Author Topic: Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos banned from Owning/Operating Medical Laboratory  (Read 29373 times)

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Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/09/business/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-ban.html?_r=0

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Theranos Founder, Elizabeth Holmes, Is Barred From Running Lab for 2 Years



Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and chief executive of Theranos, has seen her personal wealth fall from $4.5 billion to zero. Brendan McDermid/Reuters
United States regulators have banned Elizabeth Holmes, the chief executive of Theranos, from owning or operating a medical laboratory for at least two years, in a major setback for the embattled blood-testing start-up and its once widely lauded founder.

In a statement late Thursday, Theranos said the regulators revoked the certification of its Newark, Calif., laboratory and prohibited the laboratory from taking Medicare and Medicaid payments for its services. Regulators also levied a monetary penalty that Theranos did not specify. The sanctions take effect in 60 days, Theranos said.

Theranos represents the promise and the pitfalls of the start-up era, as money floods into young companies with new technologies in an effort to find a “unicorn” — a billion-dollar business that transforms its industry and makes its backers rich in the process. The high-profile start-up rose to prominence on the promise that it could detect health ailments by testing blood drawn cheaply by the mere prick of a finger.

The government scrutiny stemmed from questions about the effectiveness of Theranos’s technology and the way it operates its labs. Authorities who reviewed its practices last year found that all 81 patient results they inspected were inaccurate in a test of blood clotting administered from April to September on patients who take the blood thinner warfarin.

What Theranos and Ms. Holmes will do next is not clear. Lab operators have the right to appeal a canceled certification. Reached via email, an outside spokesman for the company declined to comment.

Continue reading the main story
“We accept full responsibility for the issues at our laboratory in Newark, Calif., and have already worked to undertake comprehensive remedial actions,” Ms. Holmes said in a statement.

Theranos and its young founder in particular offered a compelling narrative in the crowded start-up universe: a brilliant college dropout with an audacious idea that would upend the medical testing business. Ms. Holmes invited comparisons to the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs because of her youth, her tight control of the company she founded and even her customary black turtleneck sweaters.

Ms. Holmes began the company in 2003 after dropping out of Stanford University at the age of 19. Her goal was to create a new way to perform blood tests that relied on a few drops of blood rather than the larger amounts medical testing often requires. Tests would be cheaper, the argument went, and more people would be inclined to get them. In interviews focused on Theranos’s success, she said the idea came from her fear of needles.

The idea had appeal. Theranos won backing from tech luminaries like the software mogul Larry Ellison, while the company counted Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state, and the former Senate majority leader Bill Frist among its advisers. It also struck a deal with Walgreens, the drugstore chain, to perform tests. By last year, the company had assembled an eminent board of directors and commanded a valuation of about $9 billion.

But some people questioned the reliability of the tests, including former Theranos employees who took their concerns to federal regulators. Ms. Holmes defended the company publicly, especially after articles last year in The Wall Street Journal enumerated those concerns.

Still, federal inspectors found deficiencies in the Newark plant that could lead to inaccurate results, including inadequately trained employees and samples stored at the wrong temperature. Theranos promised to overhaul the plant and bring in a new slate of experts to fix its problems. Then, in April, Theranos said it was under criminal investigation from the United States Justice Department and disclosed another inquiry from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As the scrutiny mounted, Theranos faced a cascade of problems. The company’s chief operating officer resigned and its alliance with Walgreens fell apart.

The sanctions disclosed on Thursday were leveled by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an arm of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that regulates laboratory testing performed on humans.

In its statement, Theranos said it would shut down and rebuild its Newark lab “from the ground up” and bolster its personnel and training there. Theranos said it would stop patient testing at the Newark facility immediately, before the sanctions take effect in 60 days. The company will continue to offer services through its lab in Arizona, it said.

Continue reading the main story
The company was “disappointed” with the decision, Ms. Holmes said in the statement, adding that Theranos was committed “to demonstrating our dedication to the highest standards of quality and compliance.”

Correction: July 8, 2016
An earlier version of this article misstated the results of a review last year of practices at a Theranos lab. Authorities found that all patient results from a particular blood-clotting test administered from April to September were inaccurate; they did not find that all patient test results were inaccurate.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2016, 04:38:27 pm by LabSpokane »
 

Offline TheAmmoniacal

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Should have been a lifetime ban.
 

Offline chris_leyson

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Quote
Should have been a lifetime ban.
Totaly agree with that. Exactly what is this amazing Edison device supposed to diagnose from a microlitre of blood ? According to Wikipedea the FDA provided limited approval for Theranos' Edison device for use in a herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) blood test which tests for disease using a finger-prick's worth of blood, but did not verify its accuracy.
I'm not a biochemist but I guess you would have to add a reagent to the blood that would then react with the herpes virus and you measure for certain reaction compounds. Obviously it didn't work.
I don't know what the law says but surely this should have been clinically trialled if it's diagnostic equipment.
 

Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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Elizabeth Holmes is largely a figurehead that had a bad idea that sounded good.  The backers and enablers that actually put her on the map are the real villains, and they will suffer nothing other than the loss of other people's money.

Theranos is UBeam is Batteroo is ...
 

Offline TheAmmoniacal

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Should have been a lifetime ban.
Totaly agree with that. Exactly what is this amazing Edison device supposed to diagnose from a microlitre of blood ? According to Wikipedea the FDA provided limited approval for Theranos' Edison device for use in a herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) blood test which tests for disease using a finger-prick's worth of blood, but did not verify its accuracy.
I'm not a biochemist but I guess you would have to add a reagent to the blood that would then react with the herpes virus and you measure for certain reaction compounds. Obviously it didn't work.
I don't know what the law says but surely this should have been clinically trialled if it's diagnostic equipment.

Diagnosis of herpes simplex (HSV-1 or HSV-2) in such a test would have to be done using fluorescent antibodies, which has to be added to the blood.
 

Offline timb

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How are existing herpes tests run? Is it only blood, or can they do oral/genital mucosa swabs? I would assume it's blood, since it's a virus, therefor you have antibodies, right?

Fun fact: If you've ever had a cold sore (fever blister), you have herpes! (HSV-1 is more common orally, if I remember right.)

Doubly Fun Fact: 40% of the sexually active population have gentile herpes, though less than 10% will ever have an outbreak. Most who carry it never know, but they can still pass it on (sharing is caring), even without any visible sores! Furthermore, condoms are not always effective protection against herpes; there are a number of factors that can influence the transmission. Normally it's not part of a standard STD panel test and must be specifically requested.

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Offline mtdoc

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How are existing herpes tests run? Is it only blood, or can they do oral/genital mucosa swabs? I would assume it's blood, since it's a virus, therefor you have antibodies, right?

There is a blood test for HSV IgG - that is antibodies. It will only tell you if you've been exposed. It's possible to have positive HSV IgG and never have an outbreak and not be contagious.

To to a mucosa swab you need to swab fluid from a "deroofed" herpes blister and then do a Tzanck smear or better, a viral PCR test.  So you can only do these tests during an outbreak.


« Last Edit: July 09, 2016, 04:13:21 am by mtdoc »
 

Offline Skimask

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A) What a piece of raging shit...

B) Wow!  I knew some of the people on this forums were diverse, but holy crap...amazing...
I didn't take it apart.
I turned it on.

The only stupid question is, well, most of them...

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Offline chris_leyson

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Quote
Diagnosis of herpes simplex (HSV-1 or HSV-2) in such a test would have to be done using fluorescent antibodies, which has to be added to the blood.
Fluorescent antibodies, I had a feeling it might be done that way, been there, seen that, excite with a xenon flash lamp and measure the fluorescence using a photo multiplier tube and that was probably 25 years ago, not rocket science and it doesn't need a budget of millions. Use stepper motors to drive a small tray containing maybe 96 small plastic vials takes only a few minutes. Edison device  :wtf:
 

Offline EEVblog

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Should have been a lifetime ban.

Yup, and people get jail time for a lot less than what she's done.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Theranos is UBeam is Batteroo is ...

Except that Theranos actually used a products to do thousands of medical tests who's results were bogus. People health could be affected. She might be lucky to avoid jail time, we haven't heard the end of this.
 

Offline EEVblog

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B) Wow!  I knew some of the people on this forums were diverse, but holy crap...amazing...

mtdoc is our real resident forum medical doctor  :-+
It never ceases to amaze me that there will almost always be some expert on the forum in almost any topic that is bought up.
 

Offline timb

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How are existing herpes tests run? Is it only blood, or can they do oral/genital mucosa swabs? I would assume it's blood, since it's a virus, therefor you have antibodies, right?

There is a blood test for HSV IgG - that is antibodies. It will only tell you if you've been exposed. It's possible to have positive HSV IgG and never have an outbreak and not be contagious.

To to a mucosa swab you need to swab fluid from a "deroofed" herpes blister and then do a Tzanck smear or better, a viral PCR test.  So you can only do these tests during an outbreak.

Thanks, very interesting. That brings up another question: If there's an outbreak and visible blisters, doesn't that kind of point to herpes in and of itself? So why go through the trouble? (I mean that as a genuine question. I guess maybe there might be other STDs or conditions that present like herpes?)

Also, I'm adding "Deroofed Herpes Blister" to my list of fantastic names for a band!
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Online Marco

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Except that Theranos actually used a products to do thousands of medical tests who's results were bogus. People health could be affected. She might be lucky to avoid jail time, we haven't heard the end of this.

Weren't all the tests run on standard machines with standard amounts of blood?
 

Offline Len

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Except that Theranos actually used a products to do thousands of medical tests who's results were bogus. People health could be affected. She might be lucky to avoid jail time, we haven't heard the end of this.

Weren't all the tests run on standard machines with standard amounts of blood?

