
Former Theranos lab worker details concerns about company's ability to conduct blood tests
CNN
Erika Cheung, a former Theranos lab worker turned whistleblower, testified Wednesday during the trial of founder Elizabeth Holmes about how she grew increasingly uncomfortable about the startup's ability to accurately conduct blood tests on patients.
In her testimony, Cheung detailed her growing concerns about the company's devices failing quality control tests in the research lab as well as what she said was a manipulation of data to pass quality control. This made her question the capabilities of the startup's proprietary testing machine, which she said was only being used on a small number of tests at the time it was hailed as the company's revolutionary innovation.
At times, she said, Theranos employees would delete up to two out of six data points as part of a test in order to pass quality control. She said there appeared no standard protocol within Theranos for when outlier deletion was appropriate, but noted it was something that happened "frequently" inside the company and said it would "normally be considered cherry-picking."