Corale Mayer holds her daughter Harlow. Mayer said she trusted a Canadian DNA laboratory that produced wrong prenatal paternity test results.
A DNA laboratory in Toronto knowingly delivered prenatal paternity test results that routinely identified the wrong biological fathers — ruling out the real dads — and left a trail of shattered lives around the globe, a CBC News investigation has found.Corale Mayer of North Bay, Ont., holds her daughter, Harlow. Mayer said she trusted a Canadian DNA laboratory that produced wrong prenatal paternity test results.
"What if it's the wrong guy named and you're aborting your child of, you know, a wrong person…. We can imagine everything happens in life…. You see them all, and worse, and worse.""That has happened. Test the white guy and the baby came out Black, and the white guy's saying: 'What's going on here?'" said Tenenbaum.
The interviews included men and women in Montreal, North Bay, Ont., and Victoria. Other former customers interviewed were in Montana, Georgia, California, Guatemala, the U.K. and Australia. "When I found out there were other people … it was a relief," she said. "Finally, I could talk to somebody, and they would be like, 'Yup, I get that.' It was nice to feel I am not insane."Viaguard claimed to use a common prenatal paternity test commercially available to the public since about 2014.
" would always make a comment like: 'It's definitely this one . It's this one, it's got to be this one,'" said Richot. "I was like, I really need to do this now," she said. "The sooner I find out, the sooner my life can continue."The laboratory offered an option to pay the $800 in two installments. The test required her blood and a prospective father's DNA to make a match.WATCH | Viaguard owner captured on hidden camera:Posing as a potential customer, and using a hidden camera, a CBC producer asked Viaguard owner Harvey Tenenbaum about his company's paternity tests.
After the birth of her daughter, the presumed biological father demanded a postnatal paternity test. Mayer agreed and turned to Viaguard again. This time, the result said he wasn't the biological father. In late March, a reporter approached Tenenbaum outside his laboratory to ask him when he first found problems with the tests and when he stopped offering them.
A few drops squeezed into a vile from a finger is not enough, said Akbari. A proper test would draw at least 10 millilitres of blood from a mother's vein, he said. After the birth, his son became his world, but serious strain developed with the child's mother. Brennan hired a lawyer and spent about $20,000 in a legal battle over custody.
While Brennan believed he was a father, he tattooed the child's name, Travis, on his upper arm. It now reads: "Travesty."Associate Prof. Ma'n Zawati, research director for McGill University's Centre of Genomics and Policy in Montreal, says private commercial DNA laboratories don't need licences to operate and sell services.
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