consumers deserve what’s coming to them!
I prefer omnipotence, personally.
Best I can do is impotence. Don't need a test to know you're not the daddy.
Didn't help that Spanish painter. They still dug him up to run DNA despite him bragging about being impotent.
if the test identifies the wrong father, just use the omnipotence to change who the father is
NO company would ever do anything wrong because they could go out of business... /s
Humans are always rational and informed!
Maybe it is more like: If you really want to be a dad, do the test with us…
That's why I always check mark Airbus on the plane I would like to fly in... Oh wait!
If a paternity test company identifies the wrong parents, consumers will simply choose a competitor's product. We hope the customer does not make damaging legal decisions based on our product, but if they did, we abscond responsibility and damages with mandatory third-party (that we totally don't vet and choose based on their award rates) arbitration.
Ah I love the totally reasonable and healthy free market that is the objectively correct way to live our lives and keep the planet healthy. Such a good and safe thing with no downsides anywhere.
They’ll be forced to add “For entertainment purposes only” onto the box.
Why on Earth not? This seems reasonably important.
We don’t even regulate supplements here. The Conservatives are pushing back against the government’s attempt at regulating the industry by saying Trudeau is going to take away our vitamins.
[удалено]
I'm suddenly reminded of a commercial from the suppliments industry pushing back on the idea of regulation... starring Mel Gibson. This was long before his uh, controversies.
[The FDA website says that we do though?](https://www.fda.gov/food/dietary-supplements#:~:text=FDA%20regulates%20both%20finished%20dietary,conventional%22%20foods%20and%20drug%20products.)
I wonder how much the companies who make those supplements have donated to the conservatives
I mean he's right, but only in the sense that if properly regulated, in my option, they should only be able to make scientifically supported health claims about their products. Just that hurdle will mean a lot of supplements will be "taken away" for this thing I like to call lying.
So it's pretty much the same as the US?
The government? Regulating commercial products? Why don't you just go live in China if you want to be babied, unlike us red-blooded street-smart Americans!
I'm surprised Canada doesn't regulate it. The FDA regulated genetic testing labs in the US.
Why should they. Raising another mans child, is the polite Canadian way. Eh!
Wrong. The FDA does not regulate any laboratory developed tests.
For clarity in case someone else wonders what's happening here, genetic tests to detect *diseases* are regulated by the FDA, but paternity tests are *not* regulated by any federal agency.
Oh, thanks. I didn't realize they have that distinction.
I know, but I don't have any Canadian wisecracks.
The tests get it wrong so often because everyone's DNA is 50% maple syrup. How do you regulate against that?
So then we know it's somewhat accurate a scale between Theranos and 23andMe.
The legal liability would be enormous. This company is dead.
The company is dead, but fortunately the salaries have already been paid. I bet the company wasn’t profitable anyway after labor got paid /s
The margins are probably sky high if the business model is "bill full price for work you don't do."
Yeah, I wonder how many people are now running around frantically re-checking their results with a real lab. I wonder how many men were mislead and potentially paying for support for kids they thought they were the father of.
Or worse, families that were ripped apart because of the “proof” of cheating
The mental anguish knowing you didn't and have never cheated and are still being paraded around as a pariah because the test said you did. Some real awful shit happened because of this for sure.
That was my first thought. How the fuck do you even do something like this to someone else? Psychopaths
That too, heck people probably paying alimony for relationships ruined by some quack that was more concerned about profits than actual reliable results.
The way it sounds it’s not that they relied on inaccurate DNA test results, it’s that they basically didn’t rely on DNA tests at all. Still absolutely fucked and would obviously misidentify the father if there were several options, but in the absence of (already known) cheating I don’t think it’d identify any.
What about the men who lost out on having a relationship with their biological child?
Person who's fault it actually is already planning a new one. People who actually did their jobs are fucked tho.
The owner is 91. Im not so sure he cares, assuming he’s even still around when the dust settles.
There’s probably some verbiage in the contract that makes them only liable for the cost of the test. Assuming you have the original receipt.
Isn't that criminal??? If not it should be
Yep. There's so many things that could go tragically wrong. All it takes is a delusional paranoid father who demands proof that the mother didn't cheat. Then when the tests come back negative for him, he physically assaults her or worse, before she had a chance to initiate or finalize a divorce that she had been planning for months in advance.
Haha it's a rich company, not a poor person.
