Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Paternity Testing

Episode Date: May 31, 2019

Though we have it down to a (literal) science at this point, the history of determining parentage is chock-full of fake medicine. Two words: Impotence court. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers ...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's busted out. We were sawed through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.
Starting point is 00:00:56 Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Hello everybody and welcome to Sobo. It's a metal tour of misguided medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. I'm Justin McAroy. We already did that part. Dang. Justin, I was trying to think as I was sitting down
Starting point is 00:01:21 to come up with a topic for this week's episode. You know, sometimes I try to think like, what's timely? What's going on? What's happening? What holidays or events? Top. What's new? What's now?
Starting point is 00:01:32 And as I was thinking about it, I was thinking, well, my, the first thought I had was, well, my dad's birthday is coming up. And that's not really helpful for a medical history podcast necessarily. Mm-hmm. Like the medical history of dads or dad's birthdays isn't really a Thing yeah, not a not a hot topic. Yeah Topic now there would be a good one the shirts. Is that the Joker? I love it. I Don't think that has anything on a hoodie that has nothing to do with my dad and or medical history podcast
Starting point is 00:02:08 but and or medical history podcast. I like chemical romance. But I don't know if this is an insight into the way my brain works that I should share or not, but when I thought, well, what has to do with my dad that would have to do with medical history, I thought, oh, I wonder if paternity testing has an interesting history. I don't doubt that my dad's, my dad, we share way too much sports related aggression to not be genetically related. Sounds like a cause of death.
Starting point is 00:02:38 Cause of death sports related aggression. But it did make me think about, you know, I bet there's an interesting history when it comes to like proving parentage. And how did we do that? Nowadays we have DNA, right? I mean, while we always had DNA, that's not new. You could also pretend this is about Game of Thrones. A Game of Thrones is just wrapped up. Paternity is huge on that show. Right. This is our Game of Thrones Tommy Smirl tie-in episode. It's for both. Yes.
Starting point is 00:03:10 Yes. If you know Tommy, but don't know Game of Thrones, go for that. There we go. If you know Game of Thrones, but not Tommy, go for that. If you know Tommy and Game of Thrones, you're probably Mary Smirl. Sydney's mom. There's probably, there's probably like a few other people though.
Starting point is 00:03:26 Probably the Venn diagram probably has a few other people. So humans, as you may imagine, have been trying to prove for various reasons, conclusively who their parents were for a long time, both to prove that someone is, and on the other end prove that that's not your child necessarily. There have been great efforts made throughout history
Starting point is 00:03:47 to do that before we figured out that like we have DNA and there's a good way to do that. You know, one thing I wanted to cover at the top is I had heard the myth maybe even in a classroom, but perhaps not. The myth that up to anywhere from 10 to 30% of people don't know where the sperm that created them, where it actually came from, that the person they think, you know, fathered them is not. I've heard that myth. That is not is not true. It is probably a much, much,
Starting point is 00:04:25 much lower number like on the order of one to two percent. So I had just thought I would bust the. I'm assuming it might be a medical school thing because I've never heard that myth before. I've looked it up. It is considered and you asked me what I thought would be and I nailed it. You said like three and like some studies have said perhaps up to three, but like probably one to two anyway The point is that's not a that's not as big an issue Do you want to talk about terminology real quick just because it's a little gendered? It does it does the language when it comes to it so like if you were to look up a paternity test
Starting point is 00:05:01 What they are referencing is trying to figure out paternity test. What they are referencing is trying to figure out which individual the sperm came from when it came to making the child because there had to have been a sperm, there had to have been an egg. And maternity testing refers to figuring out who provided the egg. So those are generally like if you're going to go have these done and you're googling to try to figure out like where can I do this and how much would it cost and what services provide them. These are the terms you would use to look up those things. Now they are gendered terms. When we can make sperm and can make sperm vice versa, everybody can make eggs and sperm. But this is the this is the shorthand we have, and there's not a non-gendered way
Starting point is 00:05:45 of talking about parentage right now. We could say parental testing, but I think the problem is, is we're looking back through history. As you may imagine, a lot of the testing, quote unquote, testing, that was done was really focused on
Starting point is 00:06:01 who provided this sperm, especially when we are talking about royal lineages and children that were conceived outside of a marital relationship, that's what really kind of decided where in society that that child was going to fit was who provided the sperm. And so a lot of it was focused on what is broadly referred to as paternity testing. But obviously, again, that it's not, it's a defect in our language. We need a non-gendered term for that other than the person
Starting point is 00:06:38 from whence the sperm came. It's very, it's very worthy. The person from whom? It's definitely three hours long. This sperm came. In ancient Rome, proving parented was really important because as I said, it would change your standing in the community depending on who, you know, got busy.
