Toronto DNA lab trashed some prenatal paternity samples without testing them, ex-employee alleges

A former employee of a Toronto DNA laboratory says he saw a Viaguard Accu-Metrics manager — who is now a convicted fraudster — discard some samples sent by customers before they were ever tested. 

A CBC News investigation previously revealed that Accu-Metrics sold prenatal paternity testing services around the world for about a decade, knowing its results routinely identified the wrong biological fathers. 

Now, a former employee has stepped forward, saying he witnessed Kyle Tsui toss some samples sent by prenatal paternity testing customers into a garbage bin behind the laboratory's building. 

None of these allegations have been proven in court. CBC News agreed to grant the former employee anonymity due to the impact revealing his name could have on his current employment. 

Tsui was Accu-Metrics's technical manager and oversaw sample collection. In September, he was sentenced to 41 months in a U.S. prison for running a separate fraudulent company on the side that claimed to test for hundreds of food allergies using just a small hair sample. Tsui admitted to tossing out those customers' samples without ever testing them.

There is no established connection between Tsui's food sensitivity scam company and Accu-Metrics.

The new findings in CBC News's ongoing investigation are featured in the new CBC News podcast, Bad Results, which launched Oct. 28. 

Accu-Metrics operated various online storefronts under names like Paternity Depot and Prenatal Paternities Inc. These websites targeted customers in the U.S., Australia and the U.K. It began offering prenatal paternity services in about 2010 and stopped sometime in 2021. 

The former Accu-Metrics employee told CBC's Bad Results that customer packages containing saliva and blood samples would be processed by employees working on the company's main floor. They would input information into a system, and then place the sample packages into a container. 

"That container was supposedly supposed to go to the lab downstairs, but … they never did," said the former worker. 

"I would always take all of them to Kyle. And then one day, I noticed that he was just throwing them in the bin.… I saw Kyle just throwing it in the trash outside."

It remains unclear how often customer prenatal paternity samples were thrown out during the about 10 years that Accu-Metrics sold this type of testing service. The company offered prenatal testing services from 2010 until sometime in 2021, a CBC News investigation has found. 

Direct-to-consumer DNA laboratories like Accu-Metrics operate in a regulatory black hole in Canada. Health Canada told CBC the matter was the provinces' responsibility. But provincial health authorities told CBC it was up to Ottawa to regulate these types of businesses.

CBC News interviewed dozens of individuals for the Bad Results podcast whose said their lives were devastated by incorrect prenatal paternity results from Accu-Metrics.