Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, just a heads up. There's a brief mention
Speaker 1: of sexual assault at around seven minutes into this episode.
Speaker 1: Please take care while listening. I had only worked at
Speaker 1: the company for seven months, So now I'm going to
Speaker 1: call my father and I'm going to tell him I
Speaker 1: need to quit a job that I only lasted seven months,
Speaker 1: And at that point I was making more money than
Speaker 1: my dad had made working ten years at the same company.
Speaker 1: You know, I had made more money at that job
Speaker 1: than my mom has ever made in her lifetime. So
Speaker 1: you have to explain to them, you know, is it
Speaker 1: the case that I'm just a quitter? Like am I
Speaker 1: just basically throwing my hands up and saying like I
Speaker 1: can't handle this. That's Erica Chung, a former scientist at
Speaker 1: the now infamous biotech company Tharonos. Erica realized early on
Speaker 1: that the company's proprietary technology was not delivering accurate blood
Speaker 1: results to patients, but when she raised her concerns to
Speaker 1: company leadership, she was silenced, and so Erica decided to
Speaker 1: not only quit her job at Tharonos, but also to
Speaker 1: report the company to government regulators. This carried huge personal risk.
Speaker 1: She had signed an NDA when she first joined the company,
Speaker 1: and so she feared litigation and criminal charges, but Erica
Speaker 1: saw no other option. Honestly, Maya the idea of knowing
Speaker 1: what I knew and having not done anything, and knowing
Speaker 1: that there was something that I could have done about
Speaker 1: it and I didn't do anything, Like that's the real prison, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's the real purgatory. On today's episode, a Tharonos
Speaker 1: whistleblower shares her story, I'm Maya Shunker, and this is
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans, a show about who we
Speaker 1: are and who we become in the face of a
Speaker 1: big change. In twenty thirteen, Erica Chung was twenty three
Speaker 1: and a senior at UC Berkeley studying molecular and cell biology.
Speaker 1: She wasn't quite sure what she wanted her first job
Speaker 1: to be, but she did know she wanted to do
Speaker 1: something in the sciences that could have a big impact
Speaker 1: on people's lives. So she went to a campus career
Speaker 1: fair and that's where she spotted a booth for the
Speaker 1: company Tharanos. By that time, Pharaonos was making waves in
Speaker 1: the biotech world with its new proprietary technology technology that
Speaker 1: could run a range of blood tests from just one
Speaker 1: single fingerprick of blood and in turn revolutionize access to
Speaker 1: healthcare worldwide, or at least that's the story Elizabeth Holmes,
Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of Tharanos, was telling the world.
Speaker 1: Tharonos had already started to roll its devices for use
Speaker 1: by patients and providers in clinical settings by the time
Speaker 1: Erica showed up at the job fair that day. Erica
Speaker 1: was so excited by the idea of working at Saranos
Speaker 1: and decided to apply. And when they invite you to
Speaker 1: come in for an interview, it is with Elizabeth Holmes herself, right,
Speaker 1: and Sonny Bowani, the CEO of the company, Which is
Speaker 1: pretty extraordinary, right for someone coming out of college to
Speaker 1: have an interview with the CEO and founder of the company.
Speaker 1: What do you remember from meeting both of them? The
Speaker 1: first interview was with Sonny and I remember, just right
Speaker 1: off the gate, him looking at my resume and at
Speaker 1: this point, I'm really eager to get this job, and
Speaker 1: him just really tearing into my resume and kind of
Speaker 1: being a little stern and straightforward with me, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: how am I going to turn this around? Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm going to get this job with
Speaker 1: the way that this person's questioning me. But then I
Speaker 1: kind of just said, you know, I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: work with Saranos. I've been very press with Elizabeth Holmes
Speaker 1: and what she's managed to accomplish at such a young age,
Speaker 1: and it was amazing seeing his demeanor just shift really quickly.
Speaker 1: And from that moment then he's like, Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you'll be a good addition to our team,
Speaker 1: and I want you to meet one other person. And
Speaker 1: so after that I was able to then start speaking
Speaker 1: with Elizabeth. And so what was it like to meet
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Holmes? So initially when she came in, I think
Speaker 1: I was so starstruck. I had gotten so immersed in
Speaker 1: the very little of her world that I knew, but
Speaker 1: everything that was at least on the Internet at the time,
Speaker 1: which was very sparse, was really impressive. So I saw her,
Speaker 1: I was, you know, surprised that she was going to
Speaker 1: be the person that I'd be talking to in order
Speaker 1: to get this job. And I remember asking her questions
Speaker 1: about the technology and what we would be working on,
Speaker 1: and she said, well, when you work for the company,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll be able to disclose that, but for now,
Speaker 1: that's guarded under trade secrets. But yeah, I was really
Speaker 1: starstruck and just enthusiastic and excited the fact that I
Speaker 1: got to work on what seemed to be cool technology
Speaker 1: with a mission that I really cared about, and for
Speaker 1: a founder at that time that I seemed to be
Speaker 1: very impressed by by the amount of work that, at
Speaker 1: least on the surface, they seemed to accomplish already. You know,
Speaker 1: it's putting myself in your shoes. I can't imagine how
Speaker 1: exciting it must be to get a job offer from
Speaker 1: one of the hottest startups at the time. I'm curious
Speaker 1: to know what this job offer means to you and
Speaker 1: your family at this point in time. I think for
Speaker 1: me personally, it was my journey to even get into college,
Speaker 1: let alone go through college, was very challenging, and so
Speaker 1: I really saw Farness as my own personal kind of
Speaker 1: redemption story to show people like I was confident, I
Speaker 1: was capable, that I had this great, amazing opportunity to
Speaker 1: make an impact working for a great person and everything else.
