DNA Testing in Thailand for Paternity

We can facilitate painless, bloodless DNA testing which can establish with over 99% accuracy whether or not a particular man is the biological father of a particular child. We do not even need a sample from the mother. We need only some painless wipes of the inside of the cheek using something similar to a cotton swab, from the father and the child, full stop.

We have an established relationship with a top laboratory for collecting and analyzing DNA samples, including for paternity testing.

If you wish to go thru normal Thai methods, there are only a few places you can go, which have required a lot of official paperwork and a blood sample, plus you must deal with the Thai language. We have dealt with DNA testing in Thailand since 1996, and to keep this brief, suffice it to say that we have a better way which can give you 99.9% accuracy.

If you wish to keep your DNA private, physically painless, avoid bureaucratic requirements, as well as have the samples collected at your home (especially if outside Bangkok), then consider our method, perhaps at least for the first test to find out the results before you invest heavily into any legal requirements. With our method, you do not even need to give us your real names. Not required by us, but required by Thai places.

(We have a "legal" option, too, but most people request the quick and easy method instead, at least at first, in order to avoid additional costs and legal issues. By "legal", we mean admissible in court or for immigration purposes.)

The DNA samples we privately collect are simply wipes of the inside of the cheek to collect cheek cells lining the mucus membrane inside of the mouth (epithelial cells), which come off easily with our swabs.

We have collection kits here which our laboratory provides us, stocking us up for about a dozen cases at a time. It is something which looks like a cotton swab except the stick is longer and the swab on the end is actually a different material than cotton, slightly more abrasive and made of a material which sticks to epithelial cells.

We need more than one sample because the tests are conducted more than once to make sure we get the same DNA results. This is especially required if the first test excludes the man as the father. (Actually, we collect 4 samples per person.)

It is very important to not contaminate the swabs by touching them or letting them touch anything which might get someone else's DNA onto the swab, and we have standard methods whereby one of our staff collects your samples wearing rubber gloves and a mask.

You can also take samples yourself with Q-Tips (cotton swabs), but it is best to wear plastic or rubber gloves such as what food handlers and doctors use and change gloves in-between taking samples from different people, plus don't touch the fingers of the gloves during handling. All this is available at 7-11, altogether less than 100 baht, but Q-Tips do not work so well. You need to wipe with the cotton swab wipes more diligently. (Small babies without teeth sometimes like to chew on the tips, which is good, but do get good cheek wipes.) With cotton swabs, we must get many much more diligent or more samples than with our special swabs. Immediately afterwards, let them air out to dry, preferably for 30 minutes or longer, such as by putting them in a VERY CLEAN glass, because bacteria can destroy the skin cells, so it is best to make sure they are dried out well, without touching or otherwise contaminating the tips! For yourself, rinse out your mouth with plain water before taking a sample. Try to get baby samples not immediately after a meal, but it's usually OK anyway as long as the wipes are good and the tips dried well.

You don't need to be a certified lab technician to collect the samples in the field, as long as you are very, very careful.

Notably, people have provided DNA samples including clothing, cigarette butts, shaving accessories, diapers (not dirty parts of diapers), and other means, but this is not recommended. These are difficult at best and much more expensive to process.

If interested, please contact us.

"Paternity fraud" is when a mother tricks a man into believing he is the biological father of a child, when in fact it is another man, usually to receive financial support from the tricked man. (Actually, she may or may not be sure whether or not you are the father.)

Many fathers will abandon a child which they think may not be theirs. It is better to find out the truth. If it is their child, they can be more confident and fully supportive, and do the right thing, with peace of mind. If it's paternity fraud, then the man can leave with a clear conscience and a socially clean record. We have both saved family relationships when we find out the man is truly the father, as well as saved innocent men from fraud when we found out he is not the father.

It is best to do this while the child is still a baby, and as soon as possible, so that there is no psychological trauma to the child and everybody involved. Better sooner than later, to resolve everything clearly.

