With the 2015 release of the first article in a series of exposes published by the Wall Street Journal, whistleblower Tyler Shultz contributed to the fall of Theranos, a breakthrough health technology company that committed fraud.
Shultz spoke at the 20th anniversary of the Richard M. Orin Ethics Symposium on Oct. 14. He shared the importance of whistleblowing and ethics to a packed Bush Auditorium during the event, sponsored by the School of Accountancy in the Trulaske College of Business.
During the symposium, Shultz told his story about Theranos, exploring the nature of fraud and ethical issues through a presentation and Q&A session.
In 2003, Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos in her pursuit of revolutionizing blood testing technology. She deceived investors through false or exaggerated claims about the accuracy of the testing methods and used a much smaller volume of blood than other testing technology at the time. Theranos claimed to use only a drop of blood, compared to the longer, more taxing traditional process of drawing blood from a vein.
Shultz worked for Theranos as a research engineer on the assay validation team and noticed not only the financial fraud perpetrated, but the risk to public health the faulty tests posed.
The first symposium, named for MU alum Richard Orin, who graduated in 1949, was held in 2002. According to his grandson Eric Weissmann, Orin’s experiences with...
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