It has been an interesting few weeks for Pam Marrone. Last summer, her first biotech company, AgraQuest, was sold to Bayer for 425 million dollars, and while she was long gone from the company by this point, she was the one who founded it in 1995 and grew it to the point where it could yield this kind of profit.
As Davis mourns the loss of Bayer-AgraQuest, the second company by Pam Marrone, Marrone Bio Innovations, Inc., made its debut last week on the Nasdaq, becoming the first new IPO in the Sacramento region since 2006.
The Sacramento Bee notes that this is expected to raise about $57 million to make the company more attractive to employees and to bring more of its chemical-free farm pesticides to the market.
“The IPO is a vindication for Marrone, 56, who founded another successful Davis biotech company, AgraQuest, years earlier but didn’t get to taste the fruits of cashing in,” the Bee reports. “AgraQuest’s attempt to go public in 2001 was shelved when the stock market faltered after 9/11. And Marrone was long gone, with her ownership stake diluted to next to nothing, when AgraQuest was sold to Bayer CropScience last summer for $425 million.”
While we can celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of Ms. Marrone and her companies, my thoughts have turned to that of David Bell.
In October of 2008, the Sacramento News and Review and the fledgling Davis Vanguard publication covered the story of David Bell.
David Bell said he was looking for a good and “honest” job with AgraQuest, as he was a semester away from earning his bachelor’s degree in biology from Sacramento State. It was 1998, three years after the founding of AgraQuest by Pam Marrone, who at that point was a respected entomologist, specializing in agriculture and insects at Monsanto.
Reported the News and Review, “Five months later, he came down with severe flu symptoms. His face and teeth grew numb. Breathing became difficult and he developed severe headaches. His nose bled and his sputum turned bloody.”
Mr. Bell would be laid off in June 1999, but according to the News and Review, he was unable to continue work.
He told the weekly publication, “I had to resign, due to uncontrollable throwing up traveling to and from work on [Interstate] 80.”
Ten years later, they continue, “Four sinus surgeries and numerous medical treatments later, Bell remains incapacitated by the illness, which he and his mother, Sandi Trend, of Citrus Heights, claim was caused by bacteria and fungi he was exposed to at AgraQuest.”
The travesty in this case is not that Mr. Bell got sick, it is how he was treated within the system – and not just by AgraQuest, but by the worker’s compensation system itself.
At the workers’ compensation hearing, the News and Review reported, “Denise Manker, AgraQuest’s vice president of global product development, testified that the company and its employees followed proper safety procedures and had tested its strain of Bacillus subtilis to ensure it did not contain a substance that causes allergic reactions. While noting that soil samples in the laboratory can be hazardous if handled incorrectly, she said it was highly unlikely that Bell had become infected by the Bacillus subtilis, since it’s not known to be harmful to humans.”
Doug Haney is an advocate for human and patient rights, who specializes in mold and microbe exposure. He wrote a book entitled “Toxic Mold! Toxic Enemy!” In it, he argues that over the years many researchers and doctors have been skeptical about the possibility of micro fungi infection, however, in recent years there is increasing evidence of the danger of such organisms.
David Bell visited the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and they discovered a whole range of possible infectious agents. Sandi Trend, Bell’s mother, as stated above, was able to link many of the agents in the patents that AgraQuest was using to agents found in David Bell’s body over the course of the last decade.
“According to peer-reviewed articles in British medical journal The Lancet, and other sources, serious questions have been raised about the safety of Bacillus subtilis for humans and animals,” the News and Review noted. “Tests conducted at the clinic determined Bell had histo yeast, a mold found in soil, in his blood serum. He had developed histoplasmosis, which according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention affects the lungs and other organs and can be fatal if not treated.”
Cal/OSHA investigated AgraQuest and found three of its ventilator hoods did not meet state standards. However, this was unrelated to the problems that David Bell is suffering from.
