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A 37-year-old father of two is no longer able to dress himself, speak clearly, or move large portions of the left side of his body after an allegedly botched diagnosis by a buzzy healthcare startup that counts Kim Kardashian among its celebrity endorsers and 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki among its A-list investors.
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 offers patients “an MRI like no other.” The boutique procedure, which is not covered by insurance, is advertised as one that 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 read Clifford’s scan wrote in his chart.
But, in fact, the scan showed precisely that: an “obvious” vascular blockage in Clifford’s brain that any qualified physician should have clocked as a sign of impending disaster, according to 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 brain surgeries to save his life.
The filing lays out the ways in which the finance entrepreneur has since suffered, detailing, among other things, extensive paralysis on the left side of his body, vision problems, cognitive delays, inability to speak properly, and “profound neurological deficits.”
Attorney Neal Bhushan, who is representing Clifford in court, called his client’s situation “devastating.”
“[It] could have been prevented, had the MRI scan been properly interpreted,” Bhushan told The Independent. “Very tragic. This family deserves justice — it is not right what happened.”
Bhushan pointed to Clifford’s Prenuvo report, which he said on Wednesday “clearly shows” a 60 percent narrowing of the proximal right middle cerebral artery, according to a third-party neurologist hired by the family and cited throughout the lawsuit.
“This should have been documented in the MRI report,” Bhushan said. “And it wasn’t.”
Caught in time, the blocked blood vessel could have been treated 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 representative did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Prenuvo presently has more than a dozen clinics across the US and Canada, with plans to nearly double that footprint. The company has raised in excess of $70 million, with backers that include Wojcicki, supermodel Cindy Crawford, Nest Labs founder Tony Fadell, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Aside from Kim Kardashian and various members of her family, Clifford’s lawsuit notes that Prenuvo has been namechecked on social media by, among 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 outside neurologist Clifford hired to re-read his Prenuvo chart said the company “failed to document crucial, life-saving medical information,” incorrectly describing his cerebral and cerebellar vasculature as normal,” according to the suit. “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 services Prenuvo provided Clifford were 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 numerous causes of action, including medical malpractice, negligence, gross negligence, lack of informed consent, negligent hiring and retention, loss of consortium and services, and breach of contract. His wife has been “deprived of the services, companionship, society, consortium and support of her spouse,” according to the suit, and the couple’s two children, both of whom are under the age of 3, “have been deprived of guidance, love, and affection by… Clifford.”
He is asking for compensatory damages and punitive damages to be determined by a jury.
A GoFundMe campaign set up by Clifford’s family has so far raised $55,000 of its $125,000 goal.