It’s hard to say how Theranos were doing their testing. They have repeatedly obfuscated and misled people about their testing process.

Some (Most? All?) of the blood tests have been done with industry-standard equipment, not their proprietary technology that they always brag about. When government inspectors visited one of their labs, they were shown only standard equipment, not the fancy Edison system. So either Theranos was lying about using their proprietary technology for (at least some of) their testing, or they hid part of their process from the inspectors.

I found this out with a little web research. There’s plenty of information out there, if you don’t stop after the first google result.
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Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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Theranos is UBeam is Batteroo is ...

Except that Theranos actually used a products to do thousands of medical tests who's results were bogus. People health could be affected. She might be lucky to avoid jail time, we haven't heard the end of this.

I meant from a investor/funding side. The delivering of invalid results, likely knowingly, is pure evil.

The problem I have with all of this is that the figurehead is the only one being punished. 
 

Offline mtdoc

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Thanks, very interesting. That brings up another question: If there's an outbreak and visible blisters, doesn't that kind of point to herpes in and of itself? So why go through the trouble? (I mean that as a genuine question. I guess maybe there might be other STDs or conditions that present like herpes?)

Good question. Yes, Herpes is generally a clinical diagnosis - no lab testing needed:  A cluster of small painful blisters in a sensitive area after contact with a new partner = Herpes.   I've diagnosed it several times and rarely ordered any lab test.

IIRC Theranos marketed a "home testing kit" which is popular - for obvious reasons... :o
 

Offline SeanB

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Using a monoclonal antibody to test is proven technology, just that you need to have a large enough sample so the reaction is visible, or it has to at least contrast to the liquid it is in enough to be readable over the normal non reaction result. Small sample might mean there is only going to be a few hundred reactions, and thus either you need to have an amplification of this result to make it readable, or it has to be a very large contrast result.

Easy to test for hormones in a mostly clear liquid like urine, and as there is a lot of the hormone the test is easy. Not so easy testing for a low concentration of a specific antibody in blood unless you first filter off the red blood cells to get plasma so you can have a clearish liquid. Hard to make a microcentrifuge that is both small, cheap, efficient, disposable, works off a single drop and above all reliable and easy to make in bulk.
 

Offline Skimask

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B) Wow!  I knew some of the people on this forums were diverse, but holy crap...amazing...

mtdoc is our real resident forum medical doctor  :-+
It never ceases to amaze me that there will almost always be some expert on the forum in almost any topic that is bought up.
:)
Idea for new thread...
I didn't take it apart.
I turned it on.

The only stupid question is, well, most of them...

Save a fuse...Blow an electrician.
 

Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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B) Wow!  I knew some of the people on this forums were diverse, but holy crap...amazing...

mtdoc is our real resident forum medical doctor  :-+
It never ceases to amaze me that there will almost always be some expert on the forum in almost any topic that is bought up.
:)
Idea for new thread...

http://www.webmd.com
 

Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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From page three of the Flim Flam (Wo)Man's operator's manual:  When you can't present a shred of evidence that your technology works as advertised, shovel more bullshit.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-01/theranos-presents-new-product-instead-of-data-backing-old-device

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Expecting Data From Theranos, Lab Experts Get New Product

It was expected to be an academic presentation to show if Theranos Inc.’s controversial blood-testing technology worked, and perhaps explain the science behind the claims that the startup could do lab tests with a fraction of the blood and cost of traditional machines.

Instead, what some of the nation’s top lab-testing scientists and researchers packed into a ballroom at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia got was the introduction of a totally new device.

Founder Elizabeth Holmes, who is facing a two-year ban by U.S. regulators from running a clinical testing company, used the session at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry’s annual scientific meeting to introduce the “miniLab” testing device, a 95-pound diagnostic tool that can fit on a tabletop. The device isn’t yet for sale and hasn’t been approved by regulators, Theranos said in a statement.

Along with the new device came a scaled back vision for the company that not long ago, promised to upend the world of clinical lab testing by running hundreds of tests using a single drop of blood. The miniLab appears to pack a variety of tests that can already be done on a small scale into a single box.

No Game Changer

“They are using the same basic technology that we have been using all along,” said AACC President Patricia Jones, Clinical Director of Chemistry at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas. “But they have miniaturized it, they have put it all in a small platform.”

It’s also not clear how many tests Theranos has validated for use on the machines, or how many finger pricks to collect blood will be needed. “They have a lot of work to do,” Jones said. “There are still so many unanswered questions.”

That assessment was echoed by Stephen Master, a pathologist at Weill Cornell Medicine who helped moderate a question and answer session after Holmes’s presentation.

“It is certainly not yet a game changer,” Master said. While the instruments they presented appeared to have some good engineering behind them, “I certainly didn’t see anything that lives up to the expansive claims they made.”

Cholesterol Test

At the session, Holmes showed several slides comparing test results run on the new machine to existing accuracy standards, including one for a cholesterol panel, that appeared to show the new machine was within guidelines. That wasn’t enough for Master.

