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The Identigene DNA Paternity Test Kit is being sold in Rite Aid stores in Washington, Oregon and California.

SEATTLE – For the first time, drug stores are selling a simple DNA test to determine paternity.

In eight states, including Washington and Oregon, drug stores are selling Identigene, "for questions only DNA can answer," says the box.

For 20 dollars, it comes with three sets of cotton swabs.

You collect cheek samples from the child, the alleged father, and the mother.

You send the samples and another $120 to a lab in Salt Lake City and results are promised in three-to-five days.

While there are competing mail-in tests, this is the first do-it-yourself kit sold on store shelves.

"As a consumer, you want to know what you're buying," says Dr. Gail Jarvik, head of medical genetics at the University of Washington.

She says these consumer kits raise plenty of issues:

What's the quality of the lab?

Who interprets the results if they aren't black and white?

And Jarvik wonders, what about the rights of the child?

"People doing it on the sly, without the mother and child being aware, and then a confrontation, that the child might become part of, those are obviously more social than medical problems but I have real concerns, I'm much less concerned if it's a group of consenting adults," said Jarvik.

Sorenson Genomics, makers of Identigene say their lab is accredited, though approval by the food and drug administration is not required.

The kit is not meant as a legal test.  If that's what you want, you can pay an extra $200.

The company will send you to a collection site where they take samples and verify identities for results that can be used for legal purposes.

Sorenson Genomics says almost all the time, the paternity results are easy to interpret, giving people a 99 percent probability one way or the other.