By early February, the company was jacking up prices. "Last February [2014] when we were acquiring the 7 new TJF-Q180V scopes we have today, the price was $26,200.98 and our new quote is $33,470.15 [per] scope which is an increase of 28%," UCLA's Randi Hissom emailed Hernandez.

By the last week of February, just days after the FDA has sent out a safety alert about their scopes, Hernandez whined to UCLA that they hadn't bought the contractually agreed-on amount of Olympus equipment, noting that his sales crew "continued to run into a wall with acquiring orders ... I would like to arrange a meeting with you soon to further review and discuss the compliance of the contract."


Just this February, "record-breaking" was the term applied by Olympus brass to its performance, thanks to a 13 percent rise in sales of scopes for the nine-month period ended Dec. 31. Olympus profits were up 34 percent for the period to $352 million.

The company's spokesman Mark Miller told UCLA by email that the the firm's correspondence "represent standard business discussions within Olympus and between company personnel and customers."

While Olympus scopes are still in use by UCLA, it has now chosen Pentax Medical for its purchase of additional ones.

"Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center ordered additional scopes from Pentax in order to ensure that we had sufficient scopes to perform the necessary procedures for our patients," UCLA spokesman Enrique Rivero told the paper. "Pentax was able to quickly provide a sufficient quantity of scopes in a timely manner, allowing us to clear our backlog of patients."

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