context and a good understanding of how clinical laboratories operate.
It was also hard to prove everything. The company kept things so
compartmentalized. Why wasn’t he being shown quality-control data
anymore? How could a lab director, the person who was supposed to
vouch for the accuracy of the test results delivered to doctors and
patients, be denied that information? His other big concern was
proficiency testing. After reading up on the CLIA regulations, he’d
become convinced that Theranos was gaming the exercise.
“Alaaan!”
Daniel Young had sidled up next to him, interrupting his somber
thoughts. As was his habit at these work parties, Daniel was drunk.
The alcohol made him uncharacteristically friendly and approachable,
but Alan knew better than to share his misgivings. Daniel was part of
the inner circle. They made small talk, bantering about Daniel’s upper-
crust upbringing in Connecticut. As they chatted, the festivities
seemed to be winding down. Some colleagues were headed to
Antonio’s Nut House, a dive bar a few blocks down the street, to have a
few more beers. Alan and Daniel tagged along.
When they got to the bar, Alan spotted Curtis Schneider, a scientist
on the R&D side of the company, and grabbed a stool beside him.
Curtis was one of the smartest people Alan knew at Theranos. He had
a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry and had spent four years as a
postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. They talked about fly fishing for a
while. It was one of Curtis’s favorite hobbies. Then Curtis told Alan
about a conference call earlier that day with officials from the FDA.
Theranos was trying to get the agency to approve some of its
proprietary blood tests. During the call, one of the agency’s reviewers
voiced a dissenting view about the company’s submission but was
silenced by his colleagues. Curtis found it odd. There might be nothing
to it, Alan thought, but the story added to his mounting unease. He
told Curtis about the lab’s quality-control data and how it was being
kept from him. And he confided something else: the company was
cheating on proficiency testing. In case Curtis hadn’t registered the
implication of what he’d just said, he spelled it out: Theranos was
breaking the law.