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Annie Dookhan and the Story behind ‘How to Fix a Drug Scandal’ by Tanya Kaushal
Some might call her the real-life chemist version of Mike from the TV show Suits.
Mike in Suits had lied about attending Harvard University, and so did Annie Dookhan, except Dookhan did more than lie about her education to her colleagues.
Dookhan worked as a chemist analyzing forensic evidence at the Hinton State Laboratory in Massachusetts. She was known as a “superwoman” at the lab, working at lightning speed. Her peers would say that she is the most hard-working chemist in the lab. The first to arrive and the last to leave kind. No one doubted her extraordinary work abilities.
Her main job was to run tests on the drugs police confiscated during arrests and raids, a process requiring meticulous work, such as identifying the type and amount of drugs and recording other chemical details. She was considered the best chemist in the lab.
Her peak didn’t plateau, it plummeted.