Blood Testing
Blood testing is a common way to test DNA for a variety of reasons. This may include paternity testing to establish who a father is in a custody case or birth certificate issue and child support cases. Blood testing for DNA is also becoming common and necessary for immigration cases where an individual has to prove he has blood ties to family in the U.S. for immigration and the test has to be performed in an AABB approved lab. There is also DNA testing for infidelity, child safety, and relationship DNA testing which can determine granparentage.
With the advent of DNA testing, it has become more possible than ever to prove paternity and other occurrences because DNA is a unique fingerprint that everyone has. Everyone's DNA is unique, and when the occasion arises where it has to be proven that an individual is a parent, or an individual is a relative, blood testing can come in handy because the DNA can be isolated from each sample that is taken and then the DNA results from the blood tests can be compared to see if they are a match. There are many markers that are used to determine what a match is and DNA testing is considered to be the most accurate way to determine parentage as well as establish forensic evidence in a criminal case.
In the case of infidelity or a criminal case, a person will often leave behind hairs or skin samples from which the DNA can be isolated. Blood testing can then be performed on individuals to get a sample of their DNA. However, this is not the only way of getting DNA from a person. DNA can be extracted from skin samples that are swabbed from a person's mouth, fingernail clippings and hair samples. These can all yield DNA which can be used for comparison purposes to determine whatever question needs to be addressed, whether it is parentage or suspicion of infidelity or if a person has committed a crime.
One common use for blood testing in DNA is to determine the paternity of a child early in the pregnancy. In as little as 13 weeks, blood can be drawn from the pregnant woman and the fetus's DNA can be isolated from this blood sample and compared to the DNA sample from the father to determine parentage. The accuracy of DNA testing is 99.9% so it is the best way to draw conclusions where there is evidence that involves DNA and trying to determine whose DNA is responsible for parentage, for immigration purposes, in infidelity cases and for forensic reasons.