Entrepreneurship seen as alternative to bleak job market, but hurdles loom

By Sarah E. Needleman in the Wall Street Journal:

An increasing number of people with disabilities are exploring entrepreneurship, responding to an competitive job market that offers them few opportunities, experts say. The unemployment rate for workers with disabilities was 14.3 percent in June, more than 50 percent higher than the national unemployment rate for all American workers.

The jobless situation for workers with disabilities is even more dire than is reflected in official unemployment statistics, according to experts, because those numbers do not take account of individuals who have stopped looking for work, or who do not seek work for fear of losing government benefits.

Experts say they have seen a steady increase in the number of people with disabilities who are seeking grants, mentors, training and resources, but have not seen strong evidence that the supports are working.  “We have yet to show any significant increase in profit or individual incomes by these new business owners,” says Urban Miyares, president of a nonprofit business support agency in San Diego.

Says she lied to investors about prenatal DS test

From a Los Angeles Times blog,  San Diego Union-Tribune, Business Week, Motley Fool:

The former head of research and development at Sequenom Corp. has pleaded guilty to lying to investors and analysts about a company effort to develop a noninvasive prenatal screening test for Down syndrome.

As part of a plea bargain, Elizabeth Dragon admitted she was part of a conspiracy to inflate the company’s stock price, and agreed to help prosecutors in related cases. She admitted to making false claims to investors and analysts about the effectiveness of the test, and said she and others manipulated data to make the test appear more accurate than it was. Dragon’s sentencing is set for August 30.

“Elizabeth Dragon knew the truth about Sequenom’s Down syndrome test, yet she told the public it was a near-perfect success,” said Rosalind Tyson, who heads the Los Angeles office of the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Her actions misled investors with exaggerated information about a significant new product that never materialized.”

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, ABC News, Reuters:

Sequenom, a diagnostics testing and genetic analysis company, has announced it will pay $14 million and an undisclosed amount in stock to settle an investor class-action lawsuit over mishandling of data in the development of a potentially lucrative prenatal test for Down syndrome. The company did not admit wrongdoing.

The lawsuit came after the company’s stock lost more than three-quarters of its value last April. The company said then that its projections of the reliability of its prenatal test were not reliable, and said unnamed employees had not handled test data properly. Five top officers were fired and another resigned.

Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FBI, and federal prosecutors are still pending.

BNET columnist Jim Edwards said changes in corporate governance announced as part of the settlement suggest that lawsuits against the company “seem to have introduced adult supervision at a company in dire need of it.”

Sequenom officials had estimated that the worldwide market for a prenatal test for Down syndrome is worth between $3 billion and $5 billion.

Earlier posts here.

Stew Friedman, writing in the Harvard Business Review, says mental illness is often not taken seriously or treated as a legitimate disease by businesses, the health care system, or by society. As a consequence, he says, the business sector faces significant cost in lost productivity because employees feel they must carry this heavy weight of responsibility and worry by themselves.

It’s estimated that more than 26 percent of American adults have a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year, says Friedman. He urges companies to improve attitudes and language, and to change the corporate culture to be more supportive of people with mental illness.

From Bloomberg News, Dow Jones Newswires/Wall Street Journal, San Diego Business Journal, Market Watch:

San Diego-based Sequenom Inc. today announced the firings of two top executives following a five-month-long independent investigation of alleged mishandling of research data on a first-trimester blood test for Down syndrome. Company executives had touted its SEQureDx test as 100 percent accurate.

Terminated were CEO Harry Stylli and senior vice president for research Elizabeth Dragon, as well as three unnamed researchers. The company’s chief financial officer, Paul Hawran, and Steven Owings, who oversaw commercial development in prenatal diagnostics, also resigned.

The company said in a statement that it had “failed to put in place adequate protocols and controls for the conduct of studies” of its prenatal test for Down syndrome. “Certain employees also failed to provide adequate supervision.”

Test data “included inadequately substantiated claims, inconsistencies, and errors,” Sequenom said today. “Due to the deficiencies in our disclosure controls and procedures, in a number of instances such test data and results were reported to the public in our press releases and other public statement.”

… “We are no longer relying on, and the public should no longer rely on, any of our previously announced test data and results for our noninvasive prenatal test for [Down's Syndrome],

… Shares of Sequenom were halted prior to the news late Monday after closing at $5.69, down 71% for the year. In after-hours trading, the stock fell 44% to $3.18, close to the low of $2.86 hit in the wake of the initial disclosure of the issues in April.

Earlier posts here.

She says store made her feel like a ‘misfit’

From Minnesota Public Radio, [Minneapolis-St. Paul] Star Tribune:

Minnesota has fined retailer Abercrombie & Fitch $115,264 for discriminating against a person with a disability after store representatives refused to allow a family member to help a girl with autism in a dressing room.

The state’s Department of Human Rights imposed the fine after the company repeatedly refused to respond to the girl’s mother’s request for an apology and denied engaging in discriminatory practices. An administrative law judge found that the girl had suffered mental anguish as a result of the incident, which was witnessed by a long line of customers. “I am a misfit at Abercrombie,” she testified.

Just last month, a British tribunal fined Abercrombie & Fitch for unlawful harassment of a clerk for reasons related to her disability. Riam Dean had alleged that the company banished her to its stockroom after concluding that her prosthetic arm did not comply with its “look policy.”

The company paid $40 million to settle yet another discrimination lawsuit in 2004, admitting no wrongdoing but agreeing to new policies aimed at promoting diversity.

From the [UK] Times, BBC News, Associated Press, and AFP;

Riam Dean, 22, was awarded £9,000 by an employment tribunal after alleging that she was harassed and dismissed by the Abercrombie & Fitch clothing chain for reasons related to her disability.

Dean sued the clothing giant for discrimination, saying the firm’s London store banished her to the stockroom because her prosthetic arm didn’t meet the company’s “look policy,” then dismissed her over the disagreement. Dean, a law student, was born without a left forearm.

The Central London Employment Tribunal ruled that Dean was “unlawfully harassed for a reason that related to her disability” under the Disability Discrimination Act. The tribunal also found that the firm “failed to comply with its duty to make reasonable adjustments” for her disability.

Earlier post here.

(AP photo)