Starting point is 00:06:58 In the scientific terms. Yes. If a child, there was a specific term for children who were born of incestuous relationships, hey, Game of Thrones, this is really relevant to that, right? There was some of that. Sure, yeah. They were called the incestuosi.
Starting point is 00:07:12 Incestuosi. Incestuosi. Incestuosi. Sounds like a hot social click. It was not. They actually could be. No, it's always. No, because not only did the father not necessarily have to support that
Starting point is 00:07:29 child, the mother actually at the time had no legal requirement to support a child that was born of that sort of relationship. So disproving that would be very important. Also if it was, as I mentioned, a child, so if there is a married couple and then somebody steps out, the child that is conceived in that manner is also regarded as a lower, lower on the social wrong in nature room. Okay. And so all of these things really mattered. For potential fathers, the reason that you wanted to prove or disprove this claim was it became a financial one. As actually as far back as the 6th century CE, we began to require alimony, child support, some payment to the person who would be raising the
Starting point is 00:08:29 child from the other person who was involved in conceiving the child. And so, you know, Justinian said like everybody's got to be held accountable, no matter how the child was conceived, you're gonna have to pay for it. So it became an issue because it came a financial issue. This actually, this held true for a long time. There have been, if you look into the legal history of it, it's really interesting because there was a point in history in the 1800s when, like for instance in France, the French civil code actually said that you can't force any parents to be accountable for a kid just because they had it. Why?
Starting point is 00:09:09 I don't know. I'd have to ask French people. Seems like a pretty good reason for French people. I'd have to ask the French people, the 1800s. This in last very long, that is obviously not our modern idea of your responsibility as a parent to the child that you bore or help to create in modern society in France or anywhere else, I believe, that you have some accountability for their welfare. There were some methods of determining parentage that were based on timing of pregnancy.
Starting point is 00:09:41 That was a really common way. It was just like asking about menstrual cycles and trying to figure out, you know, this was still a problem back before ultrasounds and such, how far along, you know, how long has this person been pregnant? I'm sure that was what it tastes fully handled. No, never. There were there were obvious heritable traits that would be looked for which is so like yeah touch it. Yeah, so hit miss. I mean yeah, he has your nose. I guess yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:13 There were some other stranger kind of concepts like there was a North Germanic tribe that would have the potential if it was a if it was a male child, once they were old enough, I guess, to hold things, they would have them hold a metal, a hot metal rod. And if they were truly the son of whoever they were claiming, they could hold it. Yeah. Like as long as they're bad, then they're like, as much of a whim as they're bad, like they let me go instantly, like, Oh, that's Phil's kid. You couldn't hold the hot metal rod either. when is there bad like they let me go instantly like, oh, that's Phil's kid. I couldn't hold the hot metal rotting. There were there were easy options for for those who were
Starting point is 00:10:53 claim to be the father of the child, the ones who were in the paternity suit, so to speak, there were some easy ways that they could prove that they were not in fact involved in the conception of the child. The easiest was just was to prove that you were out of country. Yep. Have a receipt from Duncan Donuts in another way. You're set. You got documentation.
Starting point is 00:11:14 You got witnesses. Now, again, you said, of course, was this handled tactfully? No, because the pregnant person had to undergo an examination to try to determine the timing of the pregnancy. So if you could, basically, if you had the receipts, you could, that would be one way of denying paternity. The other way was to prove that you could not impregnate anyone under any circumstances. So they had to hold an impotence trial. It's so rad. Oh, not so fast. I'm taking you to court impotence court to prove that I feel could not have sired that child. To all of our fills. Yeah, I'm very sorry. You're getting a rough go over this time.
Starting point is 00:12:06 I don't know a button. So these were defined as legal sexual fights. Legal sexual fights. Sexual fights. Like Foxy Boxing. And basically what you would have to do, there was a congressor. So there were some surgeons,
Starting point is 00:12:27 some official priests, some matrons, various people who I guess were good at judging these kinds of things. And you would have to go before them in person and demonstrate your inability to become erect and ejaculate. Boy, that is a, that's a full afternoon. I tell you, that is a lot to have to deal with. I feel like. And if you could successfully prove that you were incapable, then that would eliminate you as a potential sperm donor from the equation because you couldn't. So that's what that scene in a few good men is about.
