What’s really going on inside Accu-Metrics? Co-host Rachel Houlihan goes undercover, posing as a mother who needs a paternity test. Once inside, she meets face to face with the company’s owner, Harvey Tenenbaum. She also connects with an ex-employee who reveals what he witnessed in the lab. A legal note: Over the course of this podcast, a number of allegations are made against Viaguard Accu-Metrics and its employees. When asked, company owner Harvey Tenenbaum said he stands by the test, and that any errors were caused by customers during sample collection.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
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He had an intense disposition, but not aggressive. Loved his work, loved his job.
Jim McElhaney knows Harvey Tenenbaum, but that's not who he's describing.
He had big, strong front quarters and back quarters. He was a very good-looking horse. He was very well put together. He was very stout and strong.
Second spot is Judas Wildrush. Jim's a retired jockey, and he rode Harvey's top-performing stallion to victory.
Judith's Wild Rush was second in the cartier last year, and this year he gets all the marbles.
Judith's Wild Rush. That's the horse, named after Harvey's wife, Judith. It was a moneymaker. He only paid $7,500 for it. But in its six years of racing, it earned Harvey about a million bucks.
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Chapter 2: Who is Harvey Tenenbaum and what is his role?
Thanks to the voters.
Yet despite all the prizes and the pageantry, as a jockey, Jim only really interacted with Harvey in the paddock right before the race.
Owners are all different. There's some owners who like to spend a lot of time at the barn. Harvey was more up in the grandstand.
From there, Harvey would watch and see if today was his lucky day.
An owner who's been around longer knows that there are no guarantees in horse racing and anything can happen. So they don't usually get themselves too wound up about any one situation.
And that was Harvey. Unflappable, according to Jim. We don't know much about Harvey, other than the fact that he owns Viaguard Acumetrics. He doesn't return our emails or calls. Though we've learned he's been racing horses since the 70s, and he's owned at least 150 horses over the years.
Breach of duty.
Immunity.
Scandals keep coming.
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Chapter 3: What is the undercover plan to investigate Acumetrics?
Scam.
Yes, Harvey had a horse name scam. The horse was born in 2010, a year when Harvey let horse racing take a back seat and his winnings took a nosedive. And perhaps that's because Harvey had a new focus, getting his lab up and running in the east end of Toronto and adding prenatal paternity testing to the Viaguard Acumetrics website. But what about all those horse names? What story do they tell?
And more importantly, what's Harvey's story? And can we get it? Well, we do on Hidden Camera. I'm Rachel Houlihan. This is Bad Results, Chapter 5, The Undercover Mother. Hey, can you hear me?
I can hear you. Where are you right now?
So we're just on a side street off of Kingston Road. So I just want to go over the game plan and what we're trying to accomplish here just to make sure that I get what we need. What Jorge and I need is to get inside BioGuard Acumetrix. After months of piecing together details from former customers and staff, the only way to get a true picture is to go inside and meet Harvey in person.
But I'm not going in as a journalist. CBC is allowing me to go in undercover, posing as someone needing a paternity test. I am a little nervous, but I think I'm just going to say that. Because I think a lot of people that do go in, or people that are seeking paternity tests in general, are often a little bit nervous.
Yeah, yeah. Just roll with it.
Just roll with it. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Bye. I'm going to be secretly recording my visit on a few different devices. Some I'm wearing, some I'm holding.
So they're all working now.
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Chapter 4: What happens during Rachel's visit to Acumetrics?
Oh my God.
And finally, it's time.
So, hi.
I called a little while ago and I talked to Mr. or Dr. Herbie Tenenbaum and he said I could come in and have a chat with him about one of the tests that I want to do. Oh, okay, sure. Have a seat. What's your name? Rachel. Okay, what's the test you want to do, Rachel? A paternity test. Okay, have a seat. Okay, thanks. The waiting room looks like a low-rent dentist's office. It's very sparse.