“I can buy a point-of-care instrument that does a lipid panel,” he said, referring to existing products already on the market that can run cholesterol tests in a doctor’s office.

The company also said it has developed a test for Zika virus with the miniLab machine that’s been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Angela Stark, an FDA spokeswoman, declined to comment on whether or not the agency had received an application.

Good Comparisons

While the new device may run a smaller number of tests, “the technology appeared to generate results that compared well to existing technologies and that were highly reproducible,” said Eric Schadt, director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

In introducing the new device, Theranos attempted to hit the reset button. Theranos stopped using an earlier version of its technology, called Edison, after questions arose about their accuracy. The company eventually voided or altered thousands of test results, and some attendees wanted badly to see the company defend or explain its past efforts.

“It is a bait and switch,” said Geoffrey Baird, an associate professor of laboratory medicine at the University of Washington who has been a critic . “We were told we were going to hear about the science of Theranos. This is a new speculative prototype idea that they have,” he said in an interview shortly before the presentation. “It is a completely different instrument” than what Theranos had previously talked about.

The AACC’s Jones introduced Holmes and said that the session wasn’t an endorsement of the company. “This session, as everyone is pretty well aware, has been controversial.”

‘Highly Skeptical’

“We want to see how this works, and that it works,” Jones said in an interview before the meeting. Among her colleagues, almost “everybody is pretty highly skeptical.”

Announcing Holmes’ intent to appear at the meeting in April, the AACC said that its members -- who represent clinical lab testing professionals, researchers and doctors -- would see the company “clarify the science, accuracy, and reliability of Theranos’ technologies, as well as its impact on patient care and safety.”

Once lauded as a potentially revolutionary company in the lab industry, Theranos has fallen far. U.S. inspectors said they found failures so severe as to jeopardize patients’ health at Theranos’s lab in Newark, California, leading to proposed sanctions this year that would ban Holmes from running a laboratory company for two years, along with monetary penalties and cancellation of payments from federal health insurance programs.

“We take full responsibility for our lab operations and are working diligently to rectify all outstanding issues,” Holmes said during her presentation Monday.

The company also has also come under scrutiny by House Democrats, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. Researchers have called on the startup to publish data supporting its technology in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, where independent scientists could evaluate the data, which it has yet to do.

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« Last Edit: August 02, 2016, 01:28:22 am by LabSpokane »
 

Offline edy

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Just saw her being ripped apart by Sanjay Ghupta on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360.
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"Ye cannae change the laws of physics, captain" - Scotty
 

Offline EEVblog

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From page three of the Flim Flam (Wo)Man's operator's manual:  When you can't present a shred of evidence that your technology works as advertised, shovel more bullshit.

Textbook approach!
 

Offline EEVblog

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Just saw her being ripped apart by Sanjay Ghupta on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360.

Ooh, video please!
 

Online Marco

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It's dead, stick a fork in it. Everything they are doing now is just theater for plausible deniability in case management and board get sued for gross negligence and thus become personally liable.
 

Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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It's dead, stick a fork in it. Everything they are doing now is just theater for plausible deniability in case management and board get sued for gross negligence and thus become personally liable.

What's unclear yet is if someone who received (incorrect) treatment based on a Theranos test has been injured or died as a result.

Love to see the clip of Gupta reaming her.
 

Offline edy

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Sanjay Gupta said in the interview to her that someone had a heart attack due to the wrong results. Not sure how. Her blue eyes looked to be popped out of her head. I think she is taking the fall for a lot of incompetancy of others, but that is what captains do.

Here is a link, the video should be somewhere, didn't find anything yet on YouTube but it was a long segment on TV:

http://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2016/08/01/theranos-holmes-revolution-dr-sanjay-gupta-pkg.cnn
« Last Edit: August 02, 2016, 12:06:58 pm by edy »
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Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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Lizzy is without a doubt just the lead muppet.

There's a lesson in here for youngsters starting out in business:

Muppets go to jail.

Muppeteers don't.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2016, 06:44:23 pm by LabSpokane »
 

Offline rsjsouza

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<conspiracy_theory_mode="on">
Given that Theranos is a newcomer in a multi-billion dollar industry, it is clear this is a move to discredit it surreptitiously by the establishment trying to protect the status quo. During the ban period of two years, the existing players will scrutinize Theranos' work and create their own "portalab" solutions that will completely turn the innovative work absolutely moot.
<conspiracy_theory_mode="off">

From page three of the Flim Flam (Wo)Man's operator's manual:  When you can't present a shred of evidence that your technology works as advertised, shovel more bullshit.
Yeah, it looks like a cheap move.
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Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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Offline EEVblog

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What happened to the movie?
 

Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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Offline EEVblog

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What happened to the movie?
Already in the can: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/

This is one ending I want spoiled. Please tell me she ends up in jail?
 

Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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What happened to the movie?
Already in the can: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/

This is one ending I want spoiled. Please tell me she ends up in jail?

She's merely a muppet.  The early investor/VCs are the ones that are truly responsible and never will be held accountable. 
 

Online Marco

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She's merely a muppet.  The early investor/VCs are the ones that are truly responsible and never will be held accountable.

Crucifying the muppet makes it harder to find new muppets. With enough nails maybe she'll roll over and implicate one of the originators for a plea. That's of course not how the system works of course :/ We have to pretend they all thought this could work and was not a giant fraud start to finish, because we might walk away with a libel suit ... while they walk away with millions.

PS. though the fact that the second line investors didn't manage to get bailed out by an IPO is at least creating some cry for justice from people who "matter".
« Last Edit: January 07, 2017, 09:19:34 am by Marco »
 

Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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She's merely a muppet.  The early investor/VCs are the ones that are truly responsible and never will be held accountable.

Crucifying the muppet makes it harder to find new muppets. With enough nails maybe she'll roll over and implicate one of the originators for a plea. That's of course not how the system works of course :/ We have to pretend they all thought this could work and was not a giant fraud start to finish, because we might walk away with a libel suit ... while they walk away with millions.

PS. though the fact that the second line investors didn't manage to get bailed out by an IPO is at least creating some cry for justice from people who "matter".

I used to think that, but after being in the working world for a couple decades, have come to realize that the muppet supply is endless and totally undeterred by the prosecution of others.  What is finite, is the number of people that can put together a Theranos-style investment schema.  Those muppeteers live in the shadows, and get their handsome profits back early from the 2nd to Nth round "sucker investors," never to answer for what they have done. 

Lizzy clearly knows what she is doing is wrong at this point, but she never could have pulled this off without help, lots of it.
 
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Online m98

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I still don't really get why such a huge scandal unfolded on the whole thing? Why didn't they simply cease to offer those tests that can't be reliably done with capillary blood?
 

Offline LabSpokaneTopic starter

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I still don't really get why such a huge scandal unfolded on the whole thing? Why didn't they simply cease to offer those tests that can't be reliably done with capillary blood?

Because that was the entire business model.
 

Online m98

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Because that was the entire business model.

Was it? Their business model was to make blood testing available for anyone with their blood collection device and their minilab technology. There are many tests that could be reliably done with capillary blood using current technology, or the test could be calibrated for the average error that occurs in capillary blood. But instead, things started to go haywire. That's what I don't understand.
 

Offline edavid

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There are many tests that could be reliably done with capillary blood using current technology, or the test could be calibrated for the average error that occurs in capillary blood.

Why do you say that?  The failure of Theranos indicates the opposite is true.

Anyway, there was a deeper flaw in their business model, which is that they were trying to make blood tests into a lifestyle purchase.  It's just as stupid as 23andme.
 

Offline eugenenine

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Theranos Founder, Elizabeth Holmes, Is Barred From Running Lab for 2 Years


But does it say that she cannot be a paid consultant to some else who is running a lab?
 

Online m98

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There are many tests that could be reliably done with capillary blood using current technology, or the test could be calibrated for the average error that occurs in capillary blood.
Why do you say that?  The failure of Theranos indicates the opposite is true.

http://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=88741
https://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?id=530f96f2d3df3e6c1b8b464b&assetKey=AS%3A272440385572884%401441966257979

etc...
 

Offline Bud

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Offline EEVblog

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More news here
http://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-creates-technology-advisory-board-2017-1

THE Henry Kissinger?  :o

Why would anyone want to join this turkey now?
Yeah, yeah, I know, money...
 

Offline Bud

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I am sure they reserved a chair for Obama.
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Offline 3db

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She's merely a muppet.  The early investor/VCs are the ones that are truly responsible and never will be held accountable.

Crucifying the muppet makes it harder to find new muppets. With enough nails maybe she'll roll over and implicate one of the originators for a plea. That's of course not how the system works of course :/ We have to pretend they all thought this could work and was not a giant fraud start to finish, because we might walk away with a libel suit ... while they walk away with millions.

PS. though the fact that the second line investors didn't manage to get bailed out by an IPO is at least creating some cry for justice from people who "matter".

I used to think that, but after being in the working world for a couple decades, have come to realize that the muppet supply is endless and totally undeterred by the prosecution of others.  What is finite, is the number of people that can put together a Theranos-style investment schema.  Those muppeteers live in the shadows, and get their handsome profits back early from the 2nd to Nth round "sucker investors," never to answer for what they have done. 

Lizzy clearly knows what she is doing is wrong at this point, but she never could have pulled this off without help, lots of it.

If this is the company I'm thinking of then the board was stuffed with the "great and good'.
So THEY are just as culpable as her.

3DB



 

Offline EEVblog

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Office clearance sale!  :-DD


« Last Edit: June 14, 2017, 07:04:39 am by EEVblog »
 

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"..has seen her personal wealth fall from $4.5 billion to zero."

