Blog DNA
Granddad suffers due to blood groupings
Retired civil servant, James, pride himself on working for over forty years, eagerly waiting to enjoy his free time with his grandchild, Steven. James have been married for over thirty-six years and had one child, Tom. On the surface James union with his wife Jessica appears to be a happy loving marriage, but there was bit of turmoil when Tom was born thirty-five years ago. Although James was suspicious of his wife of being unfaithful, he had no concrete proof. However, James decided that his immediate family should undergo blood group tests in the mid 1970’s to establish if he was the father of Tom, well before the advent of DNA profiling technology, which was developed over a decade later.
James received the results of blood group tests and it was revealed he had blood group A and Jessica and Tom had blood group B and A respectively. Therefore concluding that James is the biological father of Tom. This technology at that time was sufficient to establish parentage and was acceptable by both UK and US courts.
In 2008, James grandchild, Steven was diagnose with Cystic Fibrosis, both Tom and his wife Jenny had undergone genetic tests to establish the origins of their son illness. The results revealed that both Tom and Jenny were carriers of the gene Cystic Fibrosis. Tom informed his parents James and Jessica that there were also carriers of this gene. For a person to have contracted this genetic disease both parents must be carriers.
James was devastated by the news of his grandson, curiously decided to undergo a Cystic Fibrosis gene test. To his astonishment, the results of test revealed that he is not a carrier of this gene and thus unlikely to be the father of Tom and not related to his presumed grandchild Steven. James was puzzled, because the blood group tests gave conflicting results, suggesting he is the father of Tom. To settle this matter James and Tom underwent a DNA test and the results revealed that James is not biologically related to Tom, nor is he related to Steven.
Blood group tests is not an accurate technique to establish paternity, because James may have the same blood group as Tom but over 40% of males in the UK also share the same blood group. This test is limited with insufficient discriminatory powers to establish paternity. In 2003, a group of Japanese scientists had determined that conventional blood group tests were inaccurate for establishing parentage by as much as 20%. Or otherwise one in five blood group tests used to establish paternity were wrong. In addition, research carried by social scientists revealed that approximately 10% of all families; the man whom heads the family is not the true biological father of the offspring within that family. This could give a staggering 30% of all families, which have a father figure may not be the true biological father. But this does not take in any age adjustments. It is perhaps this reason, why there are so many fragmented families in the UK and USA because nobody would like to take responsibility for a child for which they are not biologically related.
This devastating news for James caused him to change his life upside down. James is now considering changing his Will; starting divorce proceedings and he lost a child and grandchild. Due to the immense emotional trauma, James had suffered a mild heart attack and presently undergoing counselling sessions.
DNA tests have revealed the truth about biological relationships. However, the tests have also revealed deception, lies, unfaithfulness and other negative emotions.
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Should everyone whom had blood-grouping test to establish biological relationship undergo accurate DNA test?
Is DNA profiling in the UK unreliable?
| Posted at 05:29 PM on October 18, 2009 |
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In recent months there have been a number of discussions concerning the innocent people having their biological information retained on the national DNA database, which goes against European court ruling in 2008. Even now, many individuals still find it difficult to expunge their biological information from the national DNA database.
The excellent marketing of DNA profiling technology, would give the impression that this technology is 99.9% accurate and is virtually a foolproof system which is wholly accepted by UK and US courts. In support of this assumption the crime rate has significantly reduced. For example out of a possible 65,350 investigations in the US, 65,000 yielded positive results. According, to the FBI in 2004, when DNA evidence is collected in criminal investigations, over a million and a half arrests were made for property violations, a similar number for any related crimes and just over 0.5 million arrests were made for violent crime. In 2004, the Home Office (UK) reported that for every 100 domestic burglaries taken place, 14 have been detected without the use of DNA. If DNA evidence is recovered at the scene of the crime than 48 burglaries has been detected out of a possible 100. Thus giving a 3.5 fold increase in the annual detection rate. These figures seem to be very impressive for law enforcement agencies to solve serious crimes.
However, there is a negative side to the implementation of DNA profiling, it would appear there is a number of innocent individuals still lock up behind bars for a crime they did not commit. Where is the evidence to support this notion? Over a quarter of a century, DNA identification technology has been used in the UK and only 5 individuals have successfully refuted DNA evidence. The contradictory evidence includes the following: suspect has never traveled abroad before; or the suspect has a serious illness, which the individual is unable to walk or dress themselves. However, what is important is that non-scientific arguments, which have been put forward to the courts or the police to have DNA evidence thrown out of court or have the charges dropped. Only one case in the UK in which DNA evidence was successfully challenged with scientific arguments and this was with the assistance of foreign DNA experts. On the surface, if only five UK cases in which forensic identification was incorrect out of 4.8 million people on the DNA database, seems quite impressive. The reason for this low figure, the police forensic scientists do not provide the defense counsel the full details of how DNA tests were conducted or excluded essential results, thus giving the opportunity of forensic scientist to misrepresent DNA tests or exaggerating statistical data. This does however; suggest the police forensic scientists are not so independent from the Crown Prosecution Service.
Further evidence to support this line of thought may be derived from the Sean Hoey case, whom was charged for terrorism and murder. It was this case in which Scientific arguments was used to overturn DNA evidence in a courtroom environment. The forensic scientists acting on behalf of the Crown Prosecution come from the Forensic Science Service in the midlands. They used a controversial technique called Low Copy Number DNA profiling, which is only used by two other countries apart from the UK. The forensic Science Service has several other centers in the UK and not one scientist disagreed with this controversial technique. Despite this, leading forensic scientist from the US and Australia have severe doubts about this technique.
Other evidence that supports the lack of independence of UK forensic scientists may be drawn from the US experience. The US has the largest national DNA database in the world with 5.2 million, which is comparable to that of the UK in terms of magnitude. The Innocence Project alone has released over 250 individuals from prison cells due to faulty forensic evidence. This group carried out a analysis of all men freed from US prisons and surprisingly they found US forensic scientist subjectively interpret DNA results, exaggerated results, altering laboratory records, suppress or do not explain anomalous results. There is no reason why this practice should not occur in the UK. In addition, to this over 70% of the innocent freed from US prisons by the Innocent project are African-American origin. It is plausible that the UK national DNA database, which holds a disproportionate number of black young men on its database, is not guilty of crimes they did not commit?
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Further information can be found from the book titled Errors, Systematic Errors & DNA, by Dr Parker. http://www.drpdna.com/
