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Woman Takes DNA Test, Learns Her Real Dad Is Her Mom’s Doctor

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday April 05 2018, @11:31PM   
from the but-not-like-you-thought dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

There are many reasons to avoid the plethora of direct-to-consumer DNA tests on the market these days. Recent data suggests that many may produce alarming false positives for disease risks, while others that claim to predict things like athletic abilities and wine preferences are simply dubious. Another, perhaps less-common concern is that an at-home genetic analysis may unveil completely unexpected, deeply disturbing information that you just can’t prepare for.

That was the case for Washington state’s Kelli Rowlette (née Fowler), who took a DNA test with the popular site Ancestry.com back in July 2017.

Rowlette was likely expecting to discover new details about her distant ancestors, but she instead learned that her DNA sample matched that of a doctor in Idaho. The Ancestry.com analysis predicted a “parent-child” relationship. Befuddled and in disbelief, Rowlette relayed the findings to her parents, Sally Ashby and Howard Fowler. According to a lawsuit the family filed in the US District Court of Idaho, she told her parents she was disappointed that the results were so unreliable.

But little did she know that her parents—who previously lived in Idaho—had trouble conceiving her and, in 1980, underwent an unusual fertility procedure with a doctor near their Idaho Falls home. The name of that doctor was Gerald E. Mortimer—who happened to have a DNA sample with Ancestry.com that matched Rowlette’s.

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Original Submission

• And that's what you get And that's what you get (Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday April 06 2018, @12:52AM (4 children)

  by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Friday April 06 2018, @12:52AM (#663210)

  When you share anything personal with big data companies that don't give two shits about morals or restraint.

  This story is creepy at a profound societal level...

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• Re:And that's what you get Re:And that's what you get (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 06 2018, @12:59AM (2 children)

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday April 06 2018, @12:59AM (#663214) Journal

  Future scenario: your DNA sequence, stored in some database, is downloaded and used to create synthetic eggs and sperm, which are then combined with whatever the good doctor feels like combining it with.

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  [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

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  • Re:And that's what you get Re:And that's what you get (Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday April 06 2018, @02:38AM (1 child)

    by JNCF (4317) on Friday April 06 2018, @02:38AM (#663242) Journal

    The combinations will be optimized with a genetic algorithm.

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    • Re:And that's what you get (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 06 2018, @05:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 06 2018, @05:56PM (#663492)

      I seed what you did there.

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• Re:And that's what you get (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday April 06 2018, @06:03AM

  by FatPhil (863) <reversethis-{if.fdsa} {ta} {tnelyos-cp}> on Friday April 06 2018, @06:03AM (#663288) Homepage

  To be honest, being tricked into carrying a child that you didn't agree in advance to carry is bordering on rape. I will never understand the "I must breed, by any means!!!" mentality, but if science can help that, and they can pay for it (even though I'm centre-left, pro-socialised medicine, this is not something I think the taxpayer should be paying for), then I don't object to it happening. The doctor's behaviour, on the other hand is unconscionable, truly disgusting, he should be struck off.

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  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

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