If you think your Thanksgiving dinner conversation will be awkward and stressful this year, just be glad you and your family weren’t involved with Theranos.

As the once highly regarded blood-testing company crumbles under technological scandals and regulatory sanctions, the death toll of relationships among neighbors, friends, families, and long-standing partners is mounting. With lawsuits, investigative reports, and new accounts from a whistleblower, the company’s culture and inner-workings—which Theranos worked hard to obfuscate—are finally becoming clear. And what’s emerged are patterns of dishonesty, callousness, and litigiousness—if not outright belligerence.

Test of blood

Perhaps most startling of the recent revelations is the identity and family drama of one Theranos whistleblower: Tyler Shultz, grandson of George Shultz, the former secretary of state, who also happens to be a Theranos advisor. An exposé by The Wall Street Journal lays out how in the course of eight months, Tyler Shultz went from a bright-eyed Theranos employee to disgruntled whistleblower, personally disparaged by Theranos’ then-president and desperately trying to convince his grandfather to wash his hands of the doomed company.

Fresh out of college, Tyler Shultz started working with Theranos’ assay validation team in 2013, which was in charge of monitoring the precision of its blood test results. He noted wild inaccuracies on some tests before being moved to the company’s production team, where he witnessed the company’s blood testing machines failing quality controls. Both issues were flagged years later in federal inspection reports, validating Shultz’s allegations. But at the time, then-president Sunny Balwani had pressured employees to ignore the problems, Shultz said. (Balwani stepped down from the company earlier this year and was banned by federal regulators from running a clinical lab for two years.) Nevertheless, Tyler Shultz e-mailed his findings and concerns directly to Elizabeth Holmes, the company's founder and CEO.

Days later, Shultz got a message back—from Balwani. “We saw your email to Elizabeth,” Balwani wrote. “Before I get into specifics, let me share with you that had this email come from anyone else in the company, I would have already held them accountable for the arrogant and patronizing tone and reckless comments.” He went on to belittle Shultz’s intelligence and understanding of the company’s technology. “The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this personally is because you are Mr. Shultz’s grandson,” Balwani added.

Shultz quit Theranos that day, intending to leave the professional drama behind. However, it was just the start of his family drama. It seems that Holmes called up the elder Shultz directly to inform him of his grandson’s actions and threatened that his grandson would “lose” if he pursued the allegations. While Tyler Shultz was still gathering his things to leave Theranos, his mother called and implored him to stop “whatever you’re about to do!”

After that, Shultz said his relationship with his grandfather became strained—and remains that way. Holmes made a surprising and uncomfortable appearance at his grandfather’s house the following Thanksgiving. She also attended his subsequent 95th birthday. Tyler Shultz did not. Meanwhile, the younger Shultz says Theranos has had him followed by private investigators and pressured by lawyers.

On one visit to his grandfather’s home, Tyler Shultz said that Theranos’ lawyers, from Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, ambushed him. They accused him of leaking Theranos’ trade secrets and tried—unsuccessfully—to get him to sign confidentiality agreements. Under threats that Theranos would sue, Tyler’s Shultz’s parents discussed selling their house to help cover costs. So far, they’ve spent more than $400,000 in legal fees.

Smoke and mirrors

As the Shultz family became ensnared in Theranos drama in 2013, another family was also tussling with Holmes—her family’s longtime friends and her childhood next-door neighbors, the Fuiszes. In a nasty lawsuit filed in 2011, Holmes accused John Fuisz, his brother Joseph, his father Richard, and Fuisz Pharma of stealing a secret Theranos patent and using it to file a rival blood-testing patent that was ultimately issued.

Holmes claims that John Fuisz had access to the file rooms of McDermott Will & Emery LLP, the law firm she had hired to help Theranos file patents. In court, her fierce, high-profile lawyer, David Boies dramatically claimed that John Fuisz said he would “file patents and f— with her 'til she dies.” The Fuiszes, long-time inventors in the medical field, denied all the claims and said they had once offered to help her with her business.

In a court statement, Richard Fuisz said that he invented a bodily fluid analyzer, a urine-testing device, “before Elizabeth Holmes was born.” And an attorney for Fuisz Pharma warned jurors that they’re “not going to see any evidence that John Fuisz went into the file room… You’re going to see smoke and mirrors.”

Still, Joseph and Richard publicly acknowledged that their reputations had been damaged by the accusations from Holmes, who was enjoying positive publicity at the time for her promising technology at Theranos. In 2014, the two settled out of court mid-trial, voiding one of their patents. The case against John Fuisz was dismissed.

Scientific suicide

The Fuiszes’ reputations weren’t the only victims of that lawsuit, however. Caught in the crossfire was the late Ian Gibbons and his family. Gibbons, a respected British scientist, was recruited by Holmes in 2005 to be the company’s chief scientist. He quickly realized that Theranos’ blood testing technology was bunk and worked tirelessly to try to come up with fixes.

During the trial, the Fuiszes’ lawyers tried to get Gibbons to testify, which he desperately wanted to avoid. In court, he faced either admitting that the technology didn’t work or perjury. Gibbons' increasing anxiety and discomfort with the situation caused unease between him and Holmes.

Yet despite the legal battles and looming scientific troubles, Holmes continued to tell investors that the technology was not only sound but disruptive and revolutionary. She raked in millions in investments. By 2012, the company had secured a high-profile, $140 million deal with Walgreens to open blood testing “Wellness Centers” in its stores in 2013.

Gibbons, resisting testimony and under pressure in the lab, was hitting his limits. He warned Holmes that the technology wasn’t ready for its drug store debut. “Ian was a real obstacle for Elizabeth,” Gibbons’ widow Rochelle told Vanity Fair in an exclusive interview. “He started to be very vocal. They kept him around to keep him quiet.”

In May of 2013, five months before the first Wellness Center publicly opened and before the Fuisz settlement, Holmes’ assistant called Gibbons at home and told him that Holmes wanted a meeting the next day. Gibbons, who at the time was also battling a cancer diagnosis, was wracked with fear. He and his wife expected he would be fired.

The night he got that call, Gibbons tried to commit suicide. He died a week later.

When his widow informed Theranos of his passing, instead of condolences, she received a request to immediately return any confidential property belonging to Theranos.

Diagnosing deceit

Meanwhile, Theranos’ deal with Walgreens moved forward, and it eventually opened more than 40 Wellness Centers. Tens of thousands of the tests performed at those centers were voided or corrected this year as federal regulators uncovered the problems that Gibbons and Tyler Shultz had warned about. The deal with Walgreens also collapsed, and the drug store giant is now suing Theranos.

In their scathing $140 million lawsuit, Walgreens alleges that in 2010, while Gibbons was frantically trying to get the company’s technology to work, Holmes and Balwani assured Walgreens that the technology had been “comprehensively validated” over seven years by “10 of the 15 largest pharmaceutical companies.” They even went on to state that bio-pharma companies, “prominent research institutions, and US and foreign government health and military organizations” had already used the technology.

In addition to Walgreens’ lawsuit, Theranos faces several from ex-customers and a criminal investigation by federal investigators.

This week, Theranos’ long-time legal defender, David Boies, severed ties with the company, citing a disagreement in strategy.

Theranos did not respond to Ars’ request for comment on Shultz’s story. In an earlier statement, the company said it will fight Walgreens’ lawsuit “vigorously.”

This post has been updated to state that Theranos' case against John Fuisz was dismissed. He did not settle with Theranos.