Starting point is 00:13:09 You know that Tom Crease is like, I've never seen a few good men, but I'm guessing it's not. No, it's actually absolutely about what you just described exactly where they are. Now these, these sexual fights were problematic and that Justin would you say it would be difficult as a as it I am not a penis have her as someone who is Justin would you say it would be difficult to do this in front of a courtroom full of people here's how to saying under any circumstances. I like this blackness statement. Okay, Squid.
Starting point is 00:13:47 Oh, let me just like the same. For most people with a penis, yes. For a certain segment of people with penis is 100% now. Like here is, I don't want to get say unilaterally. I would guess for the majority of people, yes, for a slim minority. Oh, it's not gonna be a problem whatsoever. This is my whole thing.
Starting point is 00:14:10 This is my whole jail. I've driven this way entire life. This is my moment to crank it in a courtroom. Hahaha. Um, if you, if you, I don't have a lawyer. Yeah, I mean, it was a legal proceeding. It's illegal. This is how you this is how if you wanted to prove that it is illegal
Starting point is 00:14:35 erection. It's a legally finding erection. If you wanted to prove that that wasn't your child. This is how it went down and you were not endowning this. You were not alone. We've talked about famous French surgeon, Ambrole-Parae, before on the show. Up in the store, Griebap, right? No. Oh.
Starting point is 00:15:03 All right. He was. He was. He works that had stuff about, uh, oh, yes. Okay. Yes. He did have stuff. You're right. You're right. You're right. He was, he also, we've talked about him in so many episodes. He was like instrumental wound care and amputation and, um, important French surgeon, but he also, uh, his comment on this, which he did not publish while he was alive. He wrote it and then it was published after he after he died that just to say like file Listen, it would be pretty impossible for most people to perform
Starting point is 00:15:37 In this arena and I don't know that this is a great way what a pretty time that you can't even say that while you're alive Like listen, this is this is off my blue side. All right. This is this is this one. Send the kids to bed. Let me tell you my opinion about erection court. There were other medical arguments that people could prove a little bit easier. People who were who were claiming they were not responsible for the conception of a child.
Starting point is 00:16:08 So there was an Italian physician in 1595, Giovanni Batista Condronky. Who talked about that if you had excessive liquid evacuation, then you may not be able to. You know, too much. Yeah. Spirm. Not sperm. Like demon. Yes. That's the word. Yeah. Well, also like if you masturbate a lot. Oh, okay. I thought you meant like if it was too liquidy. You'll lose sperm quality. And that if you don't eat enough, you'll lose sperm quality. Any deformities of the genitals. He also specifically targeted overweight people and said that basically there's too much, there's like fat in the blood, like actual adipose tissue, there's fat in the blood and
Starting point is 00:17:03 that it would, you couldn't make good sperm. So that could be a defense you could use. Like I am too overweight to have provided good sperm. And so I could not have possibly been involved in the conception of this job. That's true too, right, by me. No, none of that is true. No, none of that is true.
Starting point is 00:17:21 That is not true. So if you could prove any of that, you could claim I couldn't, it's not me, it couldn't be. Couldn't be. Couldn't be me. It would be me. No overweight person has ever gotten anybody pregnant. There was a, that doesn't even stand up to basic like,
Starting point is 00:17:38 that's threadbare and why I'm gonna say. They get called out on this eventually, don't worry. Oh, there's a lot of, no, that was Giovanni, but there was a lot of kind of ridiculous claims that I have not, I don't have historical proof for this, but they speak of kind of like, hey, I got you back, buddy. Hey, don't worry, bro. Actually, all Derrick's are impudent.
Starting point is 00:18:00 So my friend Derrick could not have done this. All Derrick's are impudent. All Derrick's are not. I'm sorry, Derrick's. I'm sorry done this. All Derrick's are not. I'm sorry Derrick's. I am sorry to all of the Derrick's. So there was also the Fortunatus Fidelis from Italy. That was a killer Sydney. That was a lawyer character.
Starting point is 00:18:16 I know. I just am apologizing to all the Derrick's and Phil's who you've offended with our podcast. I know. He also stated that you if you had a crooked penis, hold on. Let me listen more intently to this part for no reason in particular. Go ahead. What now? I said, let me listen to this part very intently for no reason in particular. Okay. Okay. Also, he described a penis of such large size. Okay, also he described a penis of such large size.
