Did the U.S. approve a new law or a policy mandating that all hospital patients receive DNA testing before going home? No, that's not true: No credible news outlet reported that. Answering Lead Stories' questions, a major U.S. hospital refuted that claim, too.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook on May 20, 2025. It opened:
January 1, 2026 DNA testing will be MANDATORY before discharge from hospital!
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at facebook.com)
The post implied that all hospital patients in the U.S. will have to undergo compulsory DNA testing before going home.
In October 2025, the claim resurfaced on Facebook (archived here), X (archived here) and TikTok:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post by tibby.d at tiktok.com)
David Sampson (archived here), a senior director of media relations for UCLA Health (archived here) told Lead Stories about the claim via email on October 21, 2025:
We have found no credible evidence or verified information to support that claim. In fact, similar claims have previously circulated on social media over the years and have never been verified.
Searches across Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) did not yield anything remotely similar to what was asserted on the social media platforms. In fact, that showed a fact check (archived here) debunking a similar claim about Ghana:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Google News)
In the U.S., a another variation of the claim (archived here) discussing mandatory DNA testing of newborns circulated in 2023. It described the purported requirement as a state-level measure to establish biological paternity. While lawmakers in several states attempted to introduce such bills, they did not become laws (archived here) at the time.
Douglas NeJaime (archived here), a Yale Law School professor specializing in legal ethics, family law and constitutional law, told Lead Stories via email on October 20, 2025, that the situation hasn't changed since then:
I have not heard anything about this and certainly don't have any basis to believe it to be true.
NeJaime added that, regardless of whether the hypothetical mandatory DNA testing concerns paternity of newborns or broader groups of the population that would have to undergo it in order to leave a hospital, had such a law or policy existed, it would likely run into legal concerns:
I also think any such requirement would arguably violate existing federal law.
The U.S. Health Services and Resource Administration recommends that states screen for a set of 35 conditions (archived here), and states adhere to this recommendation with some variations.
MedlinePlus (archived here), which is an information service of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), emphasizes (archived here) that while both genetic, newborn screenings and forensic screenings, such as the one needed to establish paternity, are performed for different reasons and measure different things:
Newborn screening is used just after birth to identify genetic disorders that can be treated early in life...
Forensic testing uses DNA sequences to identify an individual for legal purposes. Unlike the tests described above, forensic testing is not used to detect gene mutations associated with disease. This type of testing can identify crime or catastrophe victims, rule out or implicate a crime suspect, or establish biological relationships between people (for example, paternity).
