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Baby Gender Mentor is the trade name of a controversial blood test designed for prenatal sex discernment, that is, to determine whether a pregnant woman is carrying a male or female child. The test is made by Acu-Gen Biolab, Inc., a biotech company in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, and is marketed to detect the sex of a fetus as early as five weeks after conception.〔 〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher=Pew Charitable Trust )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Step by Step Guide to Baby Gender Mentor Test )〕 The test made a prominent media debut on 17 June 2005 on ''The Today Show''〔 〕 and it was featured in Newsweek in October 2005.〔〔 About 4,500 people had purchased the test by March 2006. The test and its competitors represent an alternative to medical procedures which determine the sex of the fetus, such as amniocentesis and ultrasound. One possible advantage of using blood tests for prenatal sex testing is the minimally invasive nature of this method. In contrast, there are small, demonstrated risks associated with amniocentesis, and some authorities believe that there could be theoretical risks associated with ultrasound. Women may have many motivations for using a test to learn the sex of their fetuses early in pregnancy, including mental preparation and planning gender-specific purchases, or more controversially, sex-selective abortion.〔〔 The Baby Gender Mentor test is not regulated by the FDA, nor approved for diagnosis of any disease. According to the Baby Gender Mentor web site,〔 the test involves using quantitative PCR and a proprietary technology to detect markers on the Y-chromosome, which can be isolated from the pregnant woman's blood if the fetus is male. However, the company has kept details of the test proprietary, refusing to publish their data until they receive a patent. Customers and scientists have questioned the accuracy of the test,〔 and legal action is being pursued against Acu-Gen as well as a major supplier of the test. The lawsuits claim that Acu-Gen's products do not accurately predict the sex of the baby. In their defense, Acu-Gen stated that ultrasound prediction of the sex of a fetus is not always accurate, and told one family their baby had gender abnormalities.〔〔〔 ==Test methodology== Acu-Gen say that after eight weeks, accuracy is consistent throughout the pregnancy and the test may be taken at any time. The test kit costs US$25.00. To use, the pregnant woman pricks her finger to draw a small amount of blood, which is placed on card; the card is placed in the kit and sent to Acu-Gen, where the test is processed for an additional US$250 fee.〔 The regulatory hurdles that apply to pharmaceutical products and diagnostic tests do not apply to the Baby Gender Mentor test because it does not diagnose, prevent or treat a disease. In particular, Acu-Gen is not obliged to disclose results of any tests or patient trials of the test that they may have conducted. One unnamed Acu-Gen spokesperson was quoted as saying the 99.9% accuracy figure is based on 20,000 births, but that the company "won't publish results until it has patented its technology". The PCR technique monitors the level of fluorescence energy transfer between nested primers that bind next to one another on a strand of DNA, if the gene is present, allowing a single PCR run to reliably compare the amount of DYZ-1 signal between samples without the need to optimize the number of cycles of amplification. Acu-Gen lists several scientific papers that are related to this field of study, but the cited publications do not refer specifically to the Baby Gender Mentor test.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Science Behind Baby Gender Mentor Test )〕 According to the company, the Baby Gender Mentor laboratory analysis will report one of four possible results to the pregnant woman: Male, Female, Twins, or Inconclusive. A result of "Male" indicates that only male fetal DNA was present and so the pregnant woman must be carrying one or more boys. Similarly, a result of "Female" indicates that only female fetal DNA was detected and the woman is expecting one or more girls. If the result is "Twins" then both male and female fetal DNA were detected and the pregnancy includes one or more boys and one or more girls. If the test is "Inconclusive" then Acu-Gen refers the customer to their warranty policy and procedure. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Baby Gender Mentor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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