Speaker 1: And so when I had gotten this job offer, my
Speaker 1: parents were proud, you know, they were excited for me
Speaker 1: that this was my first in road to my career.
Speaker 1: He mentioned having a tough time before all of this
Speaker 1: team mind sharing. Yeah, so, you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: in a humble beginnings. I grew up in a low
Speaker 1: income neighborhood. I lived with my mom and my dad
Speaker 1: and my three other siblings and a one bedroom trailer.
Speaker 1: It was clear to us that it may be difficult
Speaker 1: to get into a great school. I really wanted to
Speaker 1: go to Berkeley. Not being able to afford the same
Speaker 1: access to good schools, so I was homeschooled. So my
Speaker 1: parents invested a lot in my education. Both my parents
Speaker 1: were really hard workers, but you know, we struggled, especially
Speaker 1: in the early days of trying to just figure out
Speaker 1: how to build up a life, especially because my parents
Speaker 1: had me really young. And Yeah, when I got to Berkeley,
Speaker 1: it was this like huge accomplishment because it wasn't very
Speaker 1: clear if I was going to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: And when I got there, it was one of the
Speaker 1: most beautiful experiences of my life. But I had a
Speaker 1: lot of challenges within the first year of attending UC Berkeley.
Speaker 1: So the first year that I was there, I ended
Speaker 1: up falling victim to a series of crimes. I was
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted by a group of men. I got robbed
Speaker 1: at gunpoint, and then I was raped, and it hit
Speaker 1: probably with all in a year time span, and I
Speaker 1: largely kept its secret from people because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be a burden and I was uncomfortable and I
Speaker 1: was just scared and felt very threatened. I didn't really
Speaker 1: talk to anyone about it, and about a year in
Speaker 1: I was really having a lot of problems just with
Speaker 1: panic attacks and what later would be diagnosed as PTSD,
Speaker 1: but but we weren't very clear on what it was
Speaker 1: at the time because I wasn't really communicating with people
Speaker 1: that these things had happened to me when I was eighteen.
Speaker 1: Well sorry, I'm just taking that in and so, so
Speaker 1: you're struggling with panic attacks, and I'm assuming what that
Speaker 1: means is a certain point, you're not sure that you're
Speaker 1: going to be able to graduate from Berkeley. Yeah, so essentially,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm having panic attacks. I'm definitely not in the
Speaker 1: strongest mental state. My grades are really suffering. I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure if I'd be cut out for the sciences because
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, you're having such a tough time
Speaker 1: doing simple things like getting to class, on time. How
Speaker 1: are you gonna, you know, accomplish doing some sort of
Speaker 1: complicated chemistry class. But I told myself, you know what,
Speaker 1: if they kick you out, then they kick you out.
Speaker 1: But for now, you just need to try and see
Speaker 1: this through and see where you get with things. I
Speaker 1: want to be able to study the sciences as something
Speaker 1: I'm passionate about. And luckily I saw it through. And
Speaker 1: I wasn't the best student, and I failed more classes
Speaker 1: than anyone would ever want to, but I made it.
Speaker 1: I repeated those classes. I stuck to my commitments. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: let's just try and see this through. And so when
Speaker 1: I say Parados was this redemption story for me. It
Speaker 1: was my opportunity to say, Okay, you didn't do so
Speaker 1: well when you're at university, but you know, you can
Speaker 1: start new here and you can be a good scientist
Speaker 1: and a good researcher if you just apply yourself and
Speaker 1: work for a great company that has a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunities for you. And that's kind of where that was
Speaker 1: coming from. Was Okay, here we go. Set the scene
Speaker 1: for me about what your first day at Parados is. Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, against everything you've just described, I was so excited.
Speaker 1: I was so excited. It's it's hard to put into words,
Speaker 1: like that dream like state that you're in when you
Speaker 1: finally made it, you know, where you feel at least
Speaker 1: that you finally made it. And I remember because Baroness
Speaker 1: had so many blockades from going into certain rooms, so
Speaker 1: you couldn't see from the external what the office building
Speaker 1: was like or what the laboratories were like. So I
Speaker 1: remember when I got and did the entry interview and
Speaker 1: I got my badge where I could open all of
Speaker 1: these doors where I could see Sonny and Elizabeth in
Speaker 1: their glass offices, or I could go down into the
Speaker 1: laboratory and swipe in and be able to see all
Speaker 1: the different machinery of everything. It was. I had so
Speaker 1: much enthusiasm and so much excitement, and yeah, you're getting
Speaker 1: the key to this private club, this exclusive club, right exactly,
Speaker 1: this exclusive club, and yeah, I just had so much excitement. Really,
Speaker 1: at the early days of Tharoness, I really anticipated that
Speaker 1: this was a company in a project that I could
Speaker 1: easily see myself spending the next decade working on. Like
Speaker 1: that's how much I really was invested in the problem,
Speaker 1: how much I loved the field of blood testing, like
Speaker 1: I really was thinking that this was going to be
Speaker 1: like a next huge chapter of my life. So about
Speaker 1: a month into your time at Tharanos, the Huneymoon period
Speaker 1: starts coming to an end. Right, you start to notice
Speaker 1: significant ethical problems with the way that Tharanos is conducting
Speaker 1: its scientific research. And I'm wondering if you could tell
Speaker 1: me a bit more about some of those red flags.
