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Investigating the Prenatal Testing Market

Investigating the Prenatal Testing Market

Released Tuesday, 4th January 2022
 3 people rated this episode
Investigating the Prenatal Testing Market

Investigating the Prenatal Testing Market

Investigating the Prenatal Testing Market

Investigating the Prenatal Testing Market

Tuesday, 4th January 2022
 3 people rated this episode
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

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0:00

This memorial day don't miss the history

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and passion for environmental conservation. Tune

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in to the two night event, Theodore

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Roosevelt, this memorial day at eight

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seven central only on the history

0:32

channel. From The New York Times,

0:34

I'm a stat Herndon. This is

0:36

The Daily. Today,

0:46

over the past decade, medical

0:48

companies have begun off pregnant women,

0:51

new screening tests that promised

0:53

to detect rare genetic disorders

0:55

in their

0:56

fetuses. But

0:58

those women weren't told was

1:00

that if they tested positive, there

1:02

would be high likelihood that

1:04

the result would be wrong. A

1:08

times investigation reveals

1:10

how tests that promised peace of

1:12

mind have instead caused anguish

1:14

and confusion. I spoke

1:17

with my colleague, Sarah Cliff.

1:28

It's Tuesday, January fourth.

1:38

So, Sarah, how did you come to this story? Yeah.

1:40

I usually cover medical billing for

1:42

the times and readers often send me

1:45

odd surprising bills they've received, and

1:47

I'd received a handful for this certain

1:49

type of prenatal test. And

1:51

they were hundreds to thousands of dollars.

1:53

So I I was looking into the bill and my editor

1:56

suggested just looking into what

1:58

these tests are in the first place So

2:00

I just started doing the basic research that usually

2:03

do, reading some academic studies, looking

2:05

through people's experiences with them online,

2:07

and I came across Reddit community

2:10

focused on this type of screening

2:12

and just kept seeing the same kind

2:14

of story repeated again and again where

2:16

someone who was pregnant, went

2:18

to the doctor, took this particular type

2:20

of screening test, and was

2:23

really surprised to get a positive result for

2:25

a disorder they had never heard of.

2:27

And they, you know, often talked about

2:29

a really agonizing month between this first

2:31

screening and a follow-up test

2:33

that was either going to confirm or disprove the

2:36

original results. And in the

2:38

end, it turned out that the original test

2:40

was wrong, and there's actually nothing wrong

2:43

with the pregnancy. And they went on

2:45

to have babies without the conditions that

2:47

they had screen positive for. And so

2:49

that kind

2:49

of, you know, peaked my interest a little

2:52

bit to think, you know, what is going on here?

2:54

And why are so many women

2:56

reporting

2:57

this type of story? So what exactly

2:59

is this test? So this test,

3:01

it's known as a few things, it's known as cell

3:03

free DNA screening or non

3:05

invasive prenatal testing,

3:07

and it's usually drawn at a doctor's office

3:10

or a laboratory pori, and

3:12

this is test that screams for chromosomal abnormalities

3:14

in a fetus. And before this test

3:16

existed, This was done,

3:18

you know, with a number of ultrasounds, a

3:21

number of blood draws over multiple prenatal

3:23

visits. To mostly screen for

3:26

down syndrome. And they produced

3:28

a decent number of false positives. And

3:30

then about ten years ago, this test comes

3:33

along. It can be done at ten weeks.

3:35

It just requires one blood draw and

3:37

it turns out to be really quite

3:39

accurate. It's screening for down syndrome

3:41

and it's a pretty remarkable advancement.

3:46

So with these tests well received, it seems

3:48

as if they are providing

3:50

a real niche to streamline that screening

3:52

process.

3:53

Yeah. They really are. Ops Detricians

3:56

are happy with them because they feel like they are

3:58

able to provide service to their patients. They're

4:00

not having to do as many invasive procedures,

4:03

like an amniocentesis. So

4:05

they're pretty happy with the technology. Patients

4:07

are happy with it because it can also

4:09

screen for what your baby sex is at

4:12

ten weeks. That's something you before this couldn't

4:14

know until about twenty weeks. Pregnancy. Hello.

4:16

So, obstetricians found patients were coming

4:18

into their offices, you know, asking

4:20

I want the test that screams for sex.

4:23

So they were quite well received.

4:25

And you saw companies

4:27

realizing there was a market in this type of testing.

