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A 37-year-old father of two is not in a position to costume himself, communicate clearly, or transfer giant parts of the left aspect of his physique after an allegedly botched prognosis by a buzzy healthcare startup that counts Kim Kardashian amongst its superstar endorsers and 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki amongst its A-list traders.
In July 2023, New Jersey resident Sean Clifford laid out $2,500 for an AI-assisted full-body scan from Prenuvo, a California-based company that gives sufferers “an MRI like no other.” The boutique process, which isn’t coated by insurance coverage, is marketed as one which checks “for hundreds of conditions, including most solid tumors at Stage 1, and silent killers like aneurysms.”
“No evidence of proximal intracranial arterial aneurysm,” the Prenuvo radiologist who learn Clifford’s scan wrote in his chart.
But, in truth, the scan confirmed exactly that: an “obvious” vascular blockage in Clifford’s mind that any certified doctor ought to have clocked as an indication of impending catastrophe, in keeping with an eye-popping lawsuit obtained by The Independent.
Nine months later, the lawsuit says Clifford sustained “a full-blown catastrophic stroke… in the exact same area… where he had the Prenuvo scan,” requiring three emergency mind surgical procedures to avoid wasting his life.
The submitting lays out the methods wherein the finance entrepreneur has since suffered, detailing, amongst different issues, in depth paralysis on the left aspect of his physique, imaginative and prescient issues, cognitive delays, incapacity to talk correctly, and “profound neurological deficits.”
Attorney Neal Bhushan, who’s representing Clifford in court docket, known as his consumer’s state of affairs “devastating.”
“[It] could have been prevented, had the MRI scan been properly interpreted,” Bhushan instructed The Independent. “Very tragic. This family deserves justice — it is not right what happened.”
Bhushan pointed to Clifford’s Prenuvo report, which he stated on Wednesday “clearly shows” a 60 p.c narrowing of the proximal proper center cerebral artery, in keeping with a third-party neurologist employed by the household and cited all through the lawsuit.
“This should have been documented in the MRI report,” Bhushan stated. “And it wasn’t.”
Caught in time, the blocked blood vessel may have been handled with “targeted stenting or other minimally invasive procedures,” the lawsuit states, noting that Clifford will now require “lifetime physical and occupational and other therapies and special education.”
A Prenuvo consultant didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
Prenuvo presently has greater than a dozen clinics throughout the US and Canada, with plans to almost double that footprint. The company has raised in extra of $70 million, with backers that embody Wojcicki, supermodel Cindy Crawford, Nest Labs founder Tony Fadell, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Aside from Kim Kardashian and numerous members of her household, Clifford’s lawsuit notes that Prenuvo has been namechecked on social media by, amongst others, Paris Hilton, Maria Menounos, and actress Lisa Rinna.
“The company has been generating buzz thanks to some of its high-profile clientele who have told millions of Instagram followers about the ‘life-saving machine,’” Clifford’s lawsuit states.
Yet, the surface neurologist Clifford employed to re-read his Prenuvo chart stated the company “failed to document crucial, life-saving medical information,” incorrectly describing his cerebral and cerebellar vasculature as regular,” in keeping with the swimsuit. “There were worrisome areas of arterial stenosis, especially in the right middle cerebral artery, and [Clifford] subsequently had an ischemic infarction in the distribution of the right middle cerebral artery.”
The companies Prenuvo supplied Clifford had been rendered “carelessly, unskillfully, negligently, and not in accordance with good and accepted standards of medical, radiological, and/or hospital care in the community and constituted medical, hospital, radiology, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, and professional malpractice,” the lawsuit contends.
It claims Prenuvo “materially breached the terms of the Patient Agreement and on their website by informing plaintiff that his head scan was normal.”
Clifford is suing on quite a few causes of motion, together with medical malpractice, negligence, gross negligence, lack of knowledgeable consent, negligent hiring and retention, lack of consortium and companies, and breach of contract. His spouse has been “deprived of the services, companionship, society, consortium and support of her spouse,” in keeping with the swimsuit, and the couple’s two kids, each of whom are beneath the age of three, “have been deprived of guidance, love, and affection by… Clifford.”
He is asking for compensatory damages and punitive damages to be decided by a jury.
A GoFundMe marketing campaign arrange by Clifford’s household has to this point raised $55,000 of its $125,000 objective.
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