Speaker 1: So initially, when I started at Tharanos, I worked in
Speaker 1: the research and development lab as a lab associate, and
Speaker 1: then they were trying to integrate me into a clinical
Speaker 1: setting where you actively process patient samples. And so one
Speaker 1: day on Thanksgiving, I was asked to work and we
Speaker 1: managed to get a patient from Walgreens who came in.
Speaker 1: And so, prior to running a patient sample, you have
Speaker 1: to do something called quality control testing. And quality control
Speaker 1: testing is essentially I have a sample where I know
Speaker 1: what the value is. So let's say the value is ten,
Speaker 1: and I'll run it on my machine and ideally it
Speaker 1: comes out something close to ten. So prior to running
Speaker 1: this Thanksgiving patient sample, I ran this sample and it
Speaker 1: was coming out like one hundred and fifty and it
Speaker 1: was coming out like twenty and thirty five and I
Speaker 1: had ran it like three separate times and it was
Speaker 1: all variable results. And so I contacted this helpline called
Speaker 1: Normandy nine one one, which was an internal helpline that
Speaker 1: we had that contacted Elizabeth Sonny all of the upper scientists,
Speaker 1: and we were trying to figure out what was the problem,
Speaker 1: why was this failing? And sometimes when the THEREINOS devices
Speaker 1: weren't showing good accuracy, people would start doing this process
Speaker 1: called deleting outliers, like, oh, well, delete that one and
Speaker 1: see what the accuracy rate looks like. And I was
Speaker 1: like okay, and then oh no, delete that one, or
Speaker 1: excision that one. I mean, they were essentially defining an
Speaker 1: outlier as something that didn't conform to their desired outcome. Yes,
Speaker 1: which is insane, and that's not what an outlier is.
Speaker 1: So that is good science. One on one, dude, science
Speaker 1: one on one. You keep oh it, just keep the data,
Speaker 1: just keep it there. Yes. And so the solution that
Speaker 1: they came up with was essentially to get another lower
Speaker 1: level lab associate who had about maybe a year more
Speaker 1: experience to me. She looked at the data and she
Speaker 1: deleted the outliers for this and managed to get the
Speaker 1: quality controls the past, she ran the patient sample and
Speaker 1: then they sent it out. And I'm looking at this
Speaker 1: practice and I keep trying to ask people, like, what
Speaker 1: is this process of outlier deletion? Because everything in my
Speaker 1: mind tells me when it comes to running experiments, you
Speaker 1: keep everything, even if it makes it the case that
Speaker 1: the accuracy isn't good or whatever else. They are very
Speaker 1: very very rare occasions that you delete things. You just
Speaker 1: maintain the integrity of the data, because that's again, that's
Speaker 1: the beauty of science, right is to be objective with
Speaker 1: the information and to be able to see the true
Speaker 1: reality of what it's what's going on. And that was
Speaker 1: a practice that was very concerning to me because I
Speaker 1: realized that once you start doing that, you start making
Speaker 1: things appear to be one thing when that might not
Speaker 1: actually be the truth. And these results are being sent
Speaker 1: to patients and providers, it is actually informing care. It's
Speaker 1: informing what medications you give a patient, it's it's informing
Speaker 1: their entire treatment process, it's informing their psychological well being
Speaker 1: exactly right when they think they have something and they don't,
Speaker 1: or vice versa, exactly. To give you an example of
Speaker 1: the distress that sometimes getting a bad result. There was
Speaker 1: a colleague of mine and she did a total testosterone
Speaker 1: test and for women, they tend to have lowered sstone levels,
Speaker 1: and so she had done one on the Edison devices,
Speaker 1: which was Thereinosa's proprietary machine, and it came out extremely high.
Speaker 1: She was in her early twenties. She's looking at this.
Speaker 1: Of course, she goes on the internet what does this mean?
Speaker 1: And it means potentially she could be infertile. So imagine
Speaker 1: you're in your early twenties, it's before you're even thinking
Speaker 1: about having children at this point, you're just starting your career.
Speaker 1: You get this blood test and it's telling you you're
Speaker 1: potentially infertile, and the sort of like shock that that
Speaker 1: could be that now you have this whole consideration about,
Speaker 1: well do I have to start thinking about having kids
Speaker 1: tomorrow or freezing my eggs in like the next year
Speaker 1: because of this test. And so there were real consequences
Speaker 1: to basically getting this information that was false, and so
Speaker 1: it was it was quite scary because again I'm no
Speaker 1: longer a scientist at my lab bench, just tinkering around
Speaker 1: trying to troubleshoot figure things out as I go, I'm
Speaker 1: actively now testing on patients, and that is just such
Speaker 1: a different responsibility and different perspective. And so I think
Speaker 1: for me, it really made me uncomfortable because I was like,
Speaker 1: this isn't ready, This isn't ready to start testing on patients.
Speaker 1: There's just too many issues and the stakes are a
Speaker 1: bit too high. So Erica, I mean, you're bold. You
Speaker 1: do not hold back when it comes to vocalizing to
Speaker 1: your higher ups repeatedly right that you don't believe patient
Speaker 1: blood sample should be run on the Tharnis device. And Sonny,
Speaker 1: who is Elizabeth's second in command, he gets wind of
Speaker 1: your resistance and one day confronts you in his office
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, how does that conversation unfold? So initially
Speaker 1: he invites me into his office and he asked me
Speaker 1: the simple question like how do you like working at
Speaker 1: the Ainos? And I was like, you know, I really
Speaker 1: love the mission of this company. I like what we're
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish, but I see a lot of problems.