4:30

About four million women give birth

4:32

each year, and that was four million

4:34

women who could, you know, potentially use

4:36

this type of screening product. So

4:38

after the first test launches in twenty

4:40

eleven, you really quickly see about a half dozen

4:43

other companies trying to get

4:45

into this space. Some of them are big

4:47

laboratory companies like LabCorp, for

4:49

example, which buys a test called

4:51

maternity twenty one from

4:53

a smaller biotech startup a

4:55

company called iTero gets into this space

4:57

and they quickly become the market

4:59

leader, Quest Diagnostics, Myriad,

5:02

these are all different companies getting into this

5:04

space. And they are

5:06

looking at ways to differentiate their products.

5:08

And one of the things that starts to happen

5:10

is they start screening for conditions that are

5:13

rare than down syndrome. They start

5:15

with something called trisomy thirteen and

5:17

trisomy eighteen, and then

5:19

they move into a new category of testing

5:21

for microdeletions, which are

5:23

kind of small missing pieces of chromosomes.

5:26

And those microdeletions are sometimes

5:28

associated with certain syndrome. Some

5:30

of the better known ones are George

5:32

syndrome, which becomes a screening, Creta

5:35

shots, Engleman and Prada Willie,

5:38

they tend to be pretty rare, so they are

5:40

often not familiar to patients, but these

5:42

are the things that are starting to be added

5:44

on to this type of screening.

5:47

They also get marketed directly

5:49

to patients, directly to doctors

5:52

as, you know, quite accurate products.

5:54

You start saying language like total

5:57

confidence in every result or

5:59

information for your peace of mind.

6:02

They say they're gonna give you clear answers, clear

6:04

positives and negatives and kind of

6:06

information you can trust. Mhmm.

6:08

And you get to the point where in twenty twenty,

6:10

a third of pregnant women, that's over

6:12

million people, are getting the down

6:15

screening with the sex tests. Some

6:17

share of those. We don't know exactly how many

6:19

are getting the expanded tests that are

6:21

looking for the rarer conditions. But

6:25

the problem that I found in my

6:27

reporting is when it comes to

6:29

those newer expanded tests,

6:32

The problem is that the positive results on

6:34

those

6:34

tests, they are often wrong.

6:36

So what exactly did you find?

6:39

Yeah, so before I get into the findings, I

6:41

think it's just important to have some context. One

6:44

is that the test is still quite reliable

6:46

for down syndrome when it's screening for that condition.

6:48

Mhmm. And second, most people

6:51

who take this test are going to screen

6:53

negative on it. Most people will knock

6:55

it positive result. But for the people

6:57

who do get a positive result, there's about

7:00

a half dozen tests where

7:02

we found that those positive results

7:04

are wrong about eighty five percent

7:07

of the time.

7:11

Wow. I mean, we're talking

7:13

about testing for rare conditions.

7:16

So as you're saying, most of these are going

7:18

to come negative. Yes. But for the

7:20

positive ones, you're saying as many

7:22

as More than eighty percent of

7:24

them, eighty out of a hundred of those positive

7:26

tests could be incorrect. Yeah.

7:29

And the numbers can get

7:31

even higher. There's one test we looked

7:33

at, start condition that occurs in about

7:35

one in twenty thousand births.

7:37

We found that ninety three percent of

7:40

the positive results for that test

7:42

turn out to be wrong on further testing.

7:44

And so it's a pretty big share. And

7:46

again, These are the tests that are

7:49

being sold in that marketing that is talking

7:51

about total confidence, peace of

7:53

mind, clear results, These

7:56

are some of the tests being sold with that

7:58

type of language.

8:05

We'll be right back.

8:15

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Whether it's about what shapes our political identities

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can't do that without subscriber support. If

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Times, you can do that at n y

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times dot com slash subscribe.

9:34

And thanks.

9:36

Sayers, you said a lot of these positive

9:39

tests end up being wrong.

9:42

Why are they so wrong? How is this happening?

9:44

It mostly has to do with the fact

9:46

that these are pretty rare conditions. These

9:48

are conditions that occur in maybe one

9:51

in four thousand, two at the rarest

9:53

one in a hundred thousand births.

9:55

And when you have a rare condition, this isn't just

9:57

true in prenatal testing. It's true in a lot of

9:59

testing. When you have a rare condition,

10:02

you're likely gonna generate more false

10:04

positives than true ones because

10:06

you're just looking for something that doesn't exist

10:08

a lot. Right. Needle in haystack.

