Gender testing kit on net shakes India

Chandigarh: A US patented new gender testing kit available on the
internet, which enables sex determination as early as five weeks after
conception could be disturbing news for India especially states of
Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.
The three north Indian states that prize a male child, have one of the
most skewed male-female ratios in the country, with Punjab having only
874 females for one thousand men.

The kit 'Baby Gender Mentor Home DNA Gender Testing Kit' , available
on www.pregnancystrore.com at a price of approximately 275$ not only
threatens to throw India's already beleaguered Pre-Natal determination
Test (PNDT) out of gear, its intrusion in the Indian grey market has
many people jittery as well. The kit also called the Jantar-Mantar
kit, in rural Punjab, has two pregnancy tests and built in equipment
for collecting and sending a simple finger-prick blood sample to a
Massachusetts laboratory. Confidential results are received within 48
hours via e-mail. The gender test that is processed by Acu-Gen Biolab
in Lowell, Mass, is available only in the United States."It can lead
to mass abortions of the female foetus and further skewed sex ratios,
if this kit enters the Indian market, fears Dr. Kuldeep Singh, former
state president IMA Punjab.. Under the Medical Termination of
Pregnancy (MTP) act an abortion can take place until the twelfth week,
and this kit assures detection at the fifth week itself, says a
concerned Kuldeep Singh. The matter has already been brought to the
notice of Punjab health authorities, claims Kuldip Singh and immediate
steps needed to be taken like banning the site for viewing in India,
he said. Moreover, this could lead to disturbing sex-ratios ratios
amongst Asians abroad.

Claiming 99.5% accuracy the Baby Gender Testing Kit technology,
according to the web-site has been in trial for 14 years. The
technique traces the amount of active genetic fetal chromosomal DNA in
the maternal blood to determine gender. The Baby Gender Mentor lab is
able to determine fetus-originated-specific chromosome sequence
detected in the maternal blood stream. If there is fetus-originated
Y-specific chromosome sequence detected in the blood, then the woman
is currently carrying at least one baby boy. If fetus-originated
X-specific chromosome sequence is detected in the blood, then there is
at least one baby girl.

Krishan Kumar, Deputy Commissioner Nawanshahr (Punjab) who has single-handedly spearheaded the campaign to curb the menace of ultra-sound machines
that are widely used for sex-determination tests says, that if such a
kit exists, the very thought of it worries me. We have been unable to
control sex-determination tests through ultra-sounds and the new kit
shall compound the problems. I also see Punjabis headed for US to get
the tests done as it has already been established that Indians are
going abroad to get male embryo implanted.

However, Rainuka Dagar a social scientist at Institute for Development
and communication located in Chandigarh the capital city of Punjab has a different call on it. According to her gender justice cannot be achieved by merely targeting technology in sex-selection but has more to do with the social structure. The
issue to be addressed is more in context to the male child preference
and attached utilitarian and normative need for a male child, she
claims.

Khushwant Singh is a journalist in Punjab, a north-western state in India.
He can be contacted at [e-mail]