The News and Review wrote, “Bell also learned that the Sutter Health doctor who performed his first sinus surgery in 1999 had failed to collect cultures of his bodily fluids, making it difficult to prove he was infected at AgraQuest.”
However, the statute of limitations to his ability to recover damages proved daunting, and it was not helped by AgraQuest’s obstruction and record keeping.
“When he first began experiencing symptoms in 1999, Bell says AgraQuest did not provide him with a claim form for potential benefits under the state workers’ compensation system, as required by the California Labor Code,” the News and Review reported. “By the time he filed in October 2003, it was too late. Last year, workers’ compensation administrative law Judge Suzanne F. Dugan denied his claim because it had been filed ‘over four years after his termination of employment.’ That, according to the judge, made Bell’s injury claim moot.”
While David Bell would appeal that ruling, he lost.
In our view, this case was not handled right from the start. AgraQuest put a lot of effort into covering themselves from liability and little effort into making sure one of their young employees, who may have been exposed to substances on the job, was properly taken care of.
While Pam Marrone has been putting together $57 million in IPO’s, David Bell continues to struggle to function on an everyday basis and to provide for his family.
One incident, as critical as it to the Bell family, does not detract from the success of AgraQuest or Ms. Marrone, but it should have been handled better and, whether she acknowledges it or not, she does bear ultimate responsibility here.
Unfortunately, Ms. Marrone never talked to the News and Review or the Vanguard and so we have never been able to hear her side of the story on it.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
For every legitimate case of work-related employee disability, there are dozens if not hundreds of cases of employee fraud. We need to start looking at this as a growing national problem and also a big reason why people with legitimate cases are fought by employers.
It is convenient to just blame employers for this. But there are many mitigating factors. For one, these cases are generally turned over to disability and workers compensation claims managers working for the employer’s insurance carriers. These entities work within the medical service provider industry to conduct the necessary medical tests and evaluations to render a medical-opinion as to the state of the employees disability and any work-related causation. Employees can challenge assessments and appeal. The process can take time, and it is not perfect, but employees have quite a bit of power to prove work-caused disability.
But the process is difficult, and employers and insurance companies generally start with a premise that the claimant is either lying or mistaken about their symptoms or cause of their symptoms. They do this because they have been inundated over the years with claims. Frankly, there are more unethical, lazy and coping-challenged people out there dreaming about securing long-term disability and workers compensation payments so they no longer have to work. There is no other way to explain the huge spike in the number of people classified as disabled. It some states as many as almost 19% of the entire potential workforce is classified as disabled and unable to work.
Here are some quick and interesting facts related to this topic:
[quote]Quick Facts:
There are 36 million people who have at least one disability, about 12 percent of the total U.S. population.
Those with vision difficulties number 6.5 million, while 19.4 million have problems walking or climbing stairs.
Another 13.5 million have difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions.
Population Distribution:
36 million – Number of people who have a disability. They represent 12 percent of the civilian non-institutionalized population.
By age:
* 5 percent of children 5 to 17 have disabilities.
* 10 percent of people 18 to 64 have disabilities.
* 37 percent of adults 65 and older have disabilities.
12.3% – Percentage of females with a disability, compared with 11.6 percent of males.
18.8% – Percentage of people with a disability in West Virginia, highest of all states. Utah has the lowest with 8.9 percent of its residents reporting a disability.
On the Job:
6% – Percentage of disabled workers 16 and older who use public transportation to commute to work. In addition, 70 percent of people with a disability drive alone, 13 percent carpool, 4 percent walk and 3 percent use a taxicab, motorcycle, bicycle or other means.
22% – Percentage of disabled workers 16 and older who work in the educational services and health care and social assistance industries, the highest of any industry.
Income and Poverty:
21% – Percent of the population age 16 and older with a disability that are below the poverty level. Eleven percent of the population age 16 and older without a disability are below the poverty level.
72% – Percentage of disabled people 16 and older who are not in the labor force. Twenty-seven percent of people without a disability are not in the labor force.
