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“A suspected Indian status scam that told a man he shared genetic ancestry with a dog should serve as a reminder of the perils of DNA testing for Indigenous ancestry, says an Edmonton researcher.
Kim TallBear, the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience and Environment, said she has long been wary of DNA testing for Indigenous heritage.
DNA testing may be the future of genealogy, but it should not define a person’s Indigenous identity, the University of Alberta scholar said Thursday in an interview on CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM.
People excited to learn about their roots won’t find all the answers they’re looking for inside a test tube, TallBear cautioned.
“I don’t want to help them make money doing what I think is stupid science,” said the author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science.”
– CBC News, After dog DNA debacle, Indigenous researcher says ancestry testing is ‘stupid science’.
“Consumer DNA testing is going to the dogs. A Canadian testing company has been accused of sending back supposedly human ancestry results on a faux sample that actually came from a chihuahua named Snoopy, CBC News reported Wednesday. Remarkably, it’s the second company reported to have been fooled by doggy DNA in recent months, but the full story behind the sting is even weirder.
The company in question, Viaguard Accu-Metrics, has been exclusively used to verify whether prospective members of the Confederation of Aboriginal People of Canada (CAPC) have any genetic ties to the indigenous populations of Canada. Those who were confirmed to have indigenous DNA via the lab’s results are then given CAPC membership. The results would supposedly not only confirm someone’s ancestry, but narrow down which tribes of the First Nations community they belonged to.
But Louis Côté, who worked with CAPC to collect DNA samples from hopeful members, became suspicious of the lab. So according to CBC News, Côté bought three kits from Viaguard himself last summer, then submitted two cheek swabs from himself and one from his girlfriend’s good boy, Snoopy.”
– Gizmodo, Another DNA Testing Company Reportedly Gets Fooled by Dog DNA.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