Speaker 1: We're having problems with these quality control failures, but we're
Speaker 1: still testing patients. And after I finished saying that, he says, well,
Speaker 1: what makes you qualified to say that you're a recent
Speaker 1: graduate from UC Berkeley, and you have no visibility in
Speaker 1: this company. Why do you think that's true? And have
Speaker 1: you ever taken a statist sixth class? And you need
Speaker 1: to essentially make a decision by tomorrow. You need to
Speaker 1: tell me do you still want to work for this
Speaker 1: company or not? And if you want to work for
Speaker 1: this company, you need to test patient samples without question
Speaker 1: and do the job that I pay you to do.
Speaker 1: And I was shocked at this point. I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't even believe this, right because at this point
Speaker 1: in the company, I was operating with a sense of
Speaker 1: good faith. Maybe it was the case that there was
Speaker 1: some sort of miscommunication between what was happening at the
Speaker 1: operational floor in the executive level management, and somehow they
Speaker 1: weren't seeing what everyone all the operators were seeing. And
Speaker 1: at that moment I realized, oh no, there's something different
Speaker 1: going on here. And it was so weird too, when
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that was very scary about
Speaker 1: it is like I was on their team. You know,
Speaker 1: I work for this company, I'm working sixteen hour days,
Speaker 1: I'm sleeping in my car sometimes, and the fact that
Speaker 1: someone who is on your team that you are going
Speaker 1: to attack when they tell you, I'm bringing this problem
Speaker 1: to you because it needs to be fixed. I'm not
Speaker 1: bringing this problem to you because of anything adversarial. And
Speaker 1: I think that also completely changed the dynamic for me
Speaker 1: of oh, there's not much you can do here right now,
Speaker 1: it's the case that this person sees you as a villain,
Speaker 1: as a competitor, as something else, when it's like, I've
Speaker 1: done nothing but show that I want to see this
Speaker 1: work too, but not at this cost, not at the
Speaker 1: cost of potential actually violating even our own internal standard,
Speaker 1: which is to provide quality care to patients. Right Like,
Speaker 1: there's just no way. It just doesn't make sense at
Speaker 1: all to me. So I think from that perspective, it
Speaker 1: was just so jarring, right, it was so jarring to
Speaker 1: watch someone act like outside of the own interests of
Speaker 1: the organization. Even at that point. You're twenty three at
Speaker 1: the time that you're having this conversation with Sonny, and
Speaker 1: I just want to enter your psychology for a bit,
Speaker 1: because on the one hand, the scientific integrity alarm bells
Speaker 1: are out of control. But then on the other hand,
Speaker 1: when you are young and relatively inexperienced and there's this
Speaker 1: big chorus that's singing the company's praises and is validating
Speaker 1: the work that's happening behind the scenes. It's so easy
Speaker 1: to second guess yourself, right, Like in another environment, things
Speaker 1: that are so obviously true, things that are so obviously wrong.
Speaker 1: In this case, you might get confused about and so
Speaker 1: did you go through any do you have to face
Speaker 1: any of those insecurities or second guessing all the time?
Speaker 1: You know, all the time, because I was very conscious
Speaker 1: of the fact that I was young and that I
Speaker 1: may not have been seeing the full picture, or that
Speaker 1: I didn't have this background. And I think, honestly, the
Speaker 1: beauty even of that doubt is it really made me
Speaker 1: put a lot of effort into running experiments where it's
Speaker 1: like you can't fight the numbers. Sometimes you really can't
Speaker 1: fight the evidence, you know. I wish in retrospect that
Speaker 1: I had a little more confidence in myself, but I
Speaker 1: think that also comes with age. Right, this was my
Speaker 1: first job out of college, Like, it's very hard to
Speaker 1: think that you know everything. I do want to challenge
Speaker 1: that a little bit, Erica, because I actually think a
Speaker 1: hallmark of a good scientist is someone who does question themselves,
Speaker 1: who approaches what they do with a profound amount of humility.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of what's required to be good
Speaker 1: at this. So yes, do I hope you are like
Speaker 1: blindly confident. Sure, but it made your psychological journey easier.
Speaker 1: But then you wouldn't have been a scientist at heart,
Speaker 1: which is like wanting to generate evidence, wanting to build
Speaker 1: the empirical case. Yeah, thank you Maya for pointing that
Speaker 1: that is very true. That is very true, and I
Speaker 1: think that led to some of the frustration of working
Speaker 1: for Sarinos, was the fact anytime you challenged everything, it
Speaker 1: became something that was in an attack, and it's like,
Speaker 1: this isn't an attack, this is the process, this is
Speaker 1: the scientific process totally. So Erica, you're you leave this
Speaker 1: meeting with Sonny, You've now had this realization that there
Speaker 1: actually is no chasm between what's happening in the labs
Speaker 1: and what the company executives know. They know full well
Speaker 1: what's happening, and they're actually just trying to intimidate you
Speaker 1: out of being honest about what's going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: They're trying to discourage you from being a critical thinker
Speaker 1: who's trying to actually improve the end product, and and
Speaker 1: then you end up calling your dad later that day
Speaker 1: to tell him, my dad, you know, I'm uncomfortable working
Speaker 1: at Farnos. Like, here's what's going on. And given what
Speaker 1: you've already shared about your upbringing in what this job
Speaker 1: meant for your family, what was it like to have
Speaker 1: that call? Erica? It was hard. It was hard. It
Speaker 1: was hard for so many reasons. Right, it was hard
Speaker 1: because I had only worked at the company for seven months.