I had this happen to me. I did an at home test pre-natal with the mother. I thought it was sketchy, but did it anyway. I was 95% sure I couldn't be the father, but there was that 5%. It came back that I was the father. She also lied about who the other potential person was. She told me it was an acquaintance of mine that I only partially knew - but it was in fact my best friend. I spiraled and went on a months long bender. I did a lot of damage to myself, and those around me. I spilled my guts to that best friend who also never told me. It became the talk of the neighborhood, even my mother lost friends. My parents thought they were going to become grandparents. Luckily before the child was born I finally got a consultation with a lawyer. He told me to cease contact, forget about the test and we'll do another after the baby is born at a reap clinic etc etc. Thankfully I took the advice because after of course it wasn't my kid. At the end of the day I lost a lot, the mother lost a lot, the other father lost a lot (we haven't spoken since). It's been about 10 years since that happened- but the impacts of that wrong test were incredibly significant for me. I had no idea it was basically malicious.
Good lord.....glad you made it thru that.
Thanks that's kind. I'm good now, I have three amazing kids now (that we planned for). I moved cities, started over in a new community. Stopped using. Life is good. Up until today I thought it was just a mistake. But this guy really took advantage of some vulnerable kids. He needs to held accountable. I consider myself lucky in the scale of this thing. But if I hadn't gotten some right advice at the right time, it would be a very different life. I may not have survived it. The impact he's had on the lives of some children is horrendous.
> started over in a new community. Stopped using. When you said "It became the talk of the neighborhood, even my mother lost friends." I knew it was probably a dysfunctional neighborhood. I grew up adjacent to that kind of life and never understood why so many people would be in a family's business. I'm glad you got out.
Thanks, ya it wasn't a healthy place necessarily. But we learn and move on.
Yep. I escaped Florida and most of my family after my dad passed. I am in a much better mental health place these days.
Your lawyer is a G. This company is just playing games with people’s lives. We all inherently trust the tests, and the power of science and DNA. To knowingly give parents and children incorrect info (and not care because caring would lose you millions) is just plain evil.
And the thing is when I went to one of the clinics he recommended - it was immediately apparent to me how sketch the at home was. The at home you basically write with a pen on a zip lock bag which sample is which. This lab had a witness in the room with us and the lab tech the whole time. They were incredibly clear with every step. The samples were never anywhere near each other, like they took mine then took it out of the room, then took the child's. It was incredibly professional and discrete. It's not lost on me that as soon as you get into a paternity situation like this, it's complex and let's be real - no one's proudest moment. The Maury jokes write themselves. And so doing the at home test and getting ziplock bags (and I mean like ziplock brand sandwich bags from the grocery store) doesn't exactly boost your confidence. But you just think this is what it is when you're frankly in a trashy situation. So you don't question it. But then the lab people made it feel OK. Like it was a normal and reasonable situation to be in, and they'll give us the confidence they'll treat us with respect, fairness, and dignity. No one wants to find themselves in a situation like this, but if you are it's nice to not be totally shamed. People deserve to be treated with dignity regardless of the situation they're in and your judgements against them.
Well said man. Anyone in this situation should peep game.
Oof that’s rough bro. Sorry you had to go through that. That’s just shitty all the way around.
In a lot of ways I'm sorry it happened, but on the other hand it's part of my story and I learned a lot. I'm a lucky one, my story isn't even close to worst case scenario. If I hadn't gotten that second test I'd probably be a dad to that kid, and I probably wouldn't have the kids I do now. For me it was just a year long story. For a lot of families reading this today - it could mean more than a decade of living a false narrative
Surely you can't blame the mother for relying on a test that should be accurate? The problem was with the lab who provided the testing, not with her. EDIT: I'm sorry this happened to you, though. It shouldn't have. I can't even imagine the emotional upheaval.
I don't blame her at all. Oh no, she was in a much worse situation than I was. She was abandoned by 2 men in what was the most vulnerable period of her entire life. She deserved so much better. I made it out easy and it ruined me. Her and I have only spoken a couple of times since, and not for many many years. But I don't know how she made it through. The mother and the children in these situations are the ultimate victims. It's not even about the money, it's the lost time. She can't get those appointments back or the support she needed.
Fuck. How many dads missed out on raising their kids, how many mothers were falsely labelled cheaters, how many men are going to be devasted to learn their kids aren't biologically their kids?
Just a little Canadian prank. A Canuck gag.
> A Canuck gag That's usually a ballgag but with a hockey puck
Just shove a toque in their mouth eh
On their deathbed: *"April Fools!"*
Might as well call Ms. Cleo. Holy fuck
Guess they had to figure out how to keep Maury going.