10:11

Exactly. And so you find

10:13

lot of hay in a haystack when you are

10:15

just looking for that one

10:16

needle. Do the companies know about

10:19

any of this? They haven't marketed themselves

10:21

as the ones who can identify these rare

10:23

genetic conditions. But what

10:25

we're seeing from these test results are

10:28

that the positive results are often

10:30

not

10:30

true. Did they know that before you did?

10:33

Some of them did and they certainly could have

10:36

because the way that we did our research

10:38

was essentially looking for any study

10:40

we could find in the academic

10:42

world, outside the academic world that had

10:44

looked at how well these tests work. And

10:46

we eventually found about a half dozen

10:48

studies in this space some were conducted

10:51

by testing companies themselves, other

10:53

by independent academic researchers

10:55

and working with a few experts in this

10:57

space we developed some methods to

10:59

combine all those findings and kind

11:01

of produce the most comprehensive look that

11:04

we could at how well

11:06

these positive results are doing.

11:08

And so the data we have is all

11:10

public. It's all out there. You know,

11:12

we took the time to sift through it and combine

11:15

it. And that's how we got to

11:17

our findings about how many of these positive

11:19

results turn out to be wrong.

11:21

I know that you've owned the medical billing

11:23

b these companies, I'm sure, are frightened

11:26

at the idea of a Sarah Cliff email.

11:28

But what did they actually say

11:31

when you took your findings to them?

11:33

So they said, you know, many

11:35

acknowledged our findings and

11:37

said that they still believe there's value

11:40

in this type of screening test because it is

11:42

picking up the true positives that it

11:44

is finding some of these cases of disorders

11:47

that parents would not have known about. Otherwise,

11:49

and that they said they try their best to be

11:52

very, very clear that it is a screening

11:54

test, it is not a diagnostic test.

11:57

The patient should be counseled on this test

11:59

before, so essentially be told here's

12:01

what a positive result would mean for you.

12:04

So they are making the case that these tests

12:06

are doing more good by identifying cases

12:09

of disease. But that experience

12:11

they talk about, how each patient should be counseled,

12:13

how they should give consent for these tests,

12:16

that was really different than

12:18

the experience I heard about interviewing

12:21

more than a dozen women who had received

12:23

a positive result that turned out to be wrong.

12:26

Yeah. That's what I was going to ask.

12:28

What is the experience of these women

12:30

who are getting the positive results?

12:33

Because of course, when they receive that

12:35

test result, they don't know. It's a false

12:37

positive. Right? So how does

12:39

what is seemingly very,

12:41

very bad news? Being

12:44

received by these women?

12:46

I had, you know, multiple women describe

12:48

this as the worst time of their

12:50

lives, the time between when they received

12:53

this results and when they later learned

12:55

that the result was wrong.

12:57

And, you know, I met a lot of these women through

12:59

the red form I mentioned earlier -- Mhmm.

13:01

-- one that really stands out to me is a woman

13:03

named Yael Galler who you'd

13:05

spent a year of fertility treatments trying

13:08

to get pregnant with her second child

13:10

and was so so excited when her pregnancy

13:12

test was positive. You know, she had

13:14

normal ultrasound. She told her three year

13:16

old about this brother sister that was in

13:18

her tummy. It seemed like everything was finally

13:20

working. And she is driving

13:23

her son home from school one day when she gets

13:25

this call saying she had

13:27

screen positive for a condition. You

13:29

know, she didn't even know she was being screened for.

13:31

It's called Prada Willie syndrome. And

13:34

it's a pretty serious condition.

13:36

You know, she starts doing a lot of research,

13:38

a lot of googling. She'd never heard

13:40

of this

13:40

before. Yeah.

13:41

I I've never heard of this either. What

13:43

is it? Yeah. So it

13:46

is not well known because it's quite rare,

13:48

so the outcomes can be

13:50

quite variable. But we know

13:52

it's associated with mental illness. It's

13:55

associated with significant developmental delays.

13:57

And there really is very little chance

13:59

of independent living as an

14:01

adult for people who have this condition.

14:04

And she, you know, went

14:06

home, her husband rushed home from work,

14:09

and they sit down on the couch and she's,

14:11

you know, crying as she's saying, we

14:13

might have to think about terminating this

14:16

this pregnancy that we really, really

14:18

wanted. Mhmm. And so for you

14:20

all, her next

14:22

steps move actually pretty quickly. She

14:25

is able to get an appointment for a diagnostic

14:27

something that's gonna give her a more definitive result

14:30

the next day. And it's a test

14:32

that involves basically sticking a very

14:34

large needle into her placenta

14:37

and pulling out a bit of tissue. She

14:39

found it pretty painful. She had

14:41

to take a few days to rest in bed. Her toddler

14:43

was asking about the boohoo on her stomach.

