Is my son my son? The 'boom' of low cost paternity tests

We reveal a growing business: home DNA tests. They cost only 200 euros, their reliability is 99.99%... and it is enough to take a sample from the child's mouth with a cotton swab to find out for sure. It has its logic: one in 10 children born within marriage are from another parent.

Fernando, let's call him Fernando, leaf through a gossip magazine. He turns the pages quickly, almost without reading: the keys to the divorce of Brangelina, Richard Gere's new Spanish girlfriend... Nonsense, these people don't know what Fernando is going through. Even his eyelashes tremble, sitting there in a narrow waiting room in the center of Madrid. Your life is going to turn upside down, for better or worse, in a few minutes.

From that back door will come a woman in a white coat who will hand you an envelope with the answer to the big question: is my son really my son? Everything is now inside a machine that analyzes two tiny pieces of cotton impregnated with DNA. The machine creates two genetic profiles: 16 pairs of numbers for Fernando, another 16 for his son. Like in spot the difference games, if there are more than two pairs where no numbers match, that's bad news.

Fernando is no one in particular, but at the same time he is many. Increasingly. In 2015 alone, 1,485 judicial requests for DNA analysis to determine parentage were processed in Spain in the laboratories of the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences. When data from these tests began to be recorded, in 2007, there were only 401. Of all the genetic studies that passed through the hands of its technicians, one in four was intended to reveal whether someone was the father of someone else or not.

But it is no longer necessary to go to court to clear up doubts. Sometimes, just go to Google. Let's say Fernando types in "paternity test": 444,000 results in less than a second. «Reliable, affordable, precise, fast», for about 200 euros we can find, comfortably from home, «the tranquility that accompanies the 'Know with Certainty' (sic)». Well, let's go there, our father with doubts clicks on the first link, CeFeGen: «Authorized by Health. Call us!"

You don't need to pick up the phone either, with a couple of clicks you will get home an envelope, the kit, with four swabs. Two for the son, two for the "presumed father." The "alleged" thing burns Fernando's soul as he rubs the inside of the little boy's cheek, it burns as he proceeds to rub his own. Fill out the form, put the swabs in the envelope and send it back. In a week you will receive the answer by email.

CeFeGen is located in an apartment in the center of Madrid. On the left, the laboratory door. On the right, the office of Dr. Mercedes Alemañ, manager and technical director. Alemañ exudes a tranquility that contrasts with the nerves of its regular visitors. She speaks very softly, she says that she is used to communicating news, good or bad: «When someone arrives here, it is because they are already clear that they prefer to face the result than continue living with doubt. And that's what we provide."

He has seen thousands of stories parade through his waiting room in the last nine years, most of them parents of young children, many driven by their own mistrust, others forced by the mistrust of their relatives. 80% of those who come to his laboratory only seek to clear up doubts, and between 85 and 90% walk out the door with their paternity confirmed. "There are times when they leave very happy and there are times when they leave very sad, regardless of the result," explains the doctor.

Aleman's team has been dedicating its efforts to comparing DNA profiles for nine years. During this time, they have seen a multitude of laboratories that offer the same services as they proliferate around them. For this reason, a test that could cost 400 euros a decade ago is now half the price. Paternity is also a business and, as such, it is governed by the law of the market: the higher the offer, the lower the price.

It is impossible to know the exact number of tests that are carried out each year, although they number in the thousands. Although they do not reveal their exact volume of activity so as not to give clues to the competition, the laboratories consulted by PAPEL each carry out between 500 and 700 tests a year. Other European countries do have statistics in this regard, which can give an idea of ​​the phenomenon: in the last decade, paternity tests have increased in the United Kingdom from around 9,000 to around 20,000.

For Fernando, our protagonist, doubts arose when he began to smell that his wife was with someone else. The last official statistics on infidelity in Spain date back to 2008. The CIS then carried out its first and last study on Sexual Attitudes and Practices, and revealed that a large gap between men and women was still open: 26.8% of husbands had been unfaithful on some occasion, compared to 8.2% of wives.

Recent years have been ironing out differences, and female adultery has been gaining ground. The data handled by family lawyers make your hair stand on end: between eight and 10% of children born in wedlock are from another parent. Those who work with transplants provide even higher data: when analyzing the compatibility between donor and recipient, they find between 20 and 25% of cases in which the expected family relationship does not exist. "And we can't tell them anything, only that they are not compatible," they confess to PAPEL from a laboratory familiar with this reality.

Science has a reliable answer at 99.995%, although some still cling to that 0.005% uncertainty. "Sometimes, especially women, they say that the result is wrong, that it is their word against that of science," acknowledges Clara Martínez, technical director of the Center for Health Analysis. Some wife, caught in a resignation, has even threatened to file a complaint. However, these threats have always remained a dead letter.