We normally do DNA tests only as regards babies, not grown children, to find out before the baby becomes a child and bonds to a particular father.

Many extended family members of the Thai mother will adopt a child in the family, especially if it has foreign blood.

A man who wants to be a good kind of person, or not wanting to be a bad kind of man, may consider taking partial responsibility for a new part of himself in the next generation, the result of an act which he is equally responsible for, or harbor some similar issue of morality or honor.

It is relatively very cheap to raise a child in Thailand, e.g., by related Thai social parents instead of the biological parents.

Nonetheless, the man may still be hesitant to get involved due to various financial, emotional, or situational issues involved in this longterm situation. If the man is not sure whether he is truly the father, then he is much more likely to reject or limit his support for that reason, if he has any doubts whether he is the father. This may happen at a later date when he desires to rationalize.

A DNA test can resolve any uncertainty about the biological father, so that the issue is settled in your minds, and a situation more fair to all is likely to be arranged, stable and without lingering doubts.

If the mother can find out who the father truly is, then the child will know who their father is, which is important for the child to have a complete identity.

Of course, some people object to paternity testing, wanting every child to believe they are from any particular father, correct or not. We disagree. Our philosophy, which is also the majority in the world, is that we should be fair to all parties involved, based on the truth. In those cases in which the alleged father is excluded, the mother can then turn to another father, or, if she still does not know who the biological father is, at least she can manage that situation more responsibly for the longterm, such as adoption by an extended family member, or some other arrangement while the child is still a baby. It is better to resolve the issue sooner rather than later. It is traumatic to children to have an unstable family with distrust and lingering doubts.

The cost depends on your location and the situation. For example, are you in Bangkok or an outer province? Is the mother cooperative, or do we need to do the test discreetly? These are the two most common cost factors. It costs the same whether or not a DNA sample is taked from the mother (we do not wish to discourage in any way a sample from the mother, and the overall cost is not significantly more). The results are over 99% accurate whether or not a sample is taken from the mother.

You get a printout of the results. It is a list of the gene alleles of the child alongside yours and optionally the mother's too. Generally speaking, each of the child's genes consists of two alleles, which make up the two halves of the gene, one from the mother and one from the father. You can see clearly in the report your alleles, the child's alleles, and optionally the mother's alleles. You will either see your alleles in the child or else see a mismatch. We test 15 allele loci to get 99.9% accuracy, and we can go up to 25 at extra cost if you wish. If the child has one allele which is not yours, then it's not your child (with extremely rare exceptions, and two alleles for sure). With each allele tested, the chances go up or down. A result excluding a father usually turns up very quickly in the test, whereas the result including a father normally becomes evident and just goes up and up to 99.9%.

The particular alleles chosen for a paternity test by our affiliated laboratory are the standard ones for the best class of paternity tests in the USA, chosen because they have a lot of variation between humans. (The world seems to follow the USA and FBI standards, and in fact when I did my first DNA test in 1996 in a Thai laboratory, I lined up a free subscription to an FBI periodical for my Thai counterparts in the same go.)

There are a lot of DNA tests for many different purposes, such as to determine whether a disease is inherited from parents or from something in the environment. However, a paternity test should focus on specific "loci" which have a lot of variation between men. Our test is not a cheap one, it is in the top class, and our probability calculations for inclusion/exclusion are proper whereby it's over 99% or else 0%.

If the mother also submited a DNA sample, then you can see exactly how your genes came together. One will come from the mother and the other from the father. If the mother did not submit a sample, then you can still see your alleles or else the mismatch to exclude you, which is still abundantly clear. For cases in which you are "included", the probability of another man having and contributing the exact same alleles as yourself is extremely small, less than 1%, when you compare a list of genes, due to the genetic variation between humans for these particular alleles.

We can explain the results to you when you receive them. Also, you can verify them with the US laboratory and communicate directly with the lab. You get the results in a table. You can see for yourself, and you have a record.

Paternity is a very important issue in life, affecting a lot of people, so it's important that the testing is done the best way.

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