Who's Dad? Ask the DNA

Katie Johnston Chase - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Living / Arts - News: "When Kenny Weiner first heard the commercial on WEEI-AM (850), he thought it was a spoof.

The spot features three male co-workers who find out their friend Darren has been stuck with kid duty and can't make their weekend trip to Las Vegas.

''Will somebody tell him to wake up already," one of them says. ''That kid looks nothing like him."

The ad is for 1-800-DNA-TEST, an at-home paternity kit sold by a company called Orchid Cellmark. The doubting father simply swabs the inside of his cheek, and the child's, and sends them to a lab for analysis. Two weeks later, his fatherhood will no longer be up for debate.

''For a guy with an MBA," one of the men in the commercial says of Darren, ''he's sure failing economics 101."

The ad didn't last long on WEEI. After a handful of complaints, programming and operations director Jason Wolfe pulled the spot last Monday. ''I just didn't feel that the way that they chose to produce the commercial was appropriate," he said.

Several bloggers have also taken issue with the provocative ad, which is part of a radio campaign launched a month ago in several markets. The ad was scheduled to start running on WBCN-FM (104.1) on Friday, according to Orchid Cellmark.

It hasn't been pulled from any other stations, according to Orchid Cellmark CEO Paul Kelly. ''It's an issue that folks sometimes feel uncomfortable having raised," he says.

It's also an issue that is playing a big part in the rapidly growing field of at-home DNA testing. The Internet is littered with sites that offer genetic testing for inheritance and insurance purposes, Native American ancestry, even infidelity. Some companies analyze DNA samples for a person's susceptibility to cancer or heart disease, or offer nutritional and lifestyle assessments based on how certain genes allow your body to break down toxins, process medications, or absorb vitamins.

DNA profiles are also being created as a record of identity before a body is cremated, and for people who are about to enter high-risk situations in places such as Iraq or Afghanistan. Events such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and last year's tsunami in south Asia have also highlighted how valuable DNA tests can be.

Paternity testing is nothing new, of course, but the increased availability and convenience of obtaining these tests can be helpful for men who may have signed a paternity acknowledgement form at the hospital but aren't sure the baby is theirs, says Ned Holstein, president of Fathers & Families, a Massachusetts nonprofit organization. ''The putative father is kind of left on his own to figure out, 'Where can I get this test?' " he said.

Alongside ''legal" paternity tests, which run upward of $500 and are administered by a medical technician or at a collection center, DNA testing companies offer ''nonlegal" or ''curiosity" tests that are cheaper, generally $200-$400, but are not admissible in court.

The proliferation of these tests is worrisome to Nina Selvaggio, president of the National Organization for Women's Massachusetts chapter. Not because she thinks they shouldn't be available, she says, but because ''it's perpetuating a culture that says there's a way to get out of being responsible." With the number of so-called ''deadbeat dads" out there who aren't paying child support, she says, why not put the focus on preventative measures, such as birth control.

Sujatha Byravan, president of the Cambridge-based Council for Responsible Genetics, takes issue with DNA assessments of a person's dietary needs or propensity to develop a certain disease. At-home paternity screening, however, doesn't present the same problems. ''It's a simple test," she says.

Paternity tests are 99.9 percent accurate, says Orchid Cellmark CEO Kelly, even when the mother's DNA isn't tested along with the alleged father's and the child's. And in an age when more than one-third of all children in the United States are born out of wedlock, according to 2003 data from the National Center for Health Statistics, determining paternity ''is a very, very important and growing issue in this country," Kelly says."