Amid the tumult of the delivery room, Rohit and Geeta Jain were calm about one thing: Their new baby was sure to be a boy.
Six months earlier, the Jains had spent more than $300 for a test that screened a minute quantity of Geeta’s blood for traces of male DNA. The testing company said it was 95 percent accurate in determining the sex of a baby, even as early as the eighth week of pregnancy.
After six hours in the delivery room, Rohit gaped as his wife gave birth to a daughter.
“There’s only two choices - either it’s a boy or a girl,” said Rohit, 35, a computer scientist in the Vancouver, British Columbia, suburb of Surrey. “I couldn’t fathom how it could be wrong.”
Like scores of other expectant parents, the Jains had stumbled into a corner of the booming genomics industry and discovered that the claims of some genetic entrepreneurs have gone beyond what science can provide.
Marketing directly to consumers, the new crop of companies has jumped into a realm of dubious science, mining DNA to offer information on ethnic heritage, long-lost relatives, personalized dieting plans - even the sports for which one is best suited.
The tests are loosely based on legitimate scientific research, much of which has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, among others. But often, the companies’ claims of accuracy have not been backed up by independent laboratory analysis.
Thousands of consumers have bought tests - and analysts say the number will only grow as entrepreneurs find more ways to market the mysteries of the human genome.
The Federal Trade Commission, which protects consumers from false and misleading advertising, has warned buyers to be skeptical of at-home genetic tests, which are now unregulated.
In the realm of prenatal gender tests, scientists warn they are the latest incarnation of old wives’ tales about salty food cravings, hairy legs and belly shapes denoting the sex of the impending baby. This time, the predictions are being sold with the patina of cutting-edge genetic technology.
A host of companies, such as Acu-Gen Biolab Inc. of Lowell, Mass., and Consumer Genetics Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., have been selling the tests for $249 and up. Critics say they are banking on most disgruntled parents being too happy - or too busy - with their new child to file for a refund.
The consequences aren’t merely financial.
“I wouldn’t have had an abortion, but there are women out there who experience really big disappointment,” said Jolene Sodano, a stay-at-home mother in Nazareth, Pa., whose daughter was mistakenly identified as a boy. “They really want to give their husbands the little boy they want, or a little girl, and they will abort based on these results.”
More than 100 women have filed a lawsuit against Acu-Gen and its owner, Chang-ning Wang, that is pending in federal court. At least one customer has been questioned by the FBI. Wang repeatedly has declined to discuss the scientific validity of the test.
Melissa Alberti-Araujo subjected her newborn daughter, Nadine, to a battery of tests after she called Acu-Gen to complain that her test results had been wrong. She said Wang came on the line and insisted Nadine had male DNA.
“We panicked,” said Alberti-Araujo, who is studying to be a family therapist in Three Rivers, Calif., and joined the class-action suit against the company.
“We did an ultrasound to make sure she didn’t have testicles stuck up in there or anything. She was fine, but it was real emotional for us.”
