Podcast Review: The Gift – Mistakes

'Do I really have a child from a man I've never met?'

Episode three, entitled 'Mistakes', of the BBC Radio 4 series 'The Gift' tells the story of parents, turned detectives, in the hunt to discover the biological father of their son; and a couple who had IVF at the same time as them.

The whole podcast series present the stories of people, whose lives will forever change after taking at-home DNA tests. A previous episode in the series, 'Fraud', was deemed to be a captivating listen that uncovered a 'scandal deep in the heart of Harley Street' (see BioNews 1210).

This episode tells the touching story of two families and how DNA testing changed their lives. It all began in the summer of 2019 when Donna and Vanner Johnson based in Salt Lake City, Utah, bought 23andMe kits on sale for their whole family (see BioNews 1121).

At the time they thought it would be a fun family activity, but they did not realise the consequences it could, or would, have on their family. On receiving the results of the DNA tests, Vanner was puzzled to see that he had genetic connections with his family members – but Tim, his youngest son, was not one of them. In contrast, the results from Donna's DNA test revealed that she had two biologically related sons. Immediately they checked Tim's results, which confirmed that he had no genetic connection to his father, Vanner, and that he had an 'unknown' biological father. At this point, Vanner just wanted to scream, yet held to the belief that the test must be wrong… rather than the IVF they had to help conceive Tim.

When Donna and Vanner were unable to conceive their second child, they chose the University of Utah Centre for Reproductive Medicine, where they felt comfortable with the doctors and staff.

Their second cycle of IVF was successful and Tim was born in 2008. With time Donna and Vanner realised that their son was different to his brother, but never thought that Vanner was not genetically related to their son.

For over a year Tim's parents kept the 23andMe results to themselves. However, they felt anxious that sooner or later Tim would find out and they wanted to be the people to tell him the truth. Vanner told his son that 'something happened' and that he was not his biological father. Tim's response was: 'It doesn't matter. You're still my dad.' The genetics didn't matter to Tim, it was the connection he had with his father because DNA doesn't change how you love someone.

The Johnsons, however, wanted to know who Tim's biological father was. At this point, they did not contact the fertility clinic, but were reassured by a lawyer that Tim's biological father could not claim paternity rights.

Tim took another at-home DNA test (AncestryDNA) to see if they could disclose closer relatives. Through this process they identified a close match, whom they thought could be Tim's aunt. After searching online in the hope of finding potential biological connections to Tim, they came across a blog, written by Devin and Kelly McNeil, detailing their fertility issues and how they had conceived a son via IVF, who was the same age as Tim.

Vanner decided to call the McNeils. On receiving the news they immediately thought it was a scam. Yet, the two families figured out that they were at the same fertility clinic at the same time 14 years ago. The unthinkable had happened – it was Devin's sperm that was used during Donna's and Vanner's IVF treatment. A simple human error, but their rights had been violated.

The whole story sounded like a movie plot to me, I wouldn't have anticipated that an incident like this would have such profound consequences. Had I discovered that my ancestry and family tree were not what I expected them to be, I would definitely have lost my trust in clinics and doctors. I was glad that the Johnsons had closure and found the truth, however shocking the news must have been for them at the beginning.

The two families met in June 2021. Tim wanted to get to know his biological father and Devin was curious to find out how much Tim looked like him. Vanner was not unsettled by meeting Tim's biological father, and found it reassuring that Tim had finally met his biological father and that Devin will be there to answer his questions.

The families initiated legal proceedings against the clinic, but settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Once the story became public, the clinic released a statement, yet I would have been interested to hear their perspective in the episode and what measures they have taken to prevent any more IVF mistakes. We also don't hear an account of the story from Tim's perspective and how he was affected by the fact that he now has two fathers. Although it sounded like he was initially very excited to meet Devin, I wonder if Tim would like to maintain a relationship with his biological father and his half-siblings. Personally, I would have appreciated hearing directly from Tim.

Both families are now campaigning for better regulations and quality controls in US fertility clinics, and for more penalties when mistakes happen. However, mix-ups during an IVF procedure remain incredibly rare and the news should probably focus more on the accessibility of IVF and the rising costs. It would be interesting to see if the podcast series dedicates an episode on fertility issues and accessibility.

This podcast episode made me wonder: as someone who has used at-home DNA testing, with my DNA secrets in the 23andMe database, will I get a phone call from an unknown relative one day? The question is whether we are going to see more cases like this in the future as at-home DNA testing becomes more affordable.