Update: It turns out that, notwithstanding the protestations of these three very stable geniuses to the contrary, their data that they claim (three times, below) to have “fabricated” was actually real…and the three of them reviewed it before it was published.

How do I know this? In addition to the chapter actually saying it was real data, and the guidebook saying each chapter was reviewed multiple times by multiple people, I simply asked the author.  He confirmed both that the data was real (“If I had made it up, I would have said so”) and that it was indeed reviewed multiple times by multiple people on the HERO board.

When I re-read the chapter, I thought: “This can’t have been written by someone at HERO. This is actual analysis and they don’t know how to do actual analysis.” Sure enough — the actual author is Dr. Iver Juster, who has taken all my courses and read all my books and has the advanced level of Critical Outcomes Report Analysis certification.

In other words, to quote a rapper whose name escapes me, they lied about the lies they lied about.

In an earlier column we indicated that we had gotten wind of a “poison pen” letter that the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO) board members (Paul Terry, Johns Hopkins’ Ron Goetzel and Optum’s Seth Serxner, among others) sent around to members of the media.  We just weren’t sure to whom it was sent or what exactly it said.

Eventually my attorney pried it out of them, after they first refused to admit this letter existed.

My attorney said he had never had a client who wanted to republish a defamatory letter written about him. I replied: “In the wellness industry, a defamation from HERO is, in the immortal words of the great philosopher Kenny Banya, ‘Gold, Jerry. Gold.’”  Indeed, this letter is the closest I’m ever going to come to achieving my boyhood dream of appearing on Nixon’s Enemies List.

Here are a few excerpts–along with my annotations in italics.

“The featured variables from the HERO report that these authors cites [sic] as ‘evidence’ begin with a statement that ‘HERO calculates gross wellness program savings of $0.99.’  As is obvious to even the most uninitiated reader of our report, the $0.99 amount is taken from page 23 of an 87 page report in a section which is clearly labeled as one example wherein the sum savings derives from a fabricated scenario…The authors go on to suggest that the HERO report provides ‘evidence’ of a negative return on investment from wellness programs because our ‘report estimates wellness programs costs at $1.50 pmpm.'”

Our math (meaning your own math in your “fabricated scenario”) is correct. True, we never in a million years realized that wellness economics are so hilariously poor that even when you “fabricate a scenario” in your own guidebook, you still manage to lose money.   And in any event, even though you never asked us to, we did correct that inaccuracy—by showing how much more money wellness loses if we substitute real numbers from HERO Committee members’ own writings for the “fabricated” ones.

“This variable is taken from page 15 of our report and the report’s authors in no way associated the two numbers. Furthermore, the cost number is again derived from a fabricated illustrative example…” 

So you’re saying that your report’s authors put these two numbers (costs=$1.50 PEPM and savings=$0.99 PEPM) in the very same chapter but readers aren’t supposed to compare them?  Bad readers! Shame on you for being discerning!

By the way, the example isn’t “fabricated.” Messrs. Goetzel, Serxner and Terry are now, in the immortal words of the great philosopher LL Cool J, lying about the lies they lied about.  This is not a “fabricated illustrative example.” It is a reproduction of an actual report, which is why Page 22 calls it a report and describes what it shows:

“The authors seem to indicate that their findings from these distinctly unassociated variables is an inventive disclosure of a negative ROI for wellness on their part by writing that ‘this loss was not an intentional finding in this document.'”

Leaving aside that both these “distinctly unassociated variables” appear in the exact same chapter, how can costs be “distinctly unassociated” with revenues? Isn’t that what business is all about, associating revenues and costs?  Example: Suppose your revenues are $2.  That’s GOOD if your costs are $1 but BAD if your costs are $3. 

I’ll use a sports analogy so that even the dumbest member of the HERO board can follow the logic. If my team scores 5 runs, we WIN the game if your team scores 4 runs.  But we LOSE the game if your team scores 6. It doesn’t do any good just to know my team scored 5 runs. The number we score MUST be “distinctly associated” with the number you score to get a meaningful result.

Am I going too fast for you, Mr. Goetzel? You did refer to yourselves in this letter as “among the most credible and conscientious scientists and practitioners working in corporate wellness today,” so hopefully the information above is not too technical for you. I tried to use short words where possible.

“We are confident that any discerning reader of our report would instead conclude that associating the variables as they were in this blog post was an absurd, mischievous and potentially harmful misrepresentation of our data.”

We took screenshots of your figures. I’m not quite sure how we could misrepresent screenshots. In any event, we don’t have to “misrepresent your data.” As Yogi Berra might say, you misrepresented it just fine all by yourselves. A trade association dissing its own product, and now bragging about fabricating data?  One doesn’t see that very often.

“A cursory vetting of these authors would have revealed a litany of inaccurate and outrageous writings over several years.”

Yikes! We apologize!  We had no idea that we’ve been publishing “a litany of inaccurate and outrageous writings.”  We have published about 450,000 words — more than all of Shakespeare’s tragedies combined.  Possibly a few inaccurate words slipped in.  Surely in order to make such an otherwise libelous statement, you have a list of these “inaccurate and outrageous writings.” A cynic would say you’re deliberately lying, but all we’d like to know is… 

Since we are in the “integrity segment” of wellness, we would like to see this list, so we can acknowledge and correct any errors.

Alternatively, if there are no inaccuracies, then you are endorsing the accuracy of our work, which we will announce in an upcoming post. So please get back to us within seven days with the list. Otherwise, we thank you very kindly for your endorsement of our accuracy.  Additionally, we would like a written apology if you want to avoid a lawsuit.