Starting point is 00:18:46 I'm gonna tune out. That any sort of sexual intercourse would be of mortal danger to the woman. 38 years old. And so it is impossible that this person could actually have vaginal intercourse. And that is actually verbatim, the title of the first porno type ever made was a penis of such large size. A sexual intercourse must be a moral danger to the woman is the name of the first ever pornography video that's from the 1600s. So fertilization and paternity would be impossible.
Starting point is 00:19:29 That is the second, that's the sequel. If you had all these options that you had to claim in front of a judge, why didn't everybody claim that one? Why were some people in there and they were like, my doctor says I'm too overweight when another option would have been. My doctor says my penis is too big.
Starting point is 00:19:51 I had what most men was saying, I had penis reductions. Sydney, I have to know more. I don't know what I just have to keep going. Obviously in this, so the patriarchy is running a muck on this topic. They're having a lot of fun here. They're just all over it. The patriarchy is getting a little bugle. Science is going to have to call them into question. But before, before we get there, let's go to the billing department. Let's go. that I still live my life for the most.
Starting point is 00:20:32 So we in the 1600s, we began to develop some pathways to figuring out like what the problem is we didn't really understand fertility well, right? Like before we can start figuring out like who who are the parents of this child? Right. We have to figure out like how our babies made. Right, we're a long way away from that. And we're still, there's still a lot of debate. A lot of people had the idea that it was really just the sexual act and not necessarily any sort of exchange of fluids or anything.
Starting point is 00:21:02 So you didn't, so the ejaculation was removed from the idea of fertility for a while. This started to change in the 1600s when we found sperm. When we had, first we had to have microscope. And then we could look, look at some semen and go, whoa, oh, hello, what are these animacules? That, you think that that word just came to them, unbid? Well, that was a common term for tiny little things that move and we don't know what they are. I, that must have been buckwild. That must have been buckwild.
Starting point is 00:21:33 The first time they were like, Hey, you guys better get over here. They're been tadpoles in here the entire time. They're all in, in the stuff. You know the stuff? They're even tadpoles in it. I kid you not, come look, come look, quick. People were pretty freaked out.
Starting point is 00:21:50 And it really challenged the idea that if there is a penis and there is a vagina, a baby can happen, nothing else is needed. All of a sudden we began to get the idea that, well, there's something else happening. As I like, there's a Swiss anatomy professor, Albrecht von Holler in the 1700s, who said, anyway, sexual intercourse requires a perfect instrument,
Starting point is 00:22:12 but to father a child, a little bit more is needed. So throughout the next 200 years, there would be a lot more study on what are sperm, what do they do, what about OVA, how about that, what about the other part of the equation, we need an egg as well, to try to figure out how everything worked. But all of this doesn't really tell you who the parent is. It just, it helps you figure out who the parent isn't, right? Right.
Starting point is 00:22:41 Right. Which is a slow and inefficient way of turning parent into. Exactly. Right. Because which is a slow and inefficient way of turning parented exactly if you if the only thing we're focusing on are I mean, let's be honest. Um, people with penises who want to say not it. Not that. I mean, I can't look. There's no, there's no sperm in there. So it wasn't me. Um, that's pretty much all this so far we were able to figure out. Uh, and as a result at the even into the 20th century, if you ask the doctor to testify with expert medical opinion,
Starting point is 00:23:12 as to could this individual be responsible for this child? Do you think that this is the person who was involved in the conception of this child? It was really just their opinion and their experience. There was no scientific grounding for this. A lot of it still had to do with proximity and timing. Did these two people have sex around the time that we think this child probably was conceived?