$18,865 – Median earnings of the population age 16 and older with a disability, this compares with $28,983 for the population without a disability.
Serving Our Nation:
$35.3 billion – Amount of compensation veterans received for service-connected disabilities in fiscal year 2008.
Education:
28% – Percentage of people 25 and older with a disability who have less than a high school graduate education. This compares with 12 percent for those with no disability.
13% – Percentage of people 25 and older with a disability who have a bachelor’s degree or higher. This compares with 31 percent for those with no disability.
Source: 2009 American Community Survey http://factfinder.census.gov
[/quote]
OK, we go back 15 years and find a sort-term employee contract “flu-like symptoms” that subsequently resulted in multiple treatments and surgeries. Bell and his Mom contend that the cause of the affliction was attributable to Pam Marrone and her company, Agra Quest. Pam is charged with bearing ultimate responsibility for this affliction. Yet, no direct evidence is presented to fix this responsibility on her or her company.
Vaguely-worded science articles are offered to allege soil toxins are more troublesome that originally feared, but, again, no proof given that these toxins were unchecked (or even existed) at Agra Quest. A counter argument could be posed that Bell contracted these afflictions somewhere else, including a biology lab at UCD.
A Cal/OSHA investigation could find no evidence in support of this claim. A Worker’s Compensation hearing and appeal failed due, reportedly, to a statute of limitations issue.
Agra Quest and its successor company has employed many employees over the span of two decades. It’s difficult to picture Bell as being the only one afflicted by unsafe exposure to toxins in that work environment. Why hasn’t there been no mention of similar claims from other workers? In particular, where are the claims, governmental investigations, or lawsuits from Bell’s co-workers who had potentially far longer exposure than Bell’s brief employment history?
Frankly: Not sure the point of your post. This guy has serious health issues, he has been to the Mayo Clinic multiple times and they are frankly a little mystified.
Phil: It is possible that he could have contracted them elsewhere. The timing suggests otherwise. The Cal/osHA investigation didn’t look into determining the cause, they were apparently not equipped for that level of investigation, so they did a cursory look. The other issue was the statute of limitations. I think your point that they have employed a number of people over the years is solid, it is worth noting that the problem was early on, David Bell and his mother, felt there were others, I’m sure they’ve tightened things up. My only reason for posting this article now is that it’s a case that has always bothered me because I felt like no one really cared that a young man was very ill and they have helped.
[i]Frankly: Not sure the point of your post. This guy has serious health issues, he has been to the Mayo Clinic multiple times and they are frankly a little mystified.[/i]
I think my post was a sort of visceral response to the subtext of this article that blames the company for causing his health problems and then denying him his claims.
David:
“My only reason for posting this article now is that . . . I felt like no one really cared that a young man was very ill and they have helped.”
I presume that comment was meant to say “have not helped.” Liability-wise it would not be responsible for Agra Quest to help. It would be an acknowledgement of fault, which remains extremely dubious after 15 elapsed years.
The main thrust of the article, however, was directed towards Pam Marrone. She and her company are depicted as more concerned with IPO money than the welfare of Bell. Her company is described as obstructionist and a failure in record keeping, with no amplification. In the context of the column, these actions appear as being sinister.
The column acknowledges that Pam’s side of events have not been heard. From that point alone, I’d much prefer some qualified assessment of this 15-year-old story rather than full acceptance of Bell’s story and a summary judgement of Marrone being ultimately responsible.
Small wonder than Pam declined to respond to requests for a response. No organization, public or private, can find any value in debating on a blog the worthiness of claims or assertions from former employees.
There was no liability four years or ten years after the fact, that was the whole point the statute of limitations was run before they even considered the linkage. Much of what is written here is pulled from the 2008 News and Review article. I’m not looking for a debate, just expressing my belief things weren’t handled properly. Interesting talking around to various folks in the field, they tend to agree.
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