Tampa's ABC News affiliate reveals that no government agency
regulates sales of gender tests like the Baby Gender Mentor. The FDA
does not require oversight of the test because it's a "home brew" -- a
test sold as a service.
Women are saying, "Wow, that's really neat, I'm
going to get that!" And every time that they sell a test, that woman is
potentially putting herself and her family at risk for heartbreak.
Danielle Hardy, mother whose Baby Gender Mentor test was wrong
Linda Hurtado reports that women are banding together to file
a class action lawsuit, alleging that their Baby Gender Mentor result
was wrong, and that the company won't honor their promise of a refund.
I think some of this has got to be looked into, and
hopefully stopped. You are not supposed to make misrepresentations when
selling a product to the public.
Barry Gainey, Gainey and McKenna Law Firm
Acu-Gen, however, maintains that their baby gender test works as
advertised. Acu-Gen's president, Chang Wang, says, "We have done
thousands of tests. I think if you want to do a fair comparison, do a
fair report, you should check thousands of them before you make any
comment."
I have to disagree. The 99.9% accuracy claimed by Acu-Gen (never
mind statements about "never" being wrong) means that only 1 in 1,000
customers should get a wrong result. Yet over 70 women have reported
here on In-Gender.com that their gender test was wrong, according to
ultrasound results, not to mention numerous reports on other pregnancy
forums. For these 70 cases to represent the 0.1% error rate claimed by
Acu-Gen, sales of at least 70,000 kits would be needed. In
November, the kit's retailer, Sherry Bonelli, stated that 4,000 kits
had been sold, with half those being sold in the first few weeks after
the product debuted on NBC's Today Show in late June.
Although Bonelli maintains that ultrasound is unreliable at
determining a baby's gender, so far over 20 women on this site alone
have delivered babies that confirm their ultrasound was right, and Baby
Gender Mentor was wrong.