Genetic testing on the increase in Taiwan

In Taiwan, genetic tests have been on the upswing, particularly in the past couple of years due to stricter regulations that often require DNA analysis reports for purposes such as household registration of minors, notes Dr. Yi-Ning Su, director of the National Taiwan University Hospital's Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics Laboratory.

Su, who has been with the hospital's medical genetics department for about seven years, has seen his fair share of peculiar cases.

“Especially when it comes to paternity testing, while some parents come to us already with some doubts, every once in a while we still see cases where couples are completely taken aback by the results,” he says.

Out of the 700 to 900 sets of couples or families that undergo genetic testing every year at the hospital, about one or two per month are surprised by paternity test results, according to the geneticist.

The doctor recounts that one of the more memorable cases he has witnessed occurred about three years ago, when a Taiwanese man and his foreign spouse went in for a routine paternity test required for their six-year-old son's household registration so he could be enrolled at school.

“Not only did it turn out that after six years of raising the child, the boy was not his, but the mother disappeared without a trace even before we could deliver the results,” Su noted. “So the child became an orphan. We had no clue where his biological family was.”

“We were, of course, very shocked. For her to just take off like that was very sad,” he lamented. “What we suspect is that the mother probably already knew.”

“We later learned that the father, who was an only child, had divorced his first wife before because she was unable to bear him male children,” continues Su. “We often wondered if the second spouse, aware of this pressure, switched a female baby for the boy while still living abroad.”

While cases like these are unfortunate, other times genetic testing can uncover much-welcome results, as is the case with local couples who share the same last name and wish to be married — traditionally considered taboo in many Asian societies.

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