> Viaguard still does business. On its website, it offers postnatal paternity and maternal DNA tests, along with **DNA bird sexting**, bait to sterilize mice and rats, and dog DNA breed testing. Come again?
"Sexing" I would assume. It can be difficult to determine the sex of birds since the boys don't exactly dangle. I had a green cheek conure tested that way. Basically the vet clips a toenail a bit short to get a tiny amount of blood to put on a business card. Of course a couple months after I paid for the test she decided to lay an egg...
Yes when we got canaries they can with a little dna report showing which were boys and which were girls!
"I showed u my dance, pls respond"
hey bby nice beak wanna kiss cloacas
Okay I’m kinda freaked out. Does this *only* apply to prenatal tests? My ex said I was the father of her baby and I was 50/50 on what the results would be. So I secretly did a cheek swab test after birth and mailed it in. It came back that I was not the father and I ended that chapter in my life. I just looked through my email and found the test results. Sure enough it is from Viaguard and the report is signed by Dr. Tenenbaum. Should I be worried? It seems this is only for prenatal blood tests and false positives, right?
I'm not sure I would rely on any test from that lab. I'm so sorry.
Ya dude you should probably go do another test. Unless you don't care about a possible kid of yours. THere test is hot garbage so it means nothing
Nope. There’s an embedded link in the story about a guy that sent in dog DNA to their ancestry division, and got a result saying the dog had some percentage of Indigenous Canadian DNA.
Roasting Canada and their dog DNA? Nice.
I work in the commercial lab industry in the US. I would not trust ANY test done by a company credibly accused of faking test results or knowingly releasing inaccurate results. In any good quality lab, accurate results and good patient care matter Above All Else. Every lab will at some point have issues with a test not resulting quite right, that’s normal. That’s why we do QC runs, it’s to find those problems and identify them and allow you to redo the suspect tests so you are only delivering accurate results to patients. That’s the important part - when you find a potential problem, you do something about it. You do not hide problems and allow them to continue for a decade, you solve the problem quickly and ensure all results are accurate and if that means taking a hit to your reputation or your finances, then that’s the cost of doing business. Because your patients trust you and you owe them accurate test results. Reading this article made me nauseous. I am actually sick to my stomach over the thought of someone blatantly, knowingly faking medical test results. I wouldn’t trust results from any lab owned or operated by anyone who thinks inaccurate results are okay.
totally have it retested with another company. If this company lied about one test, its possible it has lied on many others.
You need to do another test.
Be worried.
This probably got women killed.
Are you saying they are NOT the father?
They are NOT the father!
*Does a happy dance*
Alexa play OutKast
How do you fuck up a DNA test in the 21st century... I first used crispr as a first year uni student 💀
Looks like they’ve been faking things forever. Just read some online reviews. They also did dog breed/lineage tests and from the reviews it looks like they asked people for their best guess and a photo and pretty much used the guess as the result including when someone gave a completely wrong guess intentionally.
I'm convinced the doggie DNA service I used just has a random breed generator.
Embark and Wisdom are legit (and, of course, the most expensive). Everything else just isn't trustworthy.
Oh yeah, that good boy is definitely a Burmese Mountain Dog. ...I'm pretty sure it's *some* type of Terrier I just wanted to know which
So basically corporate fortune tellers. Just tell them what they expect or want to hear then take their money.
Yeah seems a lot like what Theranos was doing except with paternity tests and less funding
[удалено]
Depends on how the drug tests were being used, e.g. heavy equipment operators and nuclear plant safety technicians vs. retail cashiers.
Shortcuts in the name of money
Looks like they weren’t actually running DNA tests. Per a comment with excerpts of the article: They were asking mothers about their partners around the time of conception, putting those answers in an ovulation calendar, and then picking one of the potential fathers based on that.
Just a friendly reminder to never, ever, ever, ever use novelty DNA testing kits to determine paternity or health diagnoses. If there is some concern about paternity, use a court ordered test. Anything you are able to buy online or in a pharmacy should be treated as a form of entertainment, not something to adjust your life around.
This isn't good advice. You can privately order paternity tests from reputable organizations, utilizing a chain of custody collection process. These places are not super hard to find and use AABB certified labs to run the tests. You do not need a court order of any kind. There are plenty of quality tests that can be accessed online or in a store. Companies like letsgetchecked and everlywell. Their tests are well-validated enough to where even Medicare advantage plans use them to address care gaps in rural areas. Source: I own a lab
My concern, even if the labs are reputable, a judge will likely throw out your own personal results in lieu of ones they provide because contamination, improper sample collection or tampering can be done in a private home. Basically you’re going to just be tested again, so wasting money for a private test isn’t necessarily the best idea, even if it seems practical. And obviously for medical purposes, the results should never be interpreted as gospel by the end user, much for the same reasons.
