As is always the case, I had to cut a slew of choice details out of my latest Wired story—the bizarre and alarming tale of a Washington State clinical-trials company that (and this is the vastest of understatements) didn’t play by the industry’s rules. In a lot of instances, material got left on the cutting-room floor for legal reasons—there were tangents I couldn’t confirm with multiple sources, for example. But I also had to lose some great anecdotes simply due to space constraints, with the snippet above being a prime example.
The screenshot comes from the trial testimony provided by a woman who worked for the clinical-trials company, and who was ordered to take home an EKG machine so she could falsify patient data. I remain haunted by her epiphany here: In my mind’s eye, I see her lying down on the floor of her house, the machine’s wires snaking away from her chest. And I see the look of consternation on her kids’ faces as they try to suss out why, exactly, mommy has herself hooked up to this elaborate device.
I urge you to read the story, which I believe hangs together despite missing the EKG-machine thread. It was my attempt to grapple with a question that’s had its hooks in my mind for a while: Why are our most vital institutions so vulnerable to the machinations of sociopaths?
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