The Dangers of DNA Testing

A recent article posted in the New York Times discusses the results of a study posted in Forensic Science International, exploring the possibility of error in forensic laboratory DNA testing. 108 different crime laboratories were sent the same DNA sample mixtures and asked to identify possible suspects in a crime. While almost all the labs correctly identified the major contributors of the "crime", 74 labs implicated an innocent third suspect. This study exposed high levels of variation among results received from various forensic laboratories, suggesting a possible need to standardize aspects such as training, etc. While these results do not necessarily imply innocent people are being sent to jail, they pose a question of preciseness of results in complex sample mixtures.

Allie Henderson