Just days after The Dark Report and Dark Daily alerted the laboratory industry to systemic problems with “home brew” mass spectrometry Vitamin D testing at Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX) during a period starting in early 2007 and lasting into mid-2008, the New York Times has confirmed the essential details of this extraordinary story.
In the Thursday, January 8, 2009, edition of the New York Times, reporter Andrew Pollack wrote a story titled “Lab Acknowledges Problem with Vitamin D Test.” In balanced coverage, Pollack provided information about Quest Diagnostics’ acknowledgement that it had reported inaccurate results for what appears to be about a year and a half. He also quoted physicians on the various clinical issues associated with Vitamin D testing, Vitamin D therapy, and the role Vitamin D plays in various diseases.
The exact magnitude of the problem remains unknown, because Quest Diagnostics has neither disclosed the number of physicians who received letters about erroneous Vitamin D results reported on their patients, nor the number of patients for whom inaccurate Vitamin 25(OH) D test results were reported by Quest Diagnostics during the 2007-2008 time period.
However, competing laboratories in the New York metropolitan area have told The Dark Report and Dark Daily that thousands of physicians in this region received Vitamin D recall/retest letters from Quest Diagnostics. Most of these letters were sent in October 2008. Each physician may have had as few as a handful of patients to retest, or as many as several hundred. Thus, just in the New York region, it would not be unreasonable to estimate that tens of thousands of patients are involved in this Vitamin D retest program.
One clue to the total number of inaccurate results was provided in The New York Times story, which wrote that “Dr. Salameh [Wael A. Salameh, M.D., Medical Director, Endocrinology at Quest Nichols Institute in San Juan Capistrano, California] said the inaccurate results represented fewer than 10% of all the vitamin D tests done by the Quest from early 2007 to mid 2008. And even many of the possibly inaccurate results were probably accurate, he said, because Quest sent letters even if there was only a remote chance that the test was erroneous.”
Take Salameh’s statement that “fewer than 10% of all the Vitamin D tests” were inaccurate, and assume a 9% rate of inaccurate tests. Next, combine that with a rough estimate that Quest Diagnostics performed between 5 million and 7 million Vitamin D results during 2007-2008, and one comes up a possible range of between 450,000 to 630,000 inaccurate Vitamin D test results.
That’s a lot of patients-and a lot of doctors! Assume 10 patients per doctor, and that means Quest Diagnostics may have reported inaccurate Vitamin D results to between 45,000 and 63,000 doctors! If the real numbers approach these estimates of affected patients and referring physicians, then this is a laboratory failure without precedent.
How could something this troubling happen at the nation’s largest laboratory company? According to the New York Times, Salameh stated that “some materials used to calibrate test results were faulty.” Salameh also admitted that “four of Quest’s seven testing laboratories around the country did not follow proper procedures for some period of time.”
The January 12 issue of The Dark Report will have additional intelligence briefings on this unfolding story. Dark Daily readers interested in becoming a subscribing member to The Dark Report can act immediately with this link (or copy this URL and paste in your browser: http://www.darkreport.com/dark/subscribe.htm).
The current issue of The Dark Report (dated December 22, 2008) was the first public news reporting on Quest Diagnostics’ problems with Vitamin D testing. This issue has been distributed to existing subscribing members. Dark Daily readers can see the individual intelligence briefings by using this link (or pasting this URL in your browser: http://www.darkreport.com/dark/past.htm) For more information on Charter Memberships go here.
Dark Daily asks that anyone with knowledge of this remarkable story about inaccurate Vitamin D results and willing to share insights can contact editor Robert L. Michel in complete confidence at rmichel@darkreport.com or by dialing 512-264-7103.
Related Information:
- Lab Acknowledges Problem With Vitamin D Test
- Quest Diagnostics Retesting Patients Due to Inaccurate Vitamin D Results!
- Send your comment or opinion about the voluntary Vitamin D retesting program now taking place at Quest Diagnostics by emailing info@darkdaily.com
