Choosing a Paternity Testing Company
A choice that will change your life should be made with great care.
While searching online for a paternity test, you may have encountered dozens of sites offering low-priced tests. How do you tell which companies are reliable, and which rely on gimmicks? How do you know which companies are brokers, and which are real laboratories, for that matter?
Being an industry leader, we know the lengths some companies will go through to convince patients to take the low-quality services they offer. We recommend that you carefully examine what the testing companies say and do before you make a life-changing decision. The links on the left take you to pages that discuss things to consider in choosing a quality paternity testing company.
We at GeneSys Biotech pledge to make only truthful claims on our website. Many sites use scare tactics or a “Tip of the Month” to get your business. We hope to earn your trust by offering a guaranteed accurate test for a fair price, with caring and helpful case managers.
Experience
We suggest you choose the one with the most experience—not only in terms of the number of years that the laboratory has been in business, but also the number of cases that it has handled. Our laboratory, which has been operational for more than 14 years, conducts tens of thousands of paternity testing cases each year. Some other companies claim they are the largest laboratory in North America and perform 3 out of 4 paternity tests, but their publicly released information reveals that they test under 10,000 samples a year—less than 5% of the tests in the US each year. We urge you to scrutinize the information they provide and make your own judgment.
A large number of cases are needed to create a statistical database that can be used for additional analysis when necessary. For example, the database might help in evaluating unexpected results caused by mutations (random changes in the DNA). It also may be used to help with analysis in difficult cases, such as when the alleged father is not available or when there are related alleged fathers.
A more experienced laboratory will also use extended DNA testing methods to minimize the possibility of false results in these and other scenarios. Our laboratory has been performing paternity tests since 1994 and has established the largest database database in the industry by handling hundreds of thousands cases over the years. We offer the very best extended testing panel in the industry.
Qualified and Accessible Staff
A DNA testing company with an excellent laboratory is incomplete without a team of qualified scientists and specially trained support staff. Look for a laboratory that has experienced scientists (M.D. or Ph.D.s) in the field of molecular biology, biotechnology, human genetics, and forensics. Also look for a company that you can talk to—when you call, you should be able to get in touch with a case manager who will listen to your specific situation and address your needs.
We have a team of full-time Ph.D. scientists in our lab and more than 180 support staff to serve your needs. Photos on some paternity websites showing M.D.s with stethoscopes around their necks do not mean that they have real, qualified staff to perform quality testing and respond to your needs in a prompt and professional way. Some labs use part-time graduate students to perform your test and do not have client service staff to take your call real-time.
Guaranteed Conclusive Results
The results of a DNA test is stated in terms of a probability called the Combined Paternity Index (CPI). Different laboratories have different standards for what they consider “conclusive results.” The CPI gives an indication of the conclusiveness of the results.
The Combined Paternity Index for an exclusion is always 0%, meaning that there is absolutely no chance that the alleged father is the biological father. This result is also often referred to as a 100% exclusion.
The CPI for an inclusion (alleged father is considered the biological father) could be anywhere from 99.0% to 99.99% and higher. A 99.0% result may look conclusive, but what it really means is that the alleged father is among 1 out of every 100 men in the population who could be the father of the child. Considering how large the male population is, several men could be tested and get the same result—and be named the child’s father!
You want to look for a laboratory that guarantees at least a 99.99% inclusion. It is the laboratory’s responsibility to perform extended DNA testing until the results virtually eliminate the chance for another male to have the same result as that of the alleged father.
Accreditations
DNA testing companies in the United States are currently not regulated by the government. Anybody can open a paternity testing company and use any method they choose to produce results. However, those who are determined to offer quality services voluntarily invite the scientific community to come in and evaluate their procedures against strict standards. Institutions such as the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) inspect the laboratories and ensure that qualified personnel are using strict scientific practices in the DNA testing services they provide. Accreditation is the only way you can tell whether or not a laboratory produces results that you can rely on.
You want to look for a laboratory that is at least AABB and CAP-accredited, and if you live in the state of New York, NYSDOH-accredited. You should also look for ISO certification, which is a worldwide recognition of a company’s quality service. Our laboratory has all these accreditations and more.
Please note that laboratories who say they “participate in the CAP Proficiency Testing Program” are not actually accredited by CAP. CAP offers two programs: the Proficiency Testing Program, in which CAP sends samples to laboratories for testing and evaluates the results they provide, and the Laboratory Accreditation Program, in which CAP inspectors actually go to the laboratory and inspect their procedures and quality control measures.
Laboratories accredited by CAP have passed its stringent on-site inspection. Our laboratory is the only paternity testing laboratory that has passed this inspection with a perfect score.
Laboratory vs. Brokers
Many online paternity testing companies are in fact brokers—middlemen who resell the services of another laboratory only to make money. To maximize profits, these brokers either mark up their prices, or they use a laboratory that cuts corners to provide very low quality service for low prices.
Brokers are NOT accredited by any organization in the industry, and many of the laboratories these brokers use are not AABB or CAP-accredited. You simply cannot be sure of the reliability of the results provided by these brokers.
Some of the laboratories doing business are academic or research labs by nature—paternity testing is not their main specialization; some of these laboratories even employ part-time graduate students to perform the tests, putting your interests at risk. These laboratories do not have the experience of a commercial laboratory handling a large volume of cases and might not have the large database to run accurate analysis. Unlike high-quality private paternity testing laboratories, these laboratories are not overseen by regulatory bodies, and it would be more difficult to hold them commercially responsible for any false results.
Low quality and higher costs are not the only factors to consider. When you send your samples to a broker, the process takes several days longer because they would then have to forward your samples to the laboratory. To make things worse, you won’t know if your samples will get mixed up with others’ when they go through too many different hands.
Make sure that you are getting your DNA test services directly from a quality laboratory. Look for the testing company’s address—if the company website doesn’t list its address, or the address it gives is a PO Box, has the letters “PMB” (Postal Mail Box), or the # sign (an indication of a private mailbox such as those provided by Mail Boxes Etc.), it is likely that you are dealing with a broker. An example of this is a particular company that lists their “addresses” in Seattle and Canada.
We encourage you to scrutinize what you read—some companies who use private mailbox addresses even try to mask that fact by attacking others who use a PO Box, even though they themselves are not providing a real physical address, and are doing exactly the same thing they warn you of. Companies without a physical address make you wonder if they are cutting corners to do business or if they are covering their true identity to fool customers with the image of an established, full-service company.
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