Elizabeth Holmes trial: Jurors hear patient’s first testimony on Theranos blood tests

An Arizona medical assistant said Tuesday during Elizabeth Holmes’ criminal trial that she had two blood tests from Theranos Inc. indicating she was having a miscarriage when she was in fact pregnant. women’s health practice.

After the erratic results patient Brittany Gould received on the key pregnancy marker in October 2014, nurse practitioner Audra Zachman testified: “I felt very uncertain about the validity of the results and I felt uncomfortable. as a provider ”to send more patients to Theranos.

Ms. Gould is the first patient to speak because the procedure enters the third week of testimony. Prosecutors have so far called three former Theranos employees to help them support their case that Ms Holmes defrauded patients and investors by touting that Theranos had developed breakthrough technology that could test a range of health problems. health using a few drops of blood from a finger prick. .

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Ms. Holmes pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Ahead of the trial, Ms Holmes’ attorneys have repeatedly sought to prevent patients and doctors from testifying, arguing that the testimony about the allegedly incorrect tests they received was merely anecdotal and did not show that Theranos had generalized precision problems.

US District Judge Edward Davila disagreed, ruling in May that “evidence of a single inaccurate result tends to show that Theranos produced inaccurate results, although that does not fully prove the point.” At the same time, Judge Davila limited the scope of any patient testimony, ruling that they could only discuss the facts of the inaccurate test and the money lost by paying for it, and not the emotional or physical damage that could have happened to them if they had followed the faulty test results.

Before jurors entered the courtroom on Tuesday, a lawyer for Ms Holmes asked the court for assurances that her decision would be followed and that emotions would be kept out of the testimony. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Leach said he informed the patient and the doctor of the limitations.

Ms. Zachman’s testimony briefly looked at the emotional impact on a patient of receiving disappointing test results. She told jurors that after receiving two Theranos tests indicating Ms Gould could miscarry, she asked her patient if she had any symptoms consistent with pregnancy loss. Ms. Gould said she was not, but expressed “surprise, sadness,” Ms. Zachman said.

Ms Gould had previously miscarried three times, putting her in a high-risk pregnancy category, which made hormone testing every other day even more important, Ms Zachman said in court.

During the less than 20 minutes she was at the stand, Ms. Gould testified that she remembers learning about Ms. Zachman’s results and discussing options they might take to end the pregnancy, including medications.

After undergoing two tests with another blood test provider, Ms Zachman confirmed Ms Gould still had a healthy pregnancy. Mrs. Gould said she later had a baby girl.

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Ms. Gould’s finger pricks in a room Walgreens had appealed for convenience, she told jurors, and because they were less expensive under her high-deductible medicare plan.

She said she never used the Theranos tests again because she “didn’t trust him” after the experience.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Ms. Gould’s story in August. She described the terror she felt having had to tell her 7-year-old daughter that she was having a miscarriage again and that she had become too engrossed in the emotional turmoil to even think about reporting her inaccurate results to Theranos.

Ms Zachman testified on Tuesday that she filed a complaint with Theranos about Ms Gould’s results and received corrected results on one, increasing the number from 125.58 to 12,558. still didn’t make sense, she said, as it was the same as Ms Gould’s result from two days earlier, when during a healthy pregnancy the number is expected to double. “I remember not gaining much confidence after that,” she said.

During cross-examination, a lawyer for Ms Holmes asked her if she was aware that Theranos had performed more than 300 pregnancy hormone tests for patients at the medical office where Ms Zachman worked, including some of her patients. from October 2015 to October. 2016. Ms. Zachman said she didn’t remember.

Arguing ahead of trial that patient testimony should be completely excluded, lawyers for Ms Holmes said the anecdotes made no sense without larger data on Theranos’ test results – and that data did not exist. not because a key company database is no longer accessible.

Prosecutors claim that the last employees of Theranos destroyed the original database when they took down the servers containing it when the company was dissolved in the fall of 2018. Lawyers for Ms Holmes have said that the prosecutors had received their own copy of the database but stayed there for months before realizing that no one could provide a password needed to access it.

Earlier Tuesday, government attorneys and Ms Holmes finished questioning Surekha Gangakhedkar, a chemist who worked at Theranos for eight years before resigning in 2013 about what she said were concerns that the technology of the l The company was not ready to be rolled out to patients.

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Ms Holmes ‘attorney, Lance Wade, attempted to show a different account of Ms Gangakhedkar’s time at Theranos, highlighting her lab’s accomplishments and Ms Holmes’ commitment to research and development.

Mr. Wade tried to convey that the development of new technologies is a time-consuming process and that challenges are common.

“Sometimes you have to fail before you succeed, right?” Mr. Wade said.

M / s. Gangakhedkar agreed.