A few chairs, a plant, and the receptionist is sitting behind a plexiglass window. After a short wait, she unlocks the door to the main office and lets me in.
There he is.
Harvey Tenenbaum.
How are you? Well, I'm here.
You're here.
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Chapter 5: How accurate are paternity tests offered by Acumetrics?
No, you have to because people want confidentiality and privacy. They don't want to screw up their life for nothing just because you're paranoid, worried about something. You don't want to make scrambled eggs out of what's a smooth situation, but you want the answer.
This is something Harvey also told Sarah. Gather the samples surreptitiously so you don't wreck your life.
You want the answer, and then you'll decide what to do or not do with that answer. You may throw it in the garbage and forget about it, or you may... Take another path.
Another path. The way Harvey talks, it sounds like I'm completely in control here. His lab will give me certainty, and with that, I can choose what my life will look like. I think about all the people we've spoken to who made choices based on Acumetrix results. People who ended relationships or broke up families, all because of a single prenatal paternity test. But here's the thing.
I'm here posing as a client looking for a paternity test on a child and not as a pregnant woman. That's because we've just learned that Acumetrix no longer offers the prenatal tests. But Jorge and I don't know why. So I make the segue. Could I have done this?
Like it did cross my mind four years ago when I was pregnant. Like, could I have saved myself a lot of heartache and actually done this while I was pregnant?
You could have, but it would cost you a lot of money. And we used to do a lot of those tests. They're not that accurate because you're depending on... Not that accurate.
It almost blows by. Harvey's just casually told me the test his company sold for a decade, the one he promoted for years as being able to give the definitive answer on the question of an unborn baby's paternity. Now he's saying... They're not that.
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Chapter 6: What ethical concerns arise from covert DNA collection?
because the test was not that accurate that we're leery of that test now. It's pretty good, but pretty good is not good enough. It's the collection of the samples, the cross-contamination possibilities, and there's a lot of other things, so it's a much more complex situation.
Cross-contamination, the go-to reason Acumetrix uses to explain why its prenatal test had a pattern of naming the wrong dads. But Harvey's explanation, and the fact Acumetrix no longer offers the test, does nothing to help the people who relied on them to be accurate. Thinking of Sarah Domenico's complex situation, I ask, What if you, like, were with people of different races?
Yeah, that's common. Yeah, and then you have the baby.
And that has happened. I would test a white guy, and the baby came out black. What the hell's going on here? You know what I mean?
Yeah, I could see why you wouldn't want to do that test.
Yeah, because there's a lot involved if it gets screwed up.
Yeah, the stakes seem pretty high.
Yeah, because... You're going to get an abortion, but what if it's the wrong guy name? You're aborting your child, you know, the wrong person.
Yeah, I can't imagine that.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the paternity test results?
I can imagine that situation, actually. Jorge and I interviewed a couple from Corral's Facebook group who nearly ended a pregnancy when Acumetrix told them a recent ex-boyfriend was the father. The woman had the abortion booked, but the results from a second test done by a different company said her current partner was in fact the biological father, so they kept the baby.
Right. So maybe, I guess, maybe I'm thankful then I didn't do it when I was pregnant.
Yeah, because you may have got the wrong answer or something. And listen, if we could only wind the clock back, we'd all be winding it back right now. But life doesn't work that way, does it?
No, it really doesn't.
I'm taken aback by everything Harvey is revealing to me. And I really want to leave and just talk through it all with Jorge. But Harvey? He's just getting started. And our conversation meanders into unexpected places. First, he tells me about Acumetrix and the Diefenbaby.
Not so famous for dealing with a guy who said he was actually the illegitimate son of John Diefenmaker, the prime minister. Yeah, and they wrote it up in a magazine.
He tells me about the artwork on his walls.
Anthony Quinn. He was a great sculptor. He gave me the original sculpture. I bought it off him that he did for a movie called Zorba the Greek.
Wow. Did he just name drop an old Hollywood star there? And then a dog, as if on cue, comes limping in.
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