'Ethnicity testing' before adoption; a help or hindrance?
'Ethnicity testing' before adoption; a help or hindrance?
Several different companies now sell ‘DNA ancestry’ or ‘ethnicity’ testing kits via the internet. A small sample of a person’s blood or saliva can be sent via the post, its DNA extracted, and a panel of polymorphic genetic markers can be analysed. This information is then used to provide a breakdown of a person’s ‘racial origins’ by categorizing someone as a percentage of their ancestry that is African, East Asian, Native American or European. Whilst these kits have proved very popular with adults interested in genealogy, we have recently become aware of their use in adoption and fostering cases in attempts to determine a child's ethnicity. We believe such use is inappropriate and indicates both a misunderstanding of the concept of ethnicity and the technical limitations of such genetic tests. We urge extreme caution in their use in any adoption and fostering decisions.
404-405
Lucassen, Anneke
2eb85efc-c6e8-4c3f-b963-0290f6c038a5
Hill, Catherine
867cd0a0-dabc-4152-b4bf-8e9fbc0edf8d
Wheeler, Robert
266f8b1b-fb63-49d5-9b93-21242761e7b7
8 October 2010
Lucassen, Anneke
2eb85efc-c6e8-4c3f-b963-0290f6c038a5
Hill, Catherine
867cd0a0-dabc-4152-b4bf-8e9fbc0edf8d
Wheeler, Robert
266f8b1b-fb63-49d5-9b93-21242761e7b7
Lucassen, Anneke, Hill, Catherine and Wheeler, Robert
(2010)
'Ethnicity testing' before adoption; a help or hindrance?
Archives of Disease in Childhood, 95 (6), .
(doi:10.1136/adc.2009.168989).
Abstract
Several different companies now sell ‘DNA ancestry’ or ‘ethnicity’ testing kits via the internet. A small sample of a person’s blood or saliva can be sent via the post, its DNA extracted, and a panel of polymorphic genetic markers can be analysed. This information is then used to provide a breakdown of a person’s ‘racial origins’ by categorizing someone as a percentage of their ancestry that is African, East Asian, Native American or European. Whilst these kits have proved very popular with adults interested in genealogy, we have recently become aware of their use in adoption and fostering cases in attempts to determine a child's ethnicity. We believe such use is inappropriate and indicates both a misunderstanding of the concept of ethnicity and the technical limitations of such genetic tests. We urge extreme caution in their use in any adoption and fostering decisions.
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Published date: 8 October 2010
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Local EPrints ID: 142595
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/142595
ISSN: 0003-9888
PURE UUID: 7ba6ce0e-6b6b-4da7-bf79-131e0884ee57
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Date deposited: 01 Apr 2010 08:43
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:46
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Author:
Robert Wheeler
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