14:46

And then they wait. They wait

14:48

to get the results and see what's happening.

14:51

And it's a pretty agonizing time

14:53

to not know which way this is going to

14:56

go. And then they finally, about two

14:58

weeks later, get the phone call that

15:00

it turns out the original result looks to be

15:02

wrong and that they're future

15:05

child does not have Prader Willi syndrome.

15:07

And, you know, they were quite relieved,

15:10

but, you know, again, describe it as a really,

15:12

really challenging experience to have gone through.

15:15

Yeah, all's weight was actually pretty short.

15:17

You know, most of the women I talked to had

15:20

to wait, you know, a month or longer, in some

15:22

cases, two months. To get their follow-up

15:24

testing done and learn if this

15:26

original result was right or wrong.

15:28

And that's a really long time to kind

15:30

of sit with this kind of uncertainty. Yeah.

15:33

You know, they described some taking

15:35

time off of school or work because they just

15:37

couldn't focus the lost income

15:39

that came along with that. Some

15:42

spent thousands of dollars on their follow-up testing

15:44

for things that their insurance companies wouldn't

15:47

cover. You know, they tried to hide their

15:49

pregnancies wearing baggy clothes to,

15:51

you know, not let people know because in some

15:53

of these cases that they're testing for,

15:56

the infant mortality rate is incredibly high.

15:58

So the stakes are really quite high

16:00

of, you know, the type of things they're testing

16:03

for. And we do know

16:05

some portion that's likely quite small,

16:07

but does exist, don't get

16:09

that follow-up testing that they are supposed too.

16:12

In doing my reporting for this story,

16:14

I talked to three geneticists who

16:16

were involved with cases where someone screened

16:18

positive on one of the tests I was writing

16:20

about and terminated a pregnancy

16:23

before either before

16:25

or with never getting a diagnostic

16:28

test afterwards. Again, we do not think this

16:30

is the dominant experience, but

16:32

we've seen it documented in some academic

16:35

literature, in a previous investigation,

16:37

and in my own reporting. So

16:40

you're saying that in some rare

16:42

instances, women actually

16:44

terminated their pregnancy under

16:47

what is essentially

16:50

false pretenses, given bad

16:52

information. Yes. Wow.

16:54

And, you know, it's possible some women face

16:56

they really wrenching choice about whether

16:58

they can wait as abortion laws

17:01

get more restrictive. This type

17:03

of test is usually done about ten weeks of pregnancy.

17:06

An amniothesis can't be performed,

17:08

that's commonly the diagnostic test until

17:10

fifteen or sixteen weeks of pregnancy. In

17:13

that time, some women with more

17:15

restrictive abortion laws, you know, things

17:17

might change about whether they can obtain an

17:19

abortion or not. And, you know, I spoke with

17:21

another woman who lives in Indiana

17:24

who talked about really struggling to

17:26

schedule all the diagnostic follow-up

17:29

testing before her state's abortion ban

17:31

began. Well, and even, you know,

17:33

gaming out plans if I do have to terminate this pregnancy,

17:36

what state am I going to drive to in

17:38

order to be able to to do

17:40

that? Mhmm.

17:41

And even the people who do get a diagnostic

17:43

test, they find out it's a false positive.

17:45

Their baby doesn't have the condition. It's screen

17:48

positive for Some of them say

17:50

the experience really still lingers.

17:52

You know, I talked to two new

17:54

moms who developed postpartum depression, and

17:56

both of them really attributed it to kind

17:58

of the stress of going through this experience

18:01

of thinking that their baby had a pretty

18:03

significant disorder. I talked

18:05

to a new mom who has ten month old

18:07

to initially screen positive for disorder,

18:10

later learned that it was wrong. She

18:12

said she sometimes finds herself googling

18:14

the symptoms for whatever month old

18:16

he is of that disorder. She

18:19

wonders in the back of her head if the initial screaming

18:21

was wrong. Well, maybe the diagnostic test was

18:23

wrong. And she says, you know, I know it

18:25

sounds a little crazy. You

18:27

know, I hope I stopped doing this kind of googling

18:30

soon. But it just really

18:32

stays in the back of my mind that

18:34

it feels like some kind of possibility that

18:36

was introduced into my child's

18:38

future. I mean, if

18:41

these screenings introduce something that has

18:43

such a potentially big impact

18:46

-- Mhmm. -- on these women at such

18:48

a fraught time but do so with

18:50

such little accuracy. Did

18:52

the company speak to this kind

18:54

of emotional question? Did they

18:56

recognize that this isn't just a small

18:58

thing? That they're introducing a really big

19:01

variable into these folks'

19:03

lives

19:04

without, you know, accuracy. Yeah.

