Cheating A Paternity Test
Of course with this kind of testing comes considerable importance a high levels of emotion attached to DNA results. Whether a blood sample, buccal swab or hair follicle is being tested, the results could have incredible implications for all involved, not to mention a great deal of money for those in custody. As a result, some fathers and indeed some mothers too, try to cheat on a paternity test to get the result that they want. This could be because the father is desperate to have custody of the child and are worried they will lose the case if they are not the biological father. Alternatively they may want to escape the financial responsibility of fathering a child and give evidence to the contrary. A Mother might cheat a paternity test in order to show a man who is not the biological father actually is.
What isn't widely known is how difficult it is to cheat a paternity test and that it is impossible to cheat one if it is done under legal supervision. A paternity test that is to be used as evidence in court has to follow specific procedures; that is, a third party must be present when the sample is taken, to vouch that it is indeed that person's DNA that is sent off. It is all too easy for home paternity tests to be cheated, when a party obtains a DNA sample from somebody else entirely. Mothers who attempt to 'frame' a certain man for their paternity often take a buccal swab of their own mouth because (of course) their own DNA is guaranteed to match the child's. However, laboratories test a certain part of the gene which codes for gender (the amelogenin gene) and this way they find out that it is the mother's DNA involved.
We hear all the time of people trying to cheat urine tests for drugs by drinking huge cocktails of water with cranberry and grapefruit juice, but none of this works on a DNA test. DNA is DNA; it cannot be diluted or changed. It can only forged if you try to give another person's sample. The only way to guarantee this doesn't happen is to get a third party involved, either for your own peace of mind through a home-test or lawfully with a legal professional so that the results can be used as evidence in court.
Cheating on a paternity test is something that is very rarely seen in the courts. Thankfully, it seems that people have more sense than to try and obtain someone else's DNA for testing. Over the years it seems that in general, mothers have a strong idea of who the biological father of their baby is, yet that man is denying it, or another is claiming that they are the father instead. If these instances, if DNA samples are forged and a different result to the one the mother was expecting arises then she will demand a re-test, where she sees the sample being taken and sent. Of course for the laboratories they can always tell if it is the mother's DNA that has been sent off, or even that of an animal rather than a human (it has been done in the past)!
The only possible way that a DNA paternity test could possibly give erroneous results when the samples are taken from the correct potential father and child is if either one were a human chimera. A human chimera is a person who has two sets of DNA and these can exist in different parts of the body. It seems impossible, but chimeras are in fact born when two fraternal twins become one being in very early pregnancy, when the embryo is just a cluster of cells. This is incredibly rare, but there have been court cases of children being taken from their biological mother because their DNA simply says that they are not her children. In this way the erroneous results are not a result of cheating, but of coincidence.
In summary, there is no possible way to cheat a paternity test if there is a third party present to ensure that the swab or blood test is taken from the correct individual(s). Of course, a mix up in the laboratory is possible, but re-tests can always be carried out multiple times with third parties always there. Cheating a paternity test through scientific means, such as contaminating the sample or diluting it, is completely impossible. Overall, salvia, blood and hair paternity testing is an almost foolproof way to prove paternity. Its 99.99% accuracy for proving a man is the father and 100% accuracy for proving a man is not, is better than any other method of paternity testing that science can offer. As time passes, the science behind these methods is developed to be stronger and more reliable, meaning that parents, children and the courts have more peace of mind than ever before.