When a genetic testing kit promising to predict a baby's gender with 99.9 percent accuracy five weeks after conception was launched last year, many pregnant women in the US were delighted.
About 4,500 bought the kit and began making plans for the new arrival. Names were chosen; nurseries painted; siblings coached to say brother, or sister; and then, several weeks later, about 100 discovered that the tests had got it wrong.
In a class action lawsuit filed in the US district court in Boston on behalf of 16 women the makers of the Baby Gender Mentor are accused of breaking their promise. Barry Gainey, the women's lawyer, said he knew of about 100 women whom the kit had failed.
The suit seeks to bar Acu-Gen Biolab from falsely marketing its test and to compel the firm to honor its money-back guarantee. The Baby Gender Mentor's Web site promises "unsurpassed accuracy" in predicting the sex of a fetus from three drops of a pregnant woman's blood, allowing parents to form a "natural nexus with your baby early on."
The test, which costs US$275, claims to detect fetal chromosomes in the maternal blood stream. Women do it at home and send it to Massachusetts for processing. They are promised double their money back on production of a birth certificate if the result is wrong.
But within weeks of taking the test dozens of pregnant women reported having ultrasound scans showing they were having babies of the opposite gender. When they complained to Acu-Gen they were told ultrasounds were unreliable predictors of gender. But after their babies were born the company proved just as reluctant to honor its promise. One of Gainey's clients was told that her child had gender irregularities.
"If he sold 4,000 tests he has got a right to have four women get it wrong, but he is way over that number," Gainey said.
The Acu-Gen president, CN Wang, has issued the following statement: "Dr Wang has decided to defer all his interviews regarding Baby Gender Mentor product and service for one more year, when the results of actual births ... should answer any concern of the accuracy of the test."
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last