The Business Integrity Leadership Initiative hosted Erika Cheung as a guest speaker for the Let's Talk about Speaking Up program. She talked about speaking up and her experience as a medical researcher with Theranos.
Theranos was Erika’s first job out of college where she graduated from UC Berkely with a degree in molecular and cell biology. Erika took the job with Theranos because she believed in the vision of Elizabeth Holmes and the vision of Theranos which was to redefine healthcare and make it possible to better detect and treat disease.
The technology that Theranos was trying to create was a device the size of a printer which would take a vile of blood and be able to detect disease at a more affordable cost and would test samples more frequently.
However, while Erika was using this new device, she noticed the device did not provide accurate information. Numerous false data points led Erika to question the accuracy of the machine. Erika communicated her concerns about quality control and her issues with the lab practices at Theranos to senior executives and board members without success. This led Erika to quit her job with Theranos and report to federal regulators on the issues she had seen.
In March 2018, Theranos was charged with massive fraud by the SEC and Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani were indicted and found guilty of several federal charges, including defrauding investors. They were both later sentenced in fall of 2022.
Erika talked about some of the main reasons she believes people are reluctant to speak up, including fearing that nothing will be done about it and that they will be retaliated against for doing so. While acknowledging those concerns, she impressed upon the audience the importance of personal responsibility and recognizing that everyone’s voice has power. As the poet Nikki Giovanni says, “mistakes are a fact of life. It’s the response to the error that counts.”
