A few years ago, my children decided that all of us should take a DNA test. I really didn’t want to know if I had a marker for some serious disease , but just to please them, I forced some spit out of my dry mouth into a test tube. The results left me wondering: should you take a DNA test?
My test , the first of its kind, cost my kids $150. Now, several DNA testing companies have gotten in on the act. You can spend anywhere from $90 to $190 for a DNA analysis. Someone had a Christmas special for $59 which apparently pulled in some big bucks. About half the young people I know had received one as a Christmas present. What are they hoping to find when they get the results? The TV ads picture a person who thought he was mostly German and turned out to be half Spanish. So how will that new found knowledge change his life or make him any happier?
Some people aren’t pleased with the results. One friend, upon discovering that he was one fourth Jewish, concluded that his maternal grandmother, who was an actress, must have had an affair with her Jewish director. It didn’t occur to him that 100 years ago, many Jewish immigrants changed their surname to avoid the discrimination that was so widespread at the time. And what does it matter now?
As I said before, many companies have jumped in on the DNA Testing cash cow. According to a reporter from Science News, you can get tests from at least five different organizations, and get five different results. Why are the results so different? Because DNA testing is a very inexact science.
My results didn’t tell me much. I always knew I came from French, German, English and Irish ancestry. The DNA analysis told me I was of “Northern European” heritage, which means absolutely nothing at all. Europeans from every part of that continent have roamed around the globe for thousands of years, starting wars, intermarrying, raping the conquered, and traveling to find better opportunities.
One important aspect of the test purported to show genetic “markers” for various diseases. It did show that I don’t have the Alzheimer’s marker, but even if I had, it didn’t mean I was going to get the disease. To tell the truth, at this age, I don’t want to know that I might or might not come down with. If and when that happens, I will deal with it at the time. I certainly don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Children who were adopted, or perhaps in foster care, might benefit from DNA testing. They might even find some siblings if they, too, had submitted their spit to a DNA testing company. Other than that, it seems to me it’s much ado about nothing.