Think I'd have pressed 'Collect' once I hit the billion mark.   :phew:
 

Offline bitwelder

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SEC charges Theranos and CEO Elizabeth Holmes with ‘massive fraud’:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/14/sec-charges-theranos-and-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-with-massive-frau/
 

Offline Stray Electron

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  Not just those two but also Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani.  Now I think they're getting closer to the brains of the operation.   They've all be charged with "fraud relating to the startup's fundraising activities".  It looks like somebody is likely to go to jail. In addition, Holmes is "now barred from serving as the officer or director of a public company for 10 years. "  What amazes me is that somebody was still willing to give them a "last minute $100,000,000 loan"!
 

Offline edy

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Just an update... not sure about when this came to light but WOW!!!!! :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes

Quote
Holmes was romantically involved with Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, a Pakistani-born Silicon Valley technology entrepreneur.[26] She met him in 2002 at age 18 while still in school, he was 19 years her senior and married to another woman at the time.[75] They became romantically involved in 2003, about the same time Holmes dropped out of college.[75] Sunny divorced his wife in 2004 and the couple moved into an apartment around 2005. Although Sunny didn't officially join the company until 2009, as Chief Operating Officer, he was advising Holmes behind the scenes prior to then.[75] Holmes and Sunny ran the company jointly in a corporate culture of "secrecy and fear".[75] He left Theranos in 2016 in the wake of the WSJ investigations, fired by Holmes according to her but on his own according to him.[75]

This may help her case... seems she was made into a figure-head puppet as she was naive and controlled by an "experienced" bamboozeler.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2019, 08:03:24 pm by edy »
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Offline tsman

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This may help her case... seems she was made into a figure-head puppet as she was naive and controlled by an "experienced" bamboozeler.
The expanded paragraph is from an edit on 8th September 2018. Before that, it was just mentioning they had a relationship and citing the WSJ article.
 

Offline edy

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Stuff related to the relationship on the Wikipedia page of "Sunny" also which I didn't know about:

Quote
Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani (born March–June 1965[2]) is the former president and chief operating officer of Theranos, which was a privately held health technology company founded by his then-girlfriend Elizabeth Holmes.


Quote
In July 2000, Balwani cashed out his shares in Commerce One, pocketing nearly $40 million shortly before the company went out of business, right before the dot com bubble burst.[1][6] Subsequently, he went back to school and received a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley in 2003.[6] He spent another four years in a computer science graduate program at Stanford University, but dropped out in 2008.[6]

While enrolled at Berkeley, Balwani met Elizabeth Holmes, who was in her senior year of high school. The two were on a summer trip to Beijing, as a part of Stanford's Summer Mandarin Course cohort.[1] Holmes then went on to Stanford University to pursue an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering [1], but later dropped out to focus full-time on Theranos.[7][8]

Quote
In September 2009, despite having no experience in the field of biotechnology, Balwani joined Theranos, run by his then-girlfriend Elizabeth Holmes. Together, they raised $700 million of investor money.[20]

Quote
Balwani was in a romantic relationship with Elizabeth Holmes during his tenure at Theranos.[23] Prior to this, he was married to a Japanese artist named Keiko Fujimoto.[1] The couple lived in San Francisco, before they divorced in 2002.

I guess when you are a naive 18-year old just graduating high school, young and good looking, lots of energy and the media just gobbles you up like you are the next Einstein out of Berkley... and you meet a very rich older man, present your idea and his "light bulb" goes off with the sound "cha-ching" Let's make some cash... We have the makings of a giant investment fraud scheme and nobody seems to step back for a second and actually think to VALIDATE and PROVE if it is legit.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2019, 11:35:03 pm by edy »
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Offline cdev

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Some extremely good con artists have NPD


They are very very good liars. And they have this sort of energy that sucks people in.

I don't know what happened in this case. The world these people travel in is very different than our own. There are a lot of things going on, stories arent always the way the media spin them.

That said, there are a lot of con artists these days. A lot.

And a lot of people looking to make a quick buck too.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2019, 01:33:14 am by cdev »
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Offline james_s

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Should have been a lifetime ban.

Does it even matter? Who is going to let her run a medical lab even if there is nothing legally barring her from doing so?
 

Offline cdev

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Their processes did have some value, the big picture, however just was nowhere near as good nor as repeatable as they claimed it was.

Within an AI context, however, it would have been helpful. How do you ascertain values of data in situations where its just a data point, not 'the' data? All illnesses are places along a continuum, as is all science. Improve a few parameters and does somebody suddenly become no longer sick? Officially, they do.
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline EEVblog

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I guess when you are a naive 18-year old just graduating high school, young and good looking, lots of energy and the media just gobbles you up like you are the next Einstein out of Berkley... and you meet a very rich older man, present your idea and his "light bulb" goes off with the sound "cha-ching" Let's make some cash... We have the makings of a giant investment fraud scheme and nobody seems to step back for a second and actually think to VALIDATE and PROVE if it is legit.