There are cases that border on the grotesque. A 65-year-old man and a foreign woman once attended Dr. Martínez's laboratory, seeking to establish two newborn twins. They had collected the DNA themselves at the mother's home, and what was not their surprise when the analysis determined that the girls were boys. “We had to speak with the alleged father to explain that the test was not valid due to a failure to take the sample. Obviously, she did not want it to be known that her daughters belonged to another, "he recalls.

If anyone is an expert in infidelity, it's private detectives. More than investigating, what these investigators do is corroborate a "more than certain" suspicion with the greatest number of tests possible. "Many times, our clients want their partner to stop treating them like crazy or paranoid," says Vicente Delgado, president of the Professional Association of Private Detectives of Spain (APDPE). In recent years, requests related to paternity have experienced "a boom" in their offices, and in 80% the fears are confirmed: the father is another.

The detective intervenes here, above all, when the collection of samples is done secretly. "We locate, without invading the privacy of the person, an object that he has abandoned and from which a biological remainder can be obtained," explains Delgado. Because the perfectly impregnated, packaged and labeled swab does not always arrive at DNA laboratories. Sometimes what the envelope contains are nail clippings, a Band-Aid, a used handkerchief abandoned on the street, chewing gum collected from the wastebasket, a cigarette butt...

Our genetic brand gives us away, and there are already laboratories that, for around 75 euros, offer to reveal whether that suspicious stain on used underwear or on the sheets is, indeed, semen. In Neodiagnóstica they receive about four or five requests of this type per month, "with small peaks around Christmas, for company parties." In 60% of cases, the jealous husband had mistaken a trace of vaginal fluid in his wife's underwear for sperm. For the rest, and if one is willing to invest 400 euros to resolve their premonition, a DNA comparison can be made to identify the origin of the semen. 70% of the time the expense was unnecessary: ​​the semen was from the client himself.

However, infidelity is not always the reason that leads someone to a detective. According to Delgado, in fact, there are two other predominant profiles among his clients: "The man who arrives with a paternity claim that is demanded of him by a woman with whom he had a relationship, sometimes for a single night, and the person who he wants to know if he is the son of a certain person. This last case has been increasing in recent times due to cases of irregular adoptions, the so-called stolen babies. To facilitate the investigation, the Ministry of Justice created, in 2011, a DNA bank with which private laboratories also collaborate.

The journey of our father with doubts, however, continues along other paths. Fernando is determined to end his marriage and goes to a lawyer. «It happens very frequently that, on the occasion of the couple's crisis and during the separation or divorce process, the news arises that the child is not the husband's, either because the mother announces it when the custody of the children is being discussed Either because the husband himself has learned that he is not the biological father, "explains María Dolores Lozano, president of the Spanish Association of Family Lawyers (AEAFA).

What's more, when the child is still a minor, it is usually the mother who initiates the filiation process in a court, in many cases with the intention of forming a new family with the child's biological father. "These are truly difficult situations that generally require the intervention of a psychologist or psychiatrist," acknowledges Lozano. The weakest part, in this hurricane of emotions, is always the son.

The year 2008 marks a before and after in the paternity test boom. That year, in Madrid, they increased by 24%, but here the stories have other protagonists. Spain was, at that time, one of the great recipients of immigrants, and the avalanche in the arrival of foreigners, many through family reunification, forced extreme precautions.

While birth or baptismal certificates serve as proof of family relationship for countries with a Catholic tradition, things get more difficult with Asians. It is common for several Chinese citizens to travel with the same passport, which is why the Foreign Ministry requested the collaboration of private centers when the avalanche of requests overwhelmed the public system.

Indeed, of the 388 cases analyzed in Madrid by the National Institute of Toxicology in 2008, almost half were aimed at solving the reunification of an immigrant family. All of them were Asian.

The Internet has opened the door for thousands of Fernandos to know, for sure, if they are indeed parents, although experts recommend being careful: «There are many advertisements that have no more than a post office box behind them, you have to get well informed before sending biological samples to anyone”, says Tomás Navarro, director of Cytogen.

What those who experience these stories more closely every day do recommend is that, even if the answer hurts, it is better not to remain in doubt. A man who had thought all his life that one of his two children was not his came to CeFeGen on one occasion. “The legally valid test was done when the boy turned 18 to get rid of him, and it turned out that it was his son. He could have enjoyed it all those years and, instead, he had rejected it, "recalls Mercedes Alemañ. "We don't always give good news, of course, but the good news is that today we can find out the truth in time."

Fernando waits for his while browsing a gossip magazine.