Speaker 1: So now I'm going to call my father and I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell him I need to quit a job
Speaker 1: that I only lasted seven months, and at that point,
Speaker 1: I was making more money than my dad had made
Speaker 1: working ten years at the same company. You know, I
Speaker 1: had made more money at that job than my mom
Speaker 1: has ever made in her lifetime. So you have to
Speaker 1: explain to them, you know, is it the case that
Speaker 1: I'm just a quitter? Like am I just basically throwing
Speaker 1: my hands up and saying like I can't handle this?
Speaker 1: And not only that, but it just yeah, it was
Speaker 1: just difficult to know how to navigate the situation because
Speaker 1: it was so bizarre, Right, it was strange, Like, there's
Speaker 1: no not a lot of people could fundamentally understand what
Speaker 1: it's like to be in an organization that treats you
Speaker 1: this way, and you're in such a toxic culture that
Speaker 1: it's hard to even think normally at that point because
Speaker 1: it's so bizarre to be in that context. And so
Speaker 1: luckily my dad responded with like the best thing he
Speaker 1: could have possibly said, and he said, Erica, you're a
Speaker 1: smart girl. I trust you, you'll figure it out. And
Speaker 1: that was it. And he's a man of very few words,
Speaker 1: but that was probably exactly the words I needed to
Speaker 1: hear in that moment. And so from that point I
Speaker 1: knew I would be okay, I'd I'd work it out,
Speaker 1: and so what do you do the next day? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So at this point I was at this point, I
Speaker 1: was pretty I was pretty depressed. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: what are you what are you going to do here?
Speaker 1: And one of the things amongst all of this, because
Speaker 1: I was really fuse, like do you try and change
Speaker 1: things internally or do you try you just move on
Speaker 1: and go somewhere else. And I think it was very
Speaker 1: hard for me to figure out, but I essentially I
Speaker 1: decided to quit the company, a company that around that
Speaker 1: time was valued at nearly nine billion dollars. After the break,
Speaker 1: we'll hear from Erica about the fallout after she left Tharanos.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans. Erica Chung was twenty three when she quit
Speaker 1: her job at Tharanos. She had witnessed unconscionable and fraudulent
Speaker 1: practices that were negatively impacting real patients lives. But after
Speaker 1: Erica left, she was disoriented by the fact Tharinos and
Speaker 1: its founder, Elizabeth Holmes were continuing on this meteoric ascent.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was gracing the cover of magazines like Forbes and Fortune,
Speaker 1: and she was being called the next Steve Jobs. Henry Kissinger,
Speaker 1: a former US Secretary of State and Tharonos board member,
Speaker 1: took it one step further when he suggested that actually
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs was just an earlier version of Elizabeth. Erica
Speaker 1: began to wonder if maybe she had just missed something
Speaker 1: all along, But then a journalist from the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal named John Carrirew contacted her. He had been investigating
Speaker 1: Tharonos for some time, and he asked Erica to be
Speaker 1: a source for his upcoming expose of the company. I
Speaker 1: mean it was scary initially because Saronos made it very
Speaker 1: clear that we signed nondisclosure agreements and that they would
Speaker 1: retaliate against us if we said anything to external figures.
Speaker 1: So there was that fear of there could be really
Speaker 1: big consequences to speaking to a journalist. But then also
Speaker 1: it was a bit of a sigh of relief. It
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, here is another door, another opportunity to
Speaker 1: get the truth out in exposing what they're doing in
Speaker 1: the patient testing realm. And so I was actually like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a great channel to sort of let people
Speaker 1: know what's going on here. And yeah, I became one
Speaker 1: of his sources off the record, of course, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people didn't know that I was talking to him,
Speaker 1: But yeah, and what is your interaction with Aaronos like
Speaker 1: at this time, if at all. So essentially, as John
Speaker 1: is doing his investigative reporting, he had to give Tharonos
Speaker 1: the opportunity to rebut his investigative peace. And at that point,
Speaker 1: essentially Tharonos went on this giant which hunt to sort
Speaker 1: of figure out and identify who were the former employees
Speaker 1: that were sources for his reporting. So there was there
Speaker 1: was one one night I was working late at my
Speaker 1: new employ lawyer's office, and my colleagues come up to
Speaker 1: me and they said, Erica, you need to pack up
Speaker 1: your stuff because I usually work late, and you need
Speaker 1: to leave with us because there's been a man in
Speaker 1: the parking lot all day and we don't want you
Speaker 1: to leave the building alone. So I pack up my
Speaker 1: stuff and I walk out the door, and immediately this
Speaker 1: guy and this like tinted ASUV, jumps out and he
Speaker 1: hands me this letter and I look at it and
Speaker 1: it's a letter from David Boys, who at that time
Speaker 1: is one of the top corporate lawyers in the US,
Speaker 1: and it's addressed to me, but it has an address
Speaker 1: on there that is essentially my colleague's address, because I
Speaker 1: had just moved out of my apartment and was sleeping
Speaker 1: on her couch. So at this point I was really
Speaker 1: freaked out because what it had suggested to me that
Speaker 1: they were following me. They were following me. I was
Speaker 1: now under the prospect of being sued, but also they
Speaker 1: had private investigators following me. Before we talk about how
Speaker 1: you responded to the content in the letter, I want
Speaker 1: to know what kind of psychological toll this takes on you.
