Discredited blood testing company agrees to refund Arizona consumers

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A company that helped engineer a change in state law on blood tests will refund more than $4.6 million to Arizonans who got the tests and may have been swindled.

In a new consent decree, attorneys for Theranos denied that they violated the state’s Consumer Fraud Act in selling blood tests where the results were not always accurate. Attorneys for the company conceded, though, that more than one out of every 10 of the test results given to Arizonans were “ultimately voided or corrected.”

But the company agreed to provide full reimbursement to anyone in Arizona who got the tests during a three-year period — that $4.6 million — plus $200,000 in civil penalties, $25,000 in legal fees and pick up the cost of someone to find customers and distribute the refunds.

The deal also bars Theranos from owning, operating, or directing any laboratory for two years.

That, however, is nothing special to Arizona: The company announced Monday in a deal with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services it would stay out of the blood-testing business for at least two years.

Read more at AZ Capitol Times

Corrie O'Connor