19:07

I think the thing I heard a lot from the companies

19:09

is that there should be this whole universe

19:11

that's around those tests. That there should

19:14

be genetic counseling. Before

19:16

you get the test, there should be informed consent

19:18

by the doctors saying I'm testing you for these

19:20

things, and that afterwards, everyone

19:22

should have access to some kind of genetic counseling

19:24

if they do get a positive result that can walk

19:27

them through what this actually means.

19:29

In practice though, that

19:32

universe just doesn't seem to exist

19:34

for a lot of women who are getting positive results.

19:37

We're finding that they

19:39

are done in quick prenatal

19:41

appointments. You know, some

19:43

doctors decide not to run these tests because they

19:45

find them quite unreliable. I talked to a number who

19:47

said, would not use this on my patients. And

19:50

some of those who do, we've, you know, found

19:52

in our reporting talking to patients just

19:54

didn't seem to understand what

19:56

exactly a positive result on this test

19:59

meant. You also see

20:01

doctors operating an ecosystem where

20:03

they are dealing with Advertising

20:05

that former FDA officials tell us

20:07

is misleading, raises red

20:10

flags, and one case add for

20:12

doctors with numbers that were

20:14

described as meaningless by a former

20:16

FDA

20:16

official. So they're in a universe

20:19

where the advertising isn't regulated. They're

20:22

ordering a lot of tests for their patients and

20:24

might not fully understand what it

20:26

means when one of them comes positive for

20:28

the tests that we're writing about. How

20:30

is it possible that such an

20:32

inaccurate test is allowed to be

20:35

marketed to doctors in the first place

20:37

or is allowed to be marketed to patients

20:40

ask something that should give them peace of mind.

20:42

I feel like we have a highly

20:44

regulated medical

20:46

industry. How can this happen?

20:49

Yes, so these tests exist

20:51

in world where they do not get food

20:53

and drug administration oversight. They

20:55

are pretty much exempt from that

20:57

regulatory agency, which usually looks

21:00

after blood tests and MRIs

21:02

and all the sorts of other things we get in doctor offices.

21:05

Their what's known as a laboratory developed

21:08

test, a test that was made in laboratory

21:10

is running that same laboratory, and

21:12

for kind of wonky historical

21:14

reasons, these tests are exempt

21:16

from FDA oversight, which

21:19

means there's no one really reviewing the claims

21:21

there's no one looking over the data behind

21:24

these tests to say, you know, are

21:26

the claims about what they're saying accurate?

21:28

It's basically test makers designing

21:31

their studies, creating data,

21:33

and deciding how they want to describe that data

21:35

to patients and

21:36

doctors. Howard Bauchner: You know, it's giving

21:38

Theranos I mean, how how

21:41

is this not? What you're

21:42

describing? Just a big loophole. Yeah.

21:45

So it it I wanna be clear again. This is

21:47

not theranos. The downscreaming

21:49

is a good product that a lot

21:51

of obstetricians really think is a great development.

21:55

But when you get into these newer tests,

21:57

there are a lot of obstetricians and geneticists

22:00

that are questioning their value

22:03

And at the end of the day, it leads

22:05

to, you know, some important diagnoses

22:07

for, you know, cases where they find true positives.

22:10

But a lot of English and, you know,

22:12

a lot of stress for the women who are getting

22:14

the false positives that are more common

22:16

than the true

22:17

ones. Mhmm. So what

22:19

should folks take away from that?

22:22

If you are a pregnant woman listening to this

22:24

podcast, should you get the test?

22:26

Yeah. You know, as a pregnant woman taping this

22:28

podcast, it's a question I care

22:30

a lot about. And, you know, I think they

22:33

should take away, is one

22:35

that the downscreaming is a reliable

22:37

product. The body that governs

22:39

obstetricians, they recommend that screening.