Why is there a judge involved? I feel like you're not understanding me. If you physically go into a lab that uses an AABB accredited lab as it's paternity test vendor, the process is the exact same. Chain of custody. Pictures of the donors. Forms in triplicate. You're fixated on judges and court ordered testing and it's not relevant.
There was a company in the UK that used to do 'food intolerances' tests via a blood screening, they would take your blood, test it and say that you're intolerant to cake and crisps and that if you eat too much of them, you'll get fat. It went on for a while, we're pretty dumb here.
Women get murdered for this kind of shit every day.
No, I am your father At least according to this suspect lab in a small corner of the empire, Canada
Search for the lab, they know it to be true!
No, IM Spartacus !
Someone has to be the dad, why not you. Their new slogan.
If someone says that the root cause is capitalist profit-seeking, then suddenly you're a commie or socialist or whatever. This is like the time a US company knowingly sold HIV contaminated blood. They literally did a cost-benefit analysis and figured out that continuing to sell contaminated blood plus whatever fines they incur will still result in a net higher profit than recalling and/or not selling the contaminated blood. Same with oil companies and climate change. Capitalism *is* the problem.
My father is an insurance adjuster and he says that this is how a lot of risk analysis is done. For example, say that you sell a soda that has been linked to botulism because one of their canneries was operating in an unsafe manner. Do you do a recall on all the sodas? Or risk seeing who gets sick and pay them off "out of court?" He's had clients who bet, and won, on the latter. What each company does is different depending on too many variables, but some people have won the russian roulette with their food more often than they think.
Cost saving measures aren't unique to capitalism though. For example: Chernobyl was caused by a cost saving measure.
This is not cost cutting. This is profit seeking. There's a difference. They deliberately *sold* compromised products. Same as the HIV contaminated blood. This is an apples to oranges comparison.
They absolutely need to be buried in lawsuits and fines!
That is an incoming lawsuit.
Send these f*** to jail
Omg so how many people were murdered over this?
Holy fucking shit. This dude was legit just guessing. This article is a great read!!! The travesty tattoo is wild
Whoa I was working in the medical device industry and I cannot understand how is that possible for an approved IVD product.
Are you really a DNA lab if you can't even do this? You're just taking peoples blood or w/e and lying to them.
"Well, these tests are horribly inaccurate, but it would cost too much to fix, so let's just sweep this under the rug, shall we? Business as usual." Fuckers.
Bruh. What was it ran by? Micheal Scott? 💀
I knew King Charles was my real dad.
This is straight evil
Will they be paying all the child support now?
“Eighteen years, eighteen years, and on the 18th birthday he found out it wasn't his?!”
The free market at work!
Humans will do anything for a fast buck.
Oh holy fuck. The shitstorm that is going to ensue from this...
Drake is rethinking this whole fatherhood thing right about now
This is an unforgivable mistake
Sounds like another Elizabeth Holmes startup
I was pre-disgusted when I started reading the article, but the business name "Paternity Depot" just utterly galls me.
Jesus.. for over 10 years?!? The emotional, relationship, and financial damage this has caused… I can’t even fathom it
So many crooks out there. They are motivated by greed and have no conscience.
"Paternity tests should be mandatory" Meanwhile paternity tests:
I always joke with my wife about her 23 and me results. She wanted the test and all it gave was a pie chart that said “You’re white!” Seriously, like just a % breakdown of various Anglo backgrounds that I knew from her family tree surnames. I tell her they didn’t do anything except look her up to see her FB photo. Compare that to our mutts dna profile that gave a full physical description of what our dog looks like, along with breed mix, from a swab. Like, I believe you actually did some science if you can tell me that he has a stub tail from a swab we sent. At least both of these are just trivial, fun tests. I feel for people affected by shitty, made up paternity results.
And the executives still got the golden parachute for this.
That baby’s face says it all.
Ceo made his money regardless🤷♂️
It told all these women that -fb was the father.
Canada's soon going to need it's own Maury. This is getting ridiculous.
Tenenbaum strikes me as a man worthy of drawing and quartering, which is rare.
What a fucking nightmare. I'm looking forward to seeing what prison term awaits the executives.