Speaker 1: I mean to know that you're being followed an it's
Speaker 1: an unbelievable invasion of privacy and it's very very scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's terrifying. Right, I'm twenty three years old at
Speaker 1: this point, and I'm wondering, like you just feel so powerless.
Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, What's what's going to happen to me?
Speaker 1: How do I even not only is there the fear
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be embroiled in debt because of
Speaker 1: all the litigation or potentially there might be some sort
Speaker 1: of criminal charges that are placed upon me, but even
Speaker 1: my personal safety. You know, what am I going to do?
Speaker 1: You're talking about a company who has people backing them,
Speaker 1: who are ex Secretary of States. You know, if people
Speaker 1: are following me, and what's going to happen to me?
Speaker 1: They have way more money, they have way more resources,
Speaker 1: they may have way more political out they have way
Speaker 1: more power than I do than It was very very terrifying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So how do you you have this letter from David Boyce,
Speaker 1: who Thereinos has hired to be their their lawyer, and
Speaker 1: like you said, he's one of the top lawyers in
Speaker 1: the country. How do you act on this letter? What
Speaker 1: do you what do you do next? So luckily I
Speaker 1: reach out to my network and I contact a bunch
Speaker 1: of people and I get in conversation basically with a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and they say, hey, you know, a potential opportunity is
Speaker 1: that you can report to regulators. And you know, this
Speaker 1: was an option that wasn't super clear to me, Like
Speaker 1: people said, well, you can be a whistleblower, but it's
Speaker 1: not very clear what being a whistleblower is. If you
Speaker 1: if you're just a normal person who's living their life, yes, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, I realized at that moment, in order for
Speaker 1: Parinos to test on patient samples, they had to maintain
Speaker 1: their certification with the Center of Medicaid and Medicare Services,
Speaker 1: which is the regulatory body that essentially allows people to
Speaker 1: test on patients. And so from that point, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you can report to CMS, which is the abbreviation for
Speaker 1: that the Center of Medicaid and Medicare Services, And yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's what I ended up doing. I ended up
Speaker 1: almost immediately. It's funny. I immediately decided to drive to
Speaker 1: San Francisco to go to the office to report. But
Speaker 1: I was so terrified about being followed that I ended
Speaker 1: up just like crying and circling all over downtown San Francisco,
Speaker 1: not knowing what to do because I just didn't I
Speaker 1: felt like I was being tracked. So I ended up
Speaker 1: going and buying a burner phone and contacted the regulatory
Speaker 1: body and figured out about the process in order to
Speaker 1: write a report and a complaint. And when you write
Speaker 1: to a regulatory body like this like CMS, are you
Speaker 1: does it carry legal protections? Right? Are you granted whistle
Speaker 1: blower status? So is that? What was? Is that why?
Speaker 1: You thought? Okay, so how do that? So you'd actually yeah,
Speaker 1: so you'd actually be surprised. There are very few protections
Speaker 1: for people who report that work for private companies. I
Speaker 1: just thought, okay, we're going to file this complaint because
Speaker 1: again I was operating with they need to stop testing
Speaker 1: on patients. You can't essentially treat people like lab rats.
Speaker 1: And that's what their nose was doing, right, it was
Speaker 1: essentially experimenting on the public live and telling them that
Speaker 1: they had quality test when that wasn't that wasn't the case. Okay, Eric,
Speaker 1: I need to stop you here because what I'm hearing
Speaker 1: is extraordinary, which is that you get confronted in a
Speaker 1: dark parking lot outside of your new office building, and
Speaker 1: it's revealed to you that there are people following you
Speaker 1: on a regular basis, and that leads you to double
Speaker 1: down and make the choice to go even further with
Speaker 1: your efforts and to contact a regulatory body. That is stunning.
Speaker 1: I need you to unpack that. For me. I would
Speaker 1: just let me tell you what I would have done
Speaker 1: gotten a letter, I would have been like, can I
Speaker 1: move back home with my parents? Can I just reduce
Speaker 1: all connection with this company forevermore? And just like buried
Speaker 1: my head. Hey, I don't get it. It's so hard.
Speaker 1: It's so hard to be self aware of it, because
Speaker 1: for me, it makes sense. For me, it makes total
Speaker 1: sense of why I would do this. It's kind of
Speaker 1: one of those things like again, I just wanted them
Speaker 1: to stop processing patient samples, and when that new door
Speaker 1: opened for me, that was just an opportunity that I
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine not taking, right, I couldn't imagine not taking.
Speaker 1: And honestly, I'll talk to people about this, like, yes,
Speaker 1: there were moments where I thought, wow, Okay, if they
Speaker 1: go through with the litigation, you know you're gonna probably
Speaker 1: go bankrupt. And I was like, okay, well your recent
Speaker 1: grad like you're almost there, so you're not so okay,
Speaker 1: you know, fair play or there was a possibility that
Speaker 1: you that I would have gotten some sort of criminal charges,
Speaker 1: and I was like pragmatic with myself and said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you love being alone, so maybe you'll spend a couple
Speaker 1: of years being alone for a while in a prison cell.
