Tamara Burns  |  May 30, 2016

Category: Consumer News

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Theranos blood testing class action lawsuitA second proposed class action lawsuit was filed against Theranos Inc. alleging that the blood test company provided inaccurate information and defrauded consumers.

Plaintiff Casey Jones filed the lawsuit last Thursday claiming that the tests Theranos used provided inaccurate results for consumers, therefore putting patient health at risk.

Jones claims he visited a Wellness Center inside a Phoenix Walgreens to complete blood testing as part of his doctor’s orders for a routine physical exam. Jones says he chose Theranos because he was able to order additional labs just by marking additional boxes on the lab form, and decided to do so since he and his wife were planning to get pregnant.

Theranos is a California corporation that operates blood testing labs in California and Arizona and has marketed its tests as “revolutionary” as a direct-to consumer testing facility that can analyze test results using a small amount of blood in conjunction with its proprietary “Edison machine” system.

One week before the lawsuits were filed, Theranos made an announcement that it had voided the test results of tens of thousands of blood samples following investigations that had been made into the company’s accuracy in diagnosis as well as its lab practices.

Jones says he filed the lawsuit “to address these massive failures on issues relating to customer health, including Theranos using substandard policies and procedures, failing to honor the promises it made about testing accuracy and quality, concealing and obscuring the truth about the invasiveness of the tests, providing inaccurate test results to patients and not correcting those results when possible after a reasonable person would understand the results were or could be erroneous, and misrepresenting the technological advances that Theranos allegedly developed.”

Steve Berman, managing partner of the law firm representing Jones states, “Theranos promised patients the highest levels of quality and accuracy, but in its haste to enter the retail market, it let quality slip to a dangerously low level and left consumers to base their medical decisions on uncertain results.”

Theranos was reportedly sent a letter in January from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that said patients were in “immediate jeopardy” following potentially inaccurate test results and demanded that the company take action immediately, court documents read.

“Private tests then revealed that Theranos’ blood tests often failed to meet the lab’s own standards. A hormone test run on Theranos’ proprietary machines failed 87 percent of quality control checks, and overall, Theranos’ tests were 60 percent more likely to be inaccurate,” Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro continued.

The first proposed class action lawsuit against Theranos was filed by another plaintiff in Arizona who claimed to have purchased the tests from Theranos “to get accurate results about his health” by visiting a Wellness Center inside a Walgreens that offered Theranos testing.

Theranos Wellness Centers in Walgreens drugstores were established several years ago when the Edison machine technology used by the centers to analyze the blood samples was considered revolutionary. However, continued reports and inspections into the laboratory’s accuracy and practices raised concerns about its performance since late last year.

Jones claims he was required to submit to having vials of blood taken, rather than the small prick of blood using the new technology that his doctor said Theranos employed, according to the lawsuit. Shortly after his test, Jones says he read that the lab’s technology was not working, leading to serious problems with quality assurance.

The proposed class action lawsuit accuses Theranos of consumer fraud, breach of contract, violation of California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, violations of California’s Unfair Competition Act and unjust enrichment.

“Customers were promised minimally invasive technology, only to have many arrive and get the standard needle Theranos used to scare them into its clinics in the first place,” Berman added. “Consumers in no way received what they were promised. Besides the sloppy lab procedures documented by the federal government, in most cases Theranos didn’t even have self-proclaimed ‘revolutionary’ methods it promoted.”

Jones is represented by Steve W. Berman, Shana E. Scarlett, Robert B. Carey, Leonard Aragon and Michella Kras of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.

The Theranos Blood Test Class Action Lawsuit is Casey Jones, et al. v. Theranos Inc., Case No. 3:16-cv-02835, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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