Theranos patient got false result pointing to HIV

Holmes lawyer asserts that patient's doctor told her she was not infected

A woman who sought out Theranos blood testing because of its purportedly less-invasive and lower-cost services received a test result incorrectly showing antibodies for HIV, she testified Wednesday in company founder Elizabeth Holmes’ criminal fraud trial.

Erin Tompkins of Phoenix testified in U.S. District Court in San Jose that she had read about Theranos in a magazine and had seen a promotion on Facebook, and asked her doctor to refer her for the company’s blood testing. In 2015, she had her blood drawn at a Theranos outlet in a Walgreens drug store, she testified. Three days later Theranos sent out a result sheet, displayed in Holmes’ trial to jurors, that showed HIV antibodies.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, a positive result for antibodies to HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — means a person may be infected with HIV but needs a follow-up test to confirm or reject infection.

Tompkins testified that she called Theranos the same day or the next, asking to speak to someone who could explain the results, but the woman who answered did not help. “She said she was a customer service representative and couldn’t transfer me. That was about it. I was very emotional at the time,” she testified.

She told the jury that before that test, she had never been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, or had symptoms. Further testing showed no sign of the virus, she added.

Asked under cross-examination by Holmes lawyer Katie Trefz how much she had paid for her Theranos HIV test, Tompkins said she could not recall. “I remember receiving a refund check in the mail approximately two years later,” she testified.

Holmes, who founded the Palo Alto blood-testing startup at age 19 in 2003, is charged with allegedly bilking investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, and defrauding patients with false claims that the company’s machines could conduct a full range of tests using just a few drops of blood. Prosecutors allege she knew her technology suffered from severe accuracy problems. Holmes and her co-accused, former company president Sunny Balwani, have denied the allegations. Balwani is to be tried next year.

After the jury left for the day, lawyers for both sides argued over whether information from Tompkins’ doctor should be allowed to go before jurors. Trefz asserted that the doctor told Tompkins that despite the test result showing HIV antibodies she was not at risk for HIV infection. Trefz noted that the Theranos result sheet also said there was “no laboratory evidence of HIV infection.”

Prosecutor John Bostic countered that the response from Tompkins’ physician was not so clear. “Her doctor expressed some doubt about whether that test result could be accurate,” Bostic said. “He was in disbelief that Ms. Tompkins could actually have HIV antibodies in her blood.”

Judge Edward Davila gave his interpretation of Tompkins’ testimony: “she testified that what it meant to her was that she had HIV.”

Whether Tompkins’ doctor will take the witness stand has not been determined. Tompkins’ testimony was set to continue Thursday.

Holmes faces maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and a $2.75 million fine if convicted, plus possible restitution, the Department of Justice has said.