Alan talked Elizabeth and Sunny out of running HIV tests on diluted finger-stick samples - unreliable potassium and cholesterol results were bad enough.
Alan was tired of convincing physicians that blood test results were sound and accurate. He chose to resign and asked his name be taken off the lab’s CLIA license. Alan got served with an affidavit.
How could Alan go against the most fabled SV unicorn? The litigation would bankrupt him. Alan’s lawyer advised him to erase his emails.
The New Yorker published Elizabeth’s profile in Dec 2014 (longer version of the Fortune story). Adam Clapper, a practicing pathologist, called bullshit in a blog post. Finger-stick blood tests are unlikely to be reliable. Theranos didn’t have published peer-reviewed data.
Elizabeth’s coathored paper was on a $500 entry fee online-only publication. It included data for one blood test from 6 patients.
Alan called Richard Fuisz: lied to CLIA, finger-stick innaccurate, Siemens equipment, false thyroid and pregnancy results, potassium results all over the place. Fuisz told Clapper who agreed that the story now had legs, but he shouldn’t consider fighting the $9b unicorn himself.