Starting point is 00:23:39 But there were other, as in 1909, there was our got-shall, who published an outline of forensic medicine, because that's what we're starting to get into, right, forensic, trying to figure out what happened here, not necessarily diagnosed or treated anything. There were, he wrote that in no other area have so many unbelievable lies and impudent claims been put before the forensic task
Starting point is 00:24:02 as in this accounts of infertility. Because doctors would go before judges and say, no, he was too sick to have had a kid so one him or he was his penis is deformed or he has a tumor there that will stop it. Whether or not this was true, the genitals were an unusual size. There were a general were an unusual size. There were, uh, genital to be unusual size. I don't believe it exists. There were doctors who would actually claim that, well, yes, I, I, through my examinations, I have concluded that the two individuals in
Starting point is 00:24:40 question did have sex at the appropriate time to have conceived this child. I do not believe it is possible for the man to have ejaculated because the woman is not attractive enough. This was an actual legal defense. I'm sorry. I'm all of us. Thank you for your apology. I'm sorry. I'm sorry again, for the whole thing. So even as these claims began to be seen as ridiculous, even as obviously there were other scientists and doctors saying like, you can't just go into a courtroom and say like, nope, couldn't have happened
Starting point is 00:25:16 because of something that you have no scientific grounding for. Right. That's just your opinion. Our one tool that we could actually use to determine if, you know, because the common thing was, well, I've never been responsible for parenting a child before, you know, like, especially if it was like an extramarital affair, then usually it was usually a man would say, well, I have no children with my wife. So obviously, I can't have children. So I couldn't have been the parent of this child. An easy thing to do would be to examine the first sperm, examine the same one for
Starting point is 00:25:48 sperm. In order to do that, though, you got to get a sample, right? Which requires masturbation. Right. And at the time in the early part of the 20th century, there were a lot of doctors who believed that it was detrimental to one's health to masturbate. So they could not ask a patient to do so in order for them to examine it under a microscope because it would violate our primary tenet of do no harm because they'd be asking them to harm themself. Yes. That all seems rather convenient to me. But anyway, so there was no proof there. There was also, even when you would do that,
Starting point is 00:26:26 if you would see that the sperm weren't moving, the idea are these sperm not capable of motility, which could be a cause of infertility. There was a common belief that the sperm don't come to life, come to life until they're inside the vaginal platelet. So you put a special platelet on them every night, they. So they would just say, well, the sperm weren't moving because they're not inside the vaginal canal.
Starting point is 00:26:47 That's when they really get moving. So, doesn't prove anything. The real breakthrough when it came to this kind of testing came with the discovery of blood types by Carl Lanschiner. Basically, we can use, you remember Punnett Squares? Yes. From science class, Gregor Mendelin, his pea plants. So, basic Mendelian genetics helped in this case.
Starting point is 00:27:12 So, we could use the blood types of the two people in question and the blood type of the child to figure out if it is possible at all that this person may have been one of the parents of the child, right? For both, really. Because there are certain, if you do the pun it square, there are certain blood types that could not have produced a child with this blood type, basically, without getting into all of the specifics. Now, of course, this isn't perfect.
Starting point is 00:27:38 It was still like, you could definitely rule people out, like maybe 30% of the time, but that was it. You can't prove anything for sure because people have the same blood type. Later, we figured out our age groups. That's the positive negative, a positive, very negative, that part of it. And that helped even a little bit more, but it's still an imperfect test. A good example of this was Charlie Chaplin. example of this was Charlie Chaplin. He was claimed to have fathered a child of Joan Barry in 1946. They did blood group testing and it ruled him out as a possible parent, but the judge didn't buy it because at the time it was considered
Starting point is 00:28:17 unreliable. So he had to pay child support anyway. So like I said, this led to a lot of inconclusive results. We looked for better tests throughout the 1930s. We did like protein marker testing. Like there were different blood tests that were developed. There was in the 1960s, we did this HLA typing, which has to do with certain genetic markers that we can find on white blood cells.
Starting point is 00:28:43 So you can take a sample of the blood. Look at the white blood cells. Look for these certain markers. And that could help up to 80% accuracy. But it had a lot of trouble with close relatives. So if you're not sure which of the like brothers or whatever, you know, that would that would get problematic. I think it's, you know what? It already sounds problem. get problematic. I think it's, you know what, it already sounds problem. It does. It does. That sounds very problematic. So finally, as we started to get, as we started to understand DNA in our genes and how to do genetic testing, that was really the
Starting point is 00:29:16 breakthrough. And that didn't happen until the 70s and then into the 80s, when we found ways, we found that, you know, we all have unique genetic codes and they are made up of the two people who parented us. And we can take some of the DNA out of ourselves and replicate it. That was a big breakthrough with polymerase chain reaction, meaning we can make many, many copies of a piece of DNA. And then we can either cut it into little pieces and look for certain pieces that match,
Starting point is 00:29:46 or we can look for repeating fragments of DNA that we all have, or that are all different among us, but we would have gotten from one parent or the other. So they found all these ways to do this throughout the 70s and the 80s. And now, with DNA, all we have to do now is either take a blood sample or even easier a cheek swab, swab the inside of your cheek, get some cells, open them up, crack open the DNA, compare it, and with 99.99% accuracy, we can predict if somebody is a parent or not. There's some part of you that thinks that this would have been a fun line of work to go into, doesn't it?