*cough*
Meredith Perry (uBeam)
*cough*
Mark Cuban
*cough*
 

Offline edy

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I guess when you are a naive 18-year old just graduating high school, young and good looking, lots of energy and the media just gobbles you up like you are the next Einstein out of Berkley... and you meet a very rich older man, present your idea and his "light bulb" goes off with the sound "cha-ching" Let's make some cash... We have the makings of a giant investment fraud scheme and nobody seems to step back for a second and actually think to VALIDATE and PROVE if it is legit.

*cough*
Meredith Perry (uBeam)
*cough*
Mark Cuban
*cough*

Yes, but at least Mark Cuban didn't have an illicit affair with Meredith Perry, causing her to drop out of college, then go on to divorce his wife and shack up with her, operating things in the background and then officially joining the company a few years later, running it in a culture of "secrecy and fear" to defraud investors of millions of dollars, and then try to split once investigations started.  :-DD  Sometimes movies just write themselves... So the book came out, now who is going to write the screenplay? :popcorn:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Blood:_Secrets_and_Lies_in_a_Silicon_Valley_Startup

And apparently one of our own EEVBlog members noted something about Mederith Perry being dropped as CEO from the company a few months ago as mentioned in this blog post:

https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2018/09/meredith-perry-no-longer-ubeam-ceo.html
« Last Edit: January 04, 2019, 10:06:35 am by edy »
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Offline EEVblog

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Yes, but at least Mark Cuban didn't have an illicit affair with Meredith Perry, causing her to drop out of college, then go on to divorce his wife and shack up with her, operating things in the background and then officially joining the company a few years later, running it in a culture of "secrecy and fear" to defraud investors of millions of dollars, and then try to split once investigations started.  :-DD  Sometimes movies just write themselves... So the book came out, now who is going to write the screenplay? :popcorn:

That would be Vanessa Taylor, with Jennifer Lawrence starring!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5795144/

BTW, how does it take $50M to make a drama film?
 

Offline cdev

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I think some of the scenes in "The Social Network" capture the startup atmosphere in the Bay Area pretty well.
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away."
 

Offline Magiciaen

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That would be Vanessa Taylor, with Jennifer Lawrence starring!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5795144/

BTW, how does it take $50M to make a drama film?

The title is the obvious one to go for, but ingenious nonetheless.
 

Offline edy

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So a documentary is coming out by HBO titled "The Inventor: Out For Blood in Silicon Valley". Here is an article about it on CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/11/tech/the-inventor-theranos-documentary/index.html

Here is the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inventor:_Out_for_Blood_in_Silicon_Valley

Can't wait to watch it! Should be out next week, and soon available for streaming thereafter. Here's a clip:



I though this quote from the CNN article was quite enlightening:

Holmes declined to participate in the film. But producer Jessie Deeter had a five hour dinner with Holmes in an attempt to convince her.
"She wasn't giving much up, but what she did convey to Jessie was that she was the victim — not that she'd done anything wrong," he said.
Gibney, whose body of work has examined deceptive individuals over the years, said he wasn't surprised.
"I think a lot of these people who over promise and imagine that they can do things well beyond what anybody else has done so far, they are possessed of a certain delusional quality — a certain kind of narcissistic belief in their own powers," said Gibney. "That's become, in a way, kind of my stock and trade: to examine those characters, 'cause there's something glorious about that."
« Last Edit: March 11, 2019, 09:34:20 pm by edy »
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Offline edy

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This is not the HBO movie but it is a nice quick summary which I'm sure ColdFusion decided to do to cash in on the HBO searches on YouTube. Here it is:



[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:  I just finished watching the video, not bad at all. I recommend it as it gets pretty quickly to the point and gives a lot of background information as well]
« Last Edit: March 26, 2019, 11:42:26 pm by edy »
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Offline DimitriP

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I prefer the ancient Egyptian custom of erasing  names as if they never existed.
Now we just make them even more famous.
Progress, I guess.
   If three 100  Ohm resistors are connected in parallel, and in series with a 200 Ohm resistor, how many resistors do you have? 
 
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Offline EEVblog

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Is she in prison yet?
 

Offline chris_leyson

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Thanks edy, just watched the ColdFusion documentary. It still leaves a lot of unanswered questions, like why the investors showed no due diligence, no vetted technical and scientific fact checking.
 

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Is she in prison yet?

"Although a date for the trial has not been set, ABC News reported that both Holmes and Balwani are expected to appear for a status hearing on April 22 in San Francisco."

Source: https://people.com/movies/whats-next-elizabeth-holmes-trial-wedding-jennifer-lawrence-movie/
 

Offline floobydust

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I like her business model, after Thomas Edison- she named her blood analysis machines the "Edison".
You know, where you promise investors a light bulb and then take 1,000 guesses and years to make it eventually work...

