Slashdot Mirror
Theranos Withdraws Two Years of Blood Test Results (cnbc.com)
Reader Major Blud writes: Theranos, the company valued at $9 billion that promised to revolutionize the way blood testing is done, has just announced that it has withdrawn all of the test done using its Edison machine performed in 2014 and 2015. The company recently come under fire from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the inaccuracy and unreliability of the machine, and threatened to revoke the company's license as well as ban CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes, and its president and COO, Sunny Balwani, from blood testing.
Wouldn't surprise me if this unicorn gets grounded down to a nag in the near future.
Yeah, she revolutionized it alright!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Ha ha. Just kidding. Rich people don't go to prison!
dream factory profits ruined by inquisitive and scientific evaluation of highly sophisticated snake oil machine. "Clearly the government wants to abort your shariah muslim terror anchor baby abortions in fema death camps instead" exclaims exhausted man on yacht. In other news sales of disposable unlubricated single use monocles slightly higher.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Leona Helmsley, is that you?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
If only there were some wholesome, pure, expertly run government organization to protect us from food and drug scams.
Just was recently reading a great profile of her as the "healthcare industries steve jobs", becuase of her secrecy and wardrobe.
http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...
Shame that her company is not living up to the hype, but it does say that they were reluctant to reveal any trade secrets about their device all along. Worth the read for some background on theranos (the company she founded when she was 19)
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
This second tech bubble is interesting, in that it's a bunch of mini-bubbles. Theranos is the result of investment in the "market disruptors" bubble. Uber is the king here, but there are a whole bunch of tech companies also (like the software-defined-everything vendors who are currently consolidating.)
I understand that sometimes startups need to bend the truth a little bit to get investors and therefore the time they need to perfect their product or service. However, the problem is that they promoted the fact that they had the answer and all the problems were solved...and look, we're doing it with real world testing!
Something like this actually happened during the past year in the big company I work for, so it's not just startups. A politically well-connected division of our company spent untold sums of money building out stuff for a product that they proclaimed was completely ready with all the problems solved. Turns out they weren't exactly telling the truth and it only started coming out when customers started buying and using said product. Looking from the outside in on that, I felt pretty bad that the money they were wasting could have easily paid salaries in divisions that were making useful products, but life's not a meritocracy unfortunately. When you have executive cover for your actions, like Theranos had big-name backers and unicorn status, results matter less.
And as we all know when something is done for profit then it is being done to the highest possible standards.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
More likely that judges throw out prison sentences without fully adjudicating the minutia of cases when faced with people who can't afford lawyers that can make a reasonable case.
The chips keep falling. A few more and this whole charade will be over in a most gruesome, yet delightful, manner.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It tells their doctor to reconsider the diagnosis and order new tests if need be. It's not as if every single illness on earth gets resolved in two years or less.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
For the most part, you're probably right. However, there may be some legal cases that turn on this data, and certainly someone who was potentially misdiagnosed in the past and is still alive, may want to make sure that all the data that they have on themselves is up to date. This may mean some people need to go back in and get re-tested for some things.
Agreed that most people don't really think about a blood test they did two years ago, but there are some important exceptions to that.
I hope in my next life I am born as a pretty Caucasian chick from a rich family who gets to go to Stanford. This way people will buy whatever bull$hit comes out of my mouth, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.
The SEC is currently investigating the company for potentially misleading their investors in 2014. With yesterday's article we now know that Theranos was supposedly using traditional blood testing machines instead of their 'Einstein' technology for commercial testing starting in 2014. In that year Theranos was still raising money from investors and approached a $9B evaluation based on claims of efficacy for their 'Einstein' technology. Will be interesting to see what the results of the SEC's investigation will be.
How do the senior executives and Board members get off without some penalties. These people may have endangered the health of many thousands (or more) people!
Who cares if she goes to prison as long as the fine equals everything she earned.
Sounds like a good deal. Commit fraud, get away with it, you're golden. Get caught, break even.