Starting point is 00:30:21 It sounds very cool. It seems that there's an animation I'm seeing for you that makes me think that you wish you had gotten into. I, we do, we do a little bit of this, like throughout, like labs. Oh, I mean, I did in my, in my college, like chemistry labs and stuff and biochem and things. And it's just fascinating to think about.
Starting point is 00:30:39 We do these like gel electrophoresis separate that out the different pieces of DNA that we broke apart with restriction enzymes. It's really interesting. I don't know. I just think it's very cool. But it's the same ideas we've done an episode on genetic testing before we can do that and we can figure out who your parents are. You can do that. A lot of people ask, can you do that while a person is pregnant? Can you figure out who the other parent is while the person is still pregnant? You can. There's one sample that's, there's one way of doing it that's invasive. It's called
Starting point is 00:31:09 Chorionic Vyllis Sampling. We actually have to stick a needle in and get a sample from inside the uterus during the pregnancy. And there are some, I mean, they're, they're slight risks, but there are some risks to that. There's another way to do it now where we can just look for fetal cells, cells from the fetus in the blood, like by getting a peripheral blood draw from them. Oh, yeah. Parent, which is pretty cool.
Starting point is 00:31:32 So you can do that, or you can just wait to after the baby's born too. It's still a problem with identical twins. Oh, yeah. They have the exact same genetic code. So you couldn't prove. You couldn't prove which one is the parent? Oh, yeah. They have the exact same genetic code. So you couldn't prove? You couldn't prove which one is the parent. Oh, interesting.
Starting point is 00:31:49 There was a case in Brazil this year where two men were ordered to pay child support for the same child because they could not conclusively prove which one was the dad. Wow, weird. I know. I thought that was interesting. Another interesting exception are chimeras. So it's a logical beast. No.
Starting point is 00:32:06 I'm staying. That is a different thing, isn't it? Chimera. Is that a comment? Let me tell you why you're looking. I see your Googling, why you're Googling. Let me let me tell you what a chimera is. So I are breathing monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
Starting point is 00:32:22 Well, this, that is not what I'm referencing. Animals can be, can be chimera and humans are animals so we can too. So basically every cell in your body has the same DNA inside the nucleus, right? We have the same genetic code inside the nucleus for everybody's cell, no matter where it is in your body, it's all the same. Except for genetic chimeras, they have two different cell lineages in their body. The most common way this happens, I think this is the easiest way to understand what I'm saying. If you imagine that there are two eggs inside the uterus
Starting point is 00:32:57 and two different sperm fertilize those two eggs, and then very early in the zygote process, in the formation process, the two fuse into one. They're like two, two, two people in one. Wow. And so there are two completely different genetic codes scattered throughout their body. Most of the time you don't know,
Starting point is 00:33:20 like this wouldn't be something that would be readily, you wouldn't see anything. Everything look fine. Super stringent. No. Occasionally you'll see like different color eyes or different patches of different colored skin that might indicate that this is true. But you wouldn't necessarily ever know that this was true.
Starting point is 00:33:41 Calico cat is a great example of this. Calico cats are chimeras. That's why they got the different colors of fur. Now, what's interesting is, why are Calico cats more rare again? It seems like there's a lot of those. I think they are more rare than other types, aren't they? Oh, maybe I'm new.
Starting point is 00:33:57 Well, I mean, I mean, here's the question. Like are chimeras less rare? There are other reasons that a person can be a chimera. This is just the most most common, but are they less rare than we know? We all have a little bit of other cells in us. Typically, there's exchange in the over the placenta. Anyway, this doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:34:16 The point is in 2002, Lydia Fairchild was a case where she was getting divorced. She was pregnant with her third child and she was trying to get child support for her other two children and the one that was on the way. And that was, it was standard at the time to do a proof of paternity, to prove that who she was saying was the dad was the dad of her children. And they also got blood from her.
