Averhealth Files Defamation Suit Against ProPublica
In January 2026, ProPublica and reporter Alice Hines published a story about Averhealth that paints an inaccurate and distorted picture of our company, most egregiously by suggesting that our drug testing is materially inaccurate. That claim is false. ProPublica and Hines knew it was false and published it anyway. On August 26, 2026 we filed a defamation lawsuit against them in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri, to shine a light on those falsehoods, hold ProPublica accountable, and defend our integrity for the public record.
The false story traces to a former laboratory employee who worked at Averhealth part-time for roughly seven weeks in the fall of 2020. She misunderstood our calibration methodology, resigned without notice, and then, through attorneys, demanded $1.25 million to settle a wrongful-termination claim she later conceded under oath was baseless. When we refused to pay her, she filed suit falsely alleging that a large percentage of our tests were inaccurate.
Every institution that examined that allegation rejected it. The U.S. Department of Justice investigated for years and reviewed millions of our documents; it never found fault with the accuracy of a single test. It declined to pursue the former employee’s core allegation. A second lawsuit alleging false positives, which the ProPublica article also relied upon heavily, collapsed once its plaintiffs were placed under oath. Several admitted lying about their drug use, one had her claims dismissed as a sanction for two years of false testimony, and none were able to identify a single inaccurate test result.
The College of American Pathologists conducted its own assessment in parallel, as did Michigan’s independent evaluator. Our accreditor placed us on temporary probation while investigating. Its own published standards required it to escalate that probation to suspension when there is a substantial risk to patients, but it found none. Nor did it find any risk of inaccurate results. Instead it recommended process improvements, which we promptly implemented.
ProPublica knowingly muddied this factual record by focusing on the one claim among eighteen that the DoJ did pursue, which was over a contract compliance question, and ended in a settlement that, again, had zero to do with test accuracy.
ProPublica knew all of this, not least because we told them. For more than three years we answered every inquiry with hundreds of pages of court records, sworn testimony, and documentary evidence, across dozens of letters. When the article published anyway, we demanded a retraction, documenting how the piece assembled a false picture through omission and misleading juxtaposition, and we offered a statement for publication.
ProPublica’s response was two words: “We decline.”
Averhealth performs roughly 2.5 million drug tests a year for courts, probation departments, and child welfare agencies deciding custody, treatment, and public safety matters. Those institutions, and the families who depend on them, deserve accurate information, not a narrative built on provable distortions that its authors will not correct. Journalism carries a responsibility to the public it serves, and when an outlet abandons that duty, it must answer.
Accountability is at the core of what we do. Our scientific work is confirmed by independent auditing: Each month our accrediting body sends the laboratory blind samples of unknown composition and grades our results. Our laboratory produces confirmation testing that meets and exceeds the highest standard of testing, producing forensically defensible and scientifically valid results.
The people who count on us deserve to have full confidence in our work. That is why we have taken this action, and why we will continue setting the record straight in the public discourse.
— Dominque Hummel, CEO