22:41

They also recommend the screenings for trisomy

22:44

eighteen and thirteen. They feel like those are really

22:46

accurate enough and have the data to,

22:49

you know, be recommended to all pregnant women

22:51

in the United States. But that

22:54

if they want to pursue these other tests

22:56

or if their doctors suggest they pursue these

22:58

other tests, they should really go into

23:00

that with their eyes open about

23:03

what a positive result really means.

23:05

Most expectant parents, including

23:07

myself, get a negative result on these

23:10

tests, and they don't really think twice about it

23:12

and go on with their pregnancy. But,

23:14

you know, I would think about going into this

23:16

kind of prepared with your eyes open of

23:19

what am I being screened for? How

23:21

often are the positive results right?

23:24

And if I get a positive results, you know,

23:26

what happens next?

23:29

And thinking of it I guess, less

23:31

as, you know, all upside. You're just

23:33

gonna learn something about your pregnancy, but

23:36

that there are really risks that come along

23:38

with taking a test like

23:39

this. It seems like you're describing a

23:41

situation kind of that the company said was

23:43

the ideal one. That there would be that risk communication.

23:46

Mhmm. That there would be that level of counseling

23:48

and understanding of kind of what you're getting

23:50

into, but that without

23:53

that, it produces some of the experiences

23:56

of the women that you talk.

23:58

Yeah. And unfortunately, I just the infrastructure

24:01

for that is not there right now.

24:03

You know, one genetic counselor interviewed for this

24:05

story said they're just aren't enough

24:07

of them to counsel all four million

24:10

women who are pregnant. There just

24:12

aren't enough genetic counselors. There are not

24:14

enough time in these short prenatal care

24:16

visits to really go through an informed consent

24:18

process right now. So think that ideal

24:21

world is one that can be envisioned But

24:23

in terms of turning it into reality,

24:25

we are pretty far from that right

24:27

now. Mhmm. One thing that could

24:29

stand in for the infrastructure is some kind of

24:32

government regulation. Where instead

24:34

of, you know, me as a patient asking my

24:36

doctor, all these questions, the

24:39

government could be regulating the information

24:41

that these testmakers put out. They could say,

24:44

you can't make that claim about having total

24:46

confidence in every result, or you have to publish

24:48

better data on how many of your

24:50

positive results are right or wrong. But

24:53

without that kind of oversight, this seems

24:55

like an area of prenatal testing, that

24:58

is going to keep growing

25:01

and the onus will really be on patients and

25:03

their doctors to sort through some

25:06

pretty complex information that took,

25:08

you know, me and another reporter about four

25:10

months to sort through, to get

25:12

to, you know, a really good understanding.

25:15

And that feels like quite a

25:17

a burden to put on the expectant parents

25:19

of of America to do that exact kind of

25:21

sorting.

25:22

Just forcing every expectant parent to just

25:24

become a investigative journalist. We

25:27

could use a few more, but I don't think this is

25:29

the right way to do the recruiting. Thank

25:39

you for your time. Thank you for reporting,

25:41

and we'll be thinking of you in the coming weeks.

25:44

Yeah. Thanks, instead.

25:56

We'll be right back.

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26:41

Here's what else you should note to that.

26:44

After four months of court proceedings, Elizabeth

26:47

Holmes the founder of the failed blood

26:49

testing startup Theranos was

26:51

found guilty Monday on four

26:54

wire fraud charges for lying

26:56

to investors. Each

26:58

count carries a maximum sentence

27:00

of twenty years in prison. The

27:02

jury found home's not guilty on

27:05

three other charges of defrauding patients

27:08

and were unable to reach a verdict on

27:10

several other charges. And

27:14

as coronavirus infections continue

27:16

to surge, due to the Omerkran variant.

27:19

Several major school districts from

27:21

Detroit to Newark switch

27:23

from in person to remote learning.

27:26

But in New York, the city's new

27:28

mayor, Eric Adams, vowed

27:30

to keep schools open. Even

27:32

as staff shortages threatened to become

27:34

more severe, We gonna do everything

27:37

that we have to do to keep our schools

27:39

open. And I know there's questions about

27:41

school. Today's episode was

27:43

produced by Michael Simon Johnson and Sydney

27:46

Harper. It was edited by Page

27:48

Cowen and LaRissa Anderson. It

27:50

contains original music, Viberian

27:53

LaZama, and it was engineered

27:55

by Corey Schremel. Our

27:57

theme music is by Jim Grunberg

27:59

and Ben Lansberg. Of wonderly. That's

28:07

it for the daily. I must have heard

28:09

it. See, sir.

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