It was November 2014, and I used to be engaged on a characteristic story a few buzzed-about blood-testing firm in Silicon Valley that promised to “disrupt” the lab business with new know-how. The firm, Theranos, claimed its revolutionary finger-prick take a look at could be an affordable and fewer painful option to display for lots of of illnesses with only a few drops of blood. Old-fashioned venous blood attracts, the place the affected person watches as vial after vial of blood is collected, would rapidly change into out of date, Theranos promised.
The interviews took a month to rearrange. The public relations officer needed to know, did I “plan on sourcing other people?” and implied that CEO Elizabeth Holmes may not be accessible to me if I did speak to different sources. I rejected that situation, however lastly the corporate’s public relations contacts agreed to let me go to its website on the Walgreens in Palo Alto, Calif. — one of many first such setups within the nation — adopted by a sit-down interview with Holmes at her workplace.
I arrived on the Walgreens on the morning of Nov. four and was met by two Theranos press representatives who would supervise my go to. I took out my recording gear (the story was for NPR) and started approaching sufferers who had been ready in line to test in for testing. Some didn’t need to speak to a reporter, however others had been open and gracious, sharing with me the explanations they’d determined to provide Theranos a attempt. One couple supplied to let me include them into the small testing room, set as much as really feel like a calming spa.
A sample rapidly emerged — not one of the sufferers I talked to that day might get a finger-prick take a look at, as promised. Instead, they acquired a daily venous blood draw, the identical as I’d acquired on quite a few events at my physician’s workplace, although the phlebotomist mentioned the needle was barely smaller.
I requested the phlebotomist: Was this normal? Did most sufferers get the venous draw? She informed me they “did more finger sticks than venous draws,” however couldn’t give me a quantity. One of the PR folks approached me — I used to be not approved to speak to the phlebotomist, he mentioned — and requested me to erase the audio I had recorded. I declined.
I requested him: Why had been not one of the sufferers getting a finger prick? Just dangerous luck and timing, he mentioned. This wasn’t the way it often was, he promised. And wouldn’t I simply quite get a finger prick myself and report on the expertise, as so many different journalists had agreed to do?
I mentioned no. I wanted an precise affected person to make a compelling radio story. So, I continued ready for different sufferers.
Soon, the 2 Theranos representatives approached me once more — with a 3rd on the cellphone, who mentioned she needed to speak to me. They had been getting complaints about my asking sufferers questions, she informed me. The most important Theranos workplace had gotten a number of calls from individuals who had been within the Walgreens that morning, she claimed, complaining that a reporter was bothering them.
I hadn’t pressured anybody. The sufferers I’d interviewed had all been completely pleasant and keen. I’ve additionally been a well being reporter for 10 years, and by no means have I been informed I used to be pushing sufferers to do one thing that made them uncomfortable.
Something appeared very unsuitable.
Soon, one of many Theranos representatives approached me once more, clearly nervous. They appeared nervous. Unless I discovered a affected person getting a finger prick, he mentioned, they’d probably need to cancel my interview with Holmes.
It was clearly a risk to attempt to steer me away from the place the story was taking me: Theranos appeared to be doing only a few, if any, of its revolutionary assessments on precise sufferers. I requested the press representatives to get the opposite one on the cellphone once more; I didn’t like being threatened and I needed to hash it out together with her.
Meanwhile, I sat down with one other couple, who had pushed 45 minutes to expertise the vaunted finger prick. Would they too be steered to a conventional blood take a look at?
As I used to be interviewing them — however earlier than we knew which take a look at they might get — a sudden and jolting BEEP BEEP BEEP reverberated via the pharmacy. “Fire alarm!” somebody referred to as out, and we evacuated to the road.
I’d by no means been in a drugstore when the hearth alarm went off. There was no smoke and no hearth.
I made a decision to cancel the characteristic. I had pitched it as a consumer-focused story about how usually “less is more” in well being care. I clearly not had that story. I made just a few extra calls to numerous specialists on lab testing to attempt to determine what was occurring: Was Theranos for actual? I used to be given an interview with a lawyer at Theranos, who promised me that “significantly more than 50 percent of the tests are done with a finger prick,” although she would say no extra.
Now that Theranos has been implicated in huge fraud, that encounter serves as a reminder of the skepticism each journalists and well being care customers have to have in an age when public relations, advertising and promoting attempt to information the story and our therapy.
Theranos generated enormous hype and laudatory protection in locations like The New Yorker, Wired and Fortune by promoting a compelling thought — at the same time as its PR folks couldn’t present me an precise affected person who had benefited. Sometimes, in well being care, an concept that appears too good to be true, isn’t. We all — sufferers and journalists — need to do our due diligence.
The PR techniques Theranos employed blocked journalists from offering the form of scrutiny that may have revealed the fantasy the corporate was weaving for buyers sooner.
And 11 months after my expertise at that Walgreens, John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal revealed the first of his groundbreaking investigations surrounding Theranos, blowing the lid off of the corporate’s fraudulent claims. Of the 240 varieties of blood assessments the corporate mentioned it did, solely 15 used finger-pricking.
Now comes the information that Theranos has accepted a settlement within the fraud case with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Which has me considering.
Had somebody pulled the hearth alarm? I’ve been suspicious because the second it occurred.
Last week, I wrote to Theranos to ask. No shock: They didn’t reply.