Speaker 1: A prison cell, okay, But honestly, the idea of knowing
Speaker 1: what I knew and having not done anything, and knowing
Speaker 1: that there was something that I could have done about
Speaker 1: it and I didn't do anything, like that's the real
Speaker 1: prison right, Like that would have been so hard for
Speaker 1: me to live with myself knowing the things that I
Speaker 1: knew and having not done anything. That's the real purgatory
Speaker 1: right to sit with yourself and to realize that you
Speaker 1: didn't push it forward. So it just for me that
Speaker 1: that was a much worse reality. So you end up
Speaker 1: buying a burner phone, you contact CMS, and then you
Speaker 1: end up writing a formal letter right that ends up
Speaker 1: instigating a formal federal investigation into Tharanos. And I just
Speaker 1: need you to take a quick victory lab here Erica,
Speaker 1: because your letter results in significant consequences for Tharanos. So
Speaker 1: after I sent the letter, a CMS went in and
Speaker 1: they the regulators went in and they conducted an investigation
Speaker 1: and they found serious deficiencies and Thoranos's lab and basically
Speaker 1: barred them from operating a patient testing lab from that
Speaker 1: point forward, So it shut down their ability to test
Speaker 1: on patients. What was it like when you got that news.
Speaker 1: When I got that news, it was an absolute relief.
Speaker 1: It was nice to kind of be able to finally
Speaker 1: be able to rest a bit. I think for me
Speaker 1: it was funny. My Parahos saga really ended there in
Speaker 1: a way like I stopped paying attention. Your job is done.
Speaker 1: My job is done, and that was it. So it
Speaker 1: was it was a big relief. And I know, while
Speaker 1: all of this is unfolding, you make this decision to
Speaker 1: move to Hong Kong, to really get away from it,
Speaker 1: even geographically right. Just an eagerness I can so resonate
Speaker 1: with that. Just an eagerness to make Pharaonos a definitive
Speaker 1: part of your past. Exactly. I walked into my new
Speaker 1: boss's office and I just looked at him and I said,
Speaker 1: I want to move to Hong Kong and he's like, okay.
Speaker 1: And I had no plan, no nothing, but I knew
Speaker 1: that I just needed to go. I just needed to
Speaker 1: just go do something for myself. And then I packed
Speaker 1: my bags and I left in two thousand and seen
Speaker 1: to move to Hong Kong. So we're going to fast
Speaker 1: forward a few years. You're continuing to live in Hong
Speaker 1: Kong and it's twenty nineteen and you're traveling to the
Speaker 1: US and you're in an airport in the US and
Speaker 1: you're confronted by a member of the FBI. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I'm essentially sitting in an airport. I'm about to board
Speaker 1: a plane, and as I'm starting to go into the
Speaker 1: plane boarding process, this man comes up to me as
Speaker 1: I'm packing away my laptop and he's like, are you
Speaker 1: Erica Chung And I'm like yes, And he's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: don't be nervous. But I'm with the FBI and here's
Speaker 1: a subpoena. You're going to testify in the criminal case
Speaker 1: against Elizabeth Holmes and Sonny Batwani. I mean, don't be nervous. Comma,
Speaker 1: I'm an FBI agent. Should be said by no FBI
Speaker 1: agent moving forward, but I appreciate the light empathy he
Speaker 1: was showing you that moment. So then so the trial
Speaker 1: keeps getting delayed, right, there's COVID, Elizabeth Holmes gets pregnant.
Speaker 1: But then finally there's a date September twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: You're asked to finally testify. And what is that like, Erica?
Speaker 1: I mean, what is it like to see Elizabeth Holmes again?
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to expect. I had no idea
Speaker 1: what that was going to be like, and was very
Speaker 1: nervous going into that courtroom. But what was amazing is
Speaker 1: like once I actually sat down and I was in
Speaker 1: the witness stand and I looked over and I saw Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, that's right, Erica, You're on
Speaker 1: this side of the table, like you didn't do anything wrong. Here,
Speaker 1: you didn't do anything wrong. And so it was actually
Speaker 1: a bit relaxing at that point. Still stressful, still stressful,
Speaker 1: but at least it was like again I knew what
Speaker 1: I needed to do and what I needed to get done,
Speaker 1: and even though I waited a long time to do
Speaker 1: the trial, I was going to be able to walk
Speaker 1: out of there in three days time. And that was it,
Speaker 1: that was it. I know you've said that while you
Speaker 1: did feel a certain kind of calm descend upon you,
Speaker 1: the other side of this was that it led to
Speaker 1: a severe relapse of PTSD. Yeah, you know, there was
Speaker 1: a trial in the final relief and the realization of
Speaker 1: the fact that like, yeah, I get a walk out
Speaker 1: of here in three days, But the build up for
Speaker 1: that was just so severe. It was funny when you're
Speaker 1: suffering from PTSD and people are telling you these things
Speaker 1: like you're courageous, you're brave, you're a hero. Gosh, I
Speaker 1: can't even go to the grocery store without having a
Speaker 1: panic attack, right, And and that like positioning of the
Speaker 1: fact of like, oh my god, is this what like
Speaker 1: is this what being a hero feels like? Because this
Speaker 1: shit's terrible, right, It's just so hard on your body
Speaker 1: and everything. Basically, from that point that I received the
Speaker 1: subpoena and from the fact that I had now been
Speaker 1: more publicly on the record as being a whistleblower, I
Speaker 1: couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with me. But
Speaker 1: as time went on and I moved back to the US,
Speaker 1: it started to become more and more clear that I
Speaker 1: was having a really difficult time managing my hyper vigilance.