The engineers said "it's physically impossible to do all the testing in a tiny machine, we need to make it bigger" and they were of course, denied making anything larger than a cute, fake analysis machine.
The NDA's were so over-reaching, nobody dared blow the whistle.

She must be a sociopath. The fact she never blinks her eyes on camera or stage is too creepy.
 

Offline edy

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The fact she never blinks her eyes on camera or stage is too creepy.

In that ColdFusion documentary I linked earlier it points out that she uses a "baritone voice" in all her interviews and meetings, and that it is a faked to sound more authoritative. I thought that was creepy!!! Why would women need to do this?  |O   It points to deeper sociopathic problems, insecurity issues... as quoted from one of the articles I linked below:

Quote
Her voice is a trademark, as many would-be investors and Theranos employees noted in the book "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup." In the book, many said they were taken aback when first meeting Holmes, thanks to her unexpectedly deep voice and wide, unblinking eyes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jerryweissman/2019/03/29/elizabeth-holmes-baritone/#12b551844b8b

https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/why-did-elizabeth-holmes-use-a-fake-deep-voice.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-deep-voice-2019-3

Sure we all have 20/20 hindsight.. these traits seem to indicate mental issues, putting on a fake persona and image, etc... but this "voice lower" and "unblinking eyes" thing is apparently something people are being coached to do for improving their careers or improving their sales pitches. So who can blame Elizabeth Holmes for perhaps being a bit over-zealous when she read somewhere that this would help her improve her career. The problem is that once you start, you can't just turn it off again as people will see it is all some stupid act. It becomes a trap.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2019, 05:25:48 pm by edy »
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Offline KC0PPH

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Google BioFire Film Array....
 

Offline Bud

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I do not think you can control blinking for a prolonged time, as you eyes need to be moisturized . This may have more to do with a person's physiology.
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Offline edy

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Google BioFire Film Array....

BioFire Film Array is a very interesting device. Very different though than what Theranos was trying to do.

The BioFire system basically does PCR (polymerase chain reaction) on samples to try and find positive presence of one or several known pathogens. The "mixture" of PCR primers contains however many numbers of pathogens they have made unique markers for... and they also know the lengths of the output products (the length of the DNA chain products) that correspond to each pathogen. So their system runs the sample with this group of 10, 20 or 30 primers (each made specifically to target certain pathogens they are looking for) and see what comes up.

I used to do this kind of stuff in my undergraduate genetics lab years ago, then run the products to see the length using gel eletrophoresis and staining it blue or some other color.

The other advantage of PCR is that tiny samples are needed because the reaction itself has significant amplification properties. That is why it is used on DNA testing, forensics and so on. You need only a tiny sample to get a large amount of duplicated DNA strand product which then can be visualized.

Theranos was trying to do basic laboratory testing on blood looking not at DNA but at amount of various cells, chemicals, proteins, sugar, electrolyte, etc... You need various chemistry to do each of these analyses and you destroy your sample usually so you can't conduct another test on it. So you will need a large amount of sample to be able to run a whole panel of tests. Lower your sample too much and you end up having lots of inaccuracies. Also the machine itself cannot accommodate all the chemical reactions required.
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Offline andersm

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ABC ran a 7-episode podcast series called The Dropout, which is being made into a TV series by Hulu.

Offline mairo

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I saw a Tek power supply on the video and the only thing I am thinking about is: Has the company's assets gone on auction already, or not yet?  >:D
 

Offline donotdespisethesnake

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I'm not sure she is that much different to many other "players" in tech start ups, or business in general. A lot of business leaders are basically charismatic sociopaths. I've worked for some similar people. Despite having virtually no relevant knowledge or skills, somehow they attract funding and people who believe, and even after someone points out what they are trying is basically impossible, those people are quietly advised, "play along, take the money".

The main difference is she got caught out. The "successful" sociopaths are smart enough to not get caught out, e.g. by keeping promises and product deadlines vague. Steorn (and several other companies in the "free energy" field) kept going for quite a while, and burned up a lot of investor cash, even though their product was theoretically impossible. It is not that surprising that something that is vaguely plausible can attract a lot of funding. 

Those who got lucky and succeeded are remembered as geniuses (like Edison), those who failed are thought to be frauds.

Bob
"All you said is just a bunch of opinions."
 

Online Marco

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It still leaves a lot of unanswered questions, like why the investors showed no due diligence, no vetted technical and scientific fact checking.

I guess the ones with skin in the game saw it as more of a quid pro quo favour to the people involved ... and the rest did too, but without skin in the game.
 

Offline Technobabble_

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Quote
It still leaves a lot of unanswered questions, like why the investors showed no due diligence, no vetted technical and scientific fact checking.

Slick salesmanship. In addition, investors probably don't want to admit they made a mistake, so they bury their head in the sand. FWIW Henry Kissinger and James Mattis (former Sec. of Defense) put their money into Theranos.
 

Offline sdouble

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Henry Kissinger  is .. 96
 


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