Starting point is 00:34:39 And what they found is that while yes, this indeed was the father of the children, she could not possibly be the mother of her two children. Now, initially, prosecutors jumped on this and tried to take her children away from her, thought she was running some sort of scam. Nobody knew exactly what the nature of the scam. Why what a scam that would be. Yeah, that's as someone who's raising two children right now. I don't know why that would be this scam. But anyway, so she was taken a quarter of this and she kept insisting, no, they're my kids. And like nobody was, like, we have no evidence that they're not her kids. Like, we don't know what's going
Starting point is 00:35:14 on with this testing. So what the judge had was someone present in the delivery room when she gave birth to her third child. And then very shortly after they took blood samples from both that child and Lydia Fairchild, and they found that she could not possibly be the mother of that child, but they had witnessed her giving birth to it. So, one of the defense lawyers read an article in the New England Journal of Medicine about a different woman from Boston named Karen Keegan, who was a chimera, who had chimeraism. So they theorized perhaps this could be the same.
Starting point is 00:35:52 So for their client, they took DNA samples from different places in her body, and they found that even though her skin and her hair did not match her children's DNA, they did a cervical smear like a pap smear test. The cells from there had the same DNA and proved that she was the mother of the children because they're just cells from the two different Wow, cell lines in her body. Wow. Interesting case, right? No, that's fascinating. Yeah. But anyway, it's easy now, right? We fixed it. We solved this one. Yeah, we're really we're really good. I mean, I guess if you ever watch the Moripovic show
Starting point is 00:36:27 I think that's all it is these days. I never miss one is That but yeah with 99.99% certainty we can we can figure out who Who parents are or vice versa even like if a parent isn't present you can Like backwards construct if you've got like parent's DNA and the child's DNA, you can figure out the genetic code of the other parent, even without having them present. A wild time. Yes.
Starting point is 00:36:53 Folks, thank you so much for listening to Sobans. We hope you've enjoyed yourself. Happy birthday, Dad. Happy birthday, Tommy. He should do a court appointed on this. Yes. There's a great legal history. Listen to Tommy's podcast.
Starting point is 00:37:04 It's a legal podcast. If you like Sobans, listen to court appointed on this. Yes. There's great legal history. Listen to Tommy's podcast. It's a legal podcast. If you like Saban's, listen to court appointed. He does it with my uncle Michael, who's a real lawyer. He's an actual lawyer in the same way that city's an actual doctor. If you're remembered to renew your license or reminding you here on the book. I will. Remember it. It's just like money. Everybody out there. It's just they just have to pay such a racket. It is a racket. Thank you, the Max Fun Network for having us as part of their extended podcasting family. We are going to be on the road pretty soon. If you want to come see us live, I don't know if we've even mentioned this. You can come see us real soon. We're going to be at the Rhyman Auditorium in Nashville on June 15th and the
Starting point is 00:37:50 clouds memorial hall in Indianapolis on June 16th appearing before my brother brother and me if you go to bit.ly forward slash become the monster. I think is the address that will work. You can also go to macaroid.family and click on tours and you can see links to buy tickets for those. Come see us in trainers and brother, brother, me in Nashville and Indianapolis. Can I give a shout out to the authors of this paper that I used for a lot of this? Of course. All Brecht and Shulte Rice wrote,
Starting point is 00:38:25 Proof of Paternity Historical Reflections on an Andrological Forensic Challenge that was instrumental in the construction of this podcast, just an excellent article. I usually don't find so much info on one article and there it was. So if you're interested, shout out. There you go.
Starting point is 00:38:39 Uh, I, I think that will do it for us folks for this week until next time my name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. And as always don't drill hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfun.org Comedy and Culture Artistone? Audience supported. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the matchgame, our contestants Enrique and James from the
Starting point is 00:39:19 hit podcast Minority Corner. I'll ask you questions in a rapid fire round, favorite character on a Shonda Rhymeshow. Olivia Pope. I said Olivia Pope's wing. Oh, so close. How do you feel about Disney? They need to pay reparations with Black people because Mickey Mouse was based off of Blackface.
Starting point is 00:39:34 I said get rid of the racist rights, jungle crews, splash mountain. Who are you voting for in the primaire? It's too damn early. I'm just getting to know these fools. So no dice. What celebrity do you side-eye the most? Kevin Hart, can we get a real apology for your homophobia?
Starting point is 00:39:48 Justin Timberlake. Nipple King. Favorite superhero movie? Black Panther. We're coming for you. Congratulations. But you still look now on side-eye. You.
Starting point is 00:39:57 Gets Enneke and James, the Wonder Twins of Podcast. On Minority Corner, every Friday at Maximum Fun. on minority corner every Friday at Maximum Fun.

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