One in 25 'fathers' raises another man's child

An outbreak of male paranoia is guaranteed today with the finding that one in 25 fathers may be unknowingly raising a child who is not his own.
A review of studies of DNA profiling, the ultimate proof of a genetic relationship, shows that the rate of "paternal discrepancy" - where the man tested is not the actual biological father of the child - ranges from 1 per cent to 30 per cent.
Researchers from the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University say the average rate is 3.7 per cent, equivalent to almost one in 25 who discover they are not the true fathers of the children they call their own.
The revelation can be devastating for families but the implications have not been understood, say the authors of the study, in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. In the UK, about a third of pregnancies are unplanned and one in five women in long-term relationships has had an affair.
The total number of families affected will be much higher than one in 25, the researchers say, because for every "false" father identified through testing there will be a true biological father elsewhere, possibly with a family of his own.--