Legal DNA Paternity Testing

There are a wide variety of home DNA test kits currently available online, and selecting the one that is best for you takes careful research and price comparison shopping with different online retailers.  Although it may be tempting to purchase your home DNA test kit from the first online retailer you visit that has a good price, there are reasons you should look at at least a few different retailers before making your final selection.

Home DNA test kits are often called “direct-to-consumer” DNA tests, since they do not require a doctor’s authorization to purchase or use.  Different states have different regulations regarding their purchase, so one of the first steps you need to take is to make sure that the test you want is available for the area you live.

Next you need to look at what is included in the pricing.  You may be caught up $99 offers for home DNA test kits, but you need to make sure that what you are purchasing not only includes the testing equipment but also the testing results.  If not, that kit will become useless to you unless you are willing to shell out often hundreds of dollars more in money to find out what the results are.

Finally, for any all home DNA test kits you need to use sensible precautions when it comes to interpreting the results you receive.  For example, there are many different environmental, behavior and social influences on disease, and if you are taking a test for genetic predisposition for disease you should be sure that the company (or another source) provides reliable information on how to interpret your results given this complexity.  It is because of the difficulty in understanding genetic results that many states and countries ban the use of over the counter home DNA test kits.  If you have questions that the DNA test kit company cannot answer, you should go to your family practitioner or a genetic specialist to get more information.

If you are interested in learning more about home DNA test kits, including information about paternity testing kits, please return to the Legal DNA Paternity Testing information website.