Speaker 1: I was having panic attacks again. I was paranoid about
Speaker 1: people following me. I was having nightmares every other day,
Speaker 1: and it came to the surface that I was having
Speaker 1: another big relapse in PTSD. And in a way, it
Speaker 1: was good that the trial had gotten pushed because it
Speaker 1: allowed me to sort of take the energy in focus on,
Speaker 1: you know, really fronting a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: I had avoided. You know, I had moved to Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: I had built this whole new life for myself. I
Speaker 1: really had detached myself from everything their nose. Like when
Speaker 1: people in Hong Kong figure it out that I reported
Speaker 1: their nose, they were shocked because it was something I
Speaker 1: never talked about. No one had any idea, and I
Speaker 1: didn't realize like when someone has PTSD, a big portion
Speaker 1: of it is avoidance. It is trying to not bring
Speaker 1: up anything that reminds you of the traumatic event. And
Speaker 1: I think I spent years in that state of just
Speaker 1: wanting to push all of this as far away as
Speaker 1: possible from myself. And when I had moved back to
Speaker 1: the States and the subpoena was happening, and I was
Speaker 1: sort of thrust upon this world. It really caused this
Speaker 1: huge relapse for me, and so I think that build
Speaker 1: up it was exhausting and very trying, but also maybe
Speaker 1: a good thing, because I was really forced to just
Speaker 1: sit with myself and really process and develop a better
Speaker 1: coping system for the things that happened to me. I
Speaker 1: really resonate with the sentiment around extreme avoidance when it
Speaker 1: comes to past pain and trauma and at times where
Speaker 1: I've been, you know, really anxious in the past, like
Speaker 1: I will go to the ends of the earth to
Speaker 1: try to avoid engaging just to feel safe, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's just like a very instinctive human response.
Speaker 1: And I do wonder whether I mean this therein as
Speaker 1: Saga forced upon you a kind of exposure therapy of
Speaker 1: sorts that you might have never yourself instigated, right, because
Speaker 1: it is so painful to have to revisit every single
Speaker 1: detail and to have to like re engage with that world.
Speaker 1: And I do wonder if maybe there's one silver lining here,
Speaker 1: which is that it empowered you to engage differently with
Speaker 1: past traumas, to maybe be less avoidant with those past
Speaker 1: traumas and to maybe revisit them in a different way. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly true. Like it's it's amazing how
Speaker 1: much it brought to a head my need to be
Speaker 1: vulnerable and to be able to confront things head on
Speaker 1: going on with myself. I feel like I needed to
Speaker 1: just sit with myself and come to a greater sense
Speaker 1: of like compassion in a way with myself. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it did. It did help. It was weird that that
Speaker 1: sort of instigated the process of the healing of so
Speaker 1: many things that happened. It was so extended soon beyond
Speaker 1: what happened it there, nos right, it extended from what
Speaker 1: happened to me when I was a kid or when
Speaker 1: I was in college. And I think because of that
Speaker 1: just in your face kind of you will deal with
Speaker 1: this whether you like it or not nature of being
Speaker 1: In this case, like I'm stronger because of it and
Speaker 1: having it had an immense amount of growth, And in
Speaker 1: a way, I'm almost grateful for that because it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting with this case because like this was my first
Speaker 1: job out of college and now my I have the
Speaker 1: rest of my life ahead of me. Like I'm really
Speaker 1: when you think about it, professionally, just getting started and
Speaker 1: the fact that now I can have a sense of
Speaker 1: just almost freedom in a way that I trust myself
Speaker 1: that I have the right tools and the right abilities
Speaker 1: to be able to be resilient, and to just have
Speaker 1: that sense of security in myself is nice. So even
Speaker 1: there's always silver linings to things, and even though there's
Speaker 1: like post traumatic stress disorder, there's also post traumatic growth,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm starting to see to see that
Speaker 1: side of this whole experience, which I'm i think, in
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of things, going to be very very
Speaker 1: grateful for. In the years following Erica's letter to federal regulators,
Speaker 1: a slew of civil and criminal charges were filed against Saranos,
Speaker 1: CEO Elizabeth Holnes and COOO Senni Bolani. Saronos's valuation plummeted
Speaker 1: to zero. Elizabeth and Sonny were both found guilty of
Speaker 1: fraud and two separate criminal trials this year. Elizabeth was
Speaker 1: convicted of four counts of fraud and Sonny was convicted
Speaker 1: of twelve counts of fraud. They will both be sentenced
Speaker 1: later this year and could face decades in prison. That's
Speaker 1: a wrap on this season of a slight change of plans.
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back in September
Speaker 1: with more episodes. Until then, have a great summer break.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created, written an executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Maya Shunker. The Slight Change family includes
Speaker 1: Tyler Greene, our senior producer, Emily Rosteck, our producer and
Speaker 1: fact checker, Jan Guera, our senior editor, Neil LaBelle, our
Speaker 1: executive producer, and our engineering team which includes Ben Holliday,
Speaker 1: Jay Korski, Sarah Bruger and Andrew Vastola. Louis Skara wrote
Speaker 1: our theme song and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker.
Speaker 1: And So, the Edison Devices, which was theirinosa's actual proprietary machine,
Speaker 1: could only do twelve of those tests. They couldn't even
Speaker 1: do as many as people had anticipated. And from what
Speaker 1: I understand, Erica, even the twelve tests that the Edison
Speaker 1: could run weren't generating reliable results. That is right, That
Speaker 1: is right? Yeah, wow, Okay, so literally just mean it
Speaker 1: was capable of generating a result, not even like the
Speaker 1: correct result, an accurate result. Yeah, it's like, great, I
Speaker 1: have a device that it's a great bar for laboratories
Speaker 1: to have. It doesn't break, no, exactly, well, it spits
Speaker 1: out a number