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Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

wsj.com

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Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

#201

Post by jonlucc »

nextos wrote: post #87
Animats wrote: post #31

Theranos isn't even at the leading edge of blood testing. There are now hand-held FDA-approved immediate blood testing devices.[1][2][3] Most of these require smaller amounts of blood than a remote lab, although more than a drop. Theranos is still in the send-it-to-the-lab-and-wait era. Even if Theranos' technology eventually works, it may be obsolete before it ships. [1] https://www.abbottpointofcare.com/products-se…

The healthcare industry is quite inefficient at allocating money to things that are needed and have a decent chance of working. For example, in the field of oncology there's very little money put into cheap accurate early screening. And an almost obsessive pour of money into trying to understand mid-to-late stage cancers. Even James Watson has criticized this. It's a sad situation, because we now know early pre-clini…

I'd reckon that part of this is related to how "easy" it is to get a drug approved for certain-death cancers. The barrier for a drug's approval is lower if the alternative is a certainty of painful death. This is sort of changing as we now seem to have plenty of those kinds of therapies, and the new goal is much more precise targeting of cancers (immunooncology is one example).

Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

#202

Post by 6stringmerc »

cb18 wrote: post #172
supernova87a wrote: post #63

I think the reason we (maybe secretly) take so much satisfaction / schadenfreude at this story is that someone who was so hyped and the darling of Silicon Valley got so much funding and attention. While others who toil away on good ideas, without nearly so many connections and silver spoons, struggle to even get 1 minute of air time with the kind of funders and backers that she got. That, plus seeing the cluelessness…

cluelessness and herd mentality The guy[0] who pointed out how ridiculous the Rolling Stone UVA rape story was while the press was eating it up, made the point that when people are told what they want to hear they don't ask many questions. I wonder how much the Grrlpower element around this story dissuaded some obvious questions in the initial reporting around this mess. [0] http://richardbradley.net/

Not to immediately jump into your assertion as correct in this instance, I do recall such an element being used as an initial defense by GoldiBlox after they sued the Beastie Boys. It was a real horror show. Still wish it had gone to court for some legal clarity, oh well.

Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

#204

Post by vonklaus »

ben_jones wrote: post #102
FireBeyond wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the other way around. They were all set to get it in at a high level into the military, when some pesky medical lower ranking officer said, hey, doesn't this need FDA approval? Theranos tried to squelch that, but to no avail.

Is it possible both of you are right?

> Is it possible both of [them] are right?

Absolutely. However, they give 0 attribution to their baseless assertions. I follow Theranos enough where neither of these statements are so obviously common knowledge that they don't need to reference something at least in passing.

Mostly, I am curious how this ended up happening.

Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

#205

Post by 27182818284 »

cft wrote: post #94
Fede_V wrote: post #9

Man, the shoe fell really, really quickly. Also - huge congratulations to the reporting team of the WSJ, that did an incredible job of unconvering this story back when Theranos was still considered a golden goose. John Carreyrou in particular did some exceptional reporting.

Uncovering? They pissed off (justly) somebody very important, probably in the military, and they used WSJ to orchestrate this.

John Carreyrou is a bona fide, two-time Pulitzer winner.

They saw a story, chased it, and it looks like their hunches were right

Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

#206

Post by wpietri »

mikekchar wrote: post #142
wpietri wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. For me it's not exactly schadenfreude. I'm ok with hype that turns out to be justified. And I'm mostly resigned to people who go wrong through an excess of enthusiasm and naivete. But when unjustified hype shades into negligence or fraud, I take a rich pleasure in seeing people get their comeuppance. It's not schadenfreude precisely, but more about seeing justice done, about seeing karma fulfilled.

I don't speak German, but I don't know if it ceases being schadenfreude just because you feel that the bad thing that happens is justified. Indeed, the Wikipedia page on the word freely mixes those kinds of examples in their page. I'm not trying to be confrontational here, but recently I've been having a fairly negative reaction to the happy feelings that occur when justice is served. Sometimes I think this fuels a s…

Anything can go awry, but looking at the headlines I don't think we have a surplus of justice in the world. And this:

> I have lately wondered if justice is really something we should not try to pursue.

That strikes me as the perspective of somebody who leads a very comfortable life.

Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

#207

Post by tamana »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #159
Grishnakh wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the type of cancer. For instance, a surprisingly large portion of the population likely has thyroid cancer and doesn't know it, and many have it and it isn't treated. It's a very slow-growing cancer usually, and just not worth bothering with until the tumor gets large enough to cause real problems due to its size (then they usually just cut out part of your thyroid, leaving the other part to continue wo…

> a surprisingly large portion of the population likely has thyroid cancer and doesn't know it, and many have it and it isn't treated A larger portion of the population has prostate cancer. You probably have it right now. My mom likes to tell a story from one of her classes at medical school. The teacher had a bunch of slides of prostate material; you had to identify which prostate was cancerous. There were so many q…

Uh, why didn't she teach the known diagnostic criteria? I don't want my oncologist winging it based on what looks intuitively obvious on a slide.

Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

#208

Post by tamana »

sbardle wrote: post #173
cb18 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That stuff would seem to make it all the more strange. Was she "playing business" and got in over her head? Was it just an outright scam? Some people have said maybe those big name directors were brought in to grease the tracks as part of a deliberate scam. Who knows? Maybe there will be some answers if this probe turns up anything.

I don't think it was intended to be a scam. The founder raised too much capital on the back of massively inflated expectations. They couldn't deliver (didn't one of the technical team commit suicide in despair over this?) and rather than doing the honest thing and returning the capital, they've ended up creating a Kafkaesque web of shadows and lies. The fundamental issue is overfunding, and it is not limited to this…

But they never had the tech! This wasn't a genius scientist who got investment to productonize an idea. It was a BS company set up by the parents and their uberwealthy/connected friends, with the kid as the media friendly face, like a teen pop star, or like when someone with a journo friend promotes the "my 8 year old wrote an app!" gimmick every year or so.

They streamrolled a bluff into billon dollar deals, either as a complete scam, or hoping to quietly buy the tech from a real inventor eventually.

Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

#209

Post by tamana »

DavidHm wrote: post #188
sbardle wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it was intended to be a scam. The founder raised too much capital on the back of massively inflated expectations. They couldn't deliver (didn't one of the technical team commit suicide in despair over this?) and rather than doing the honest thing and returning the capital, they've ended up creating a Kafkaesque web of shadows and lies. The fundamental issue is overfunding, and it is not limited to this…

I tend to agree. From what I've read about her (and not in the puff-pieces at the height of the Theranos hype) she was indeed a much smarter than average young lady - but probably the team was not able to deliver on the original vision/ idea, and rather than admit defeat, they tried to cling on it for as long as possible.

No doubt she is a bright well-educated driven person. Zuckerberg-esque, no doubt. But zuck pulled it off because Facebook didn't need any next-gen tech to launch and get big-- just elbow grease and investment/marketing connections. You can't wing it to launch a new blood diagnostics.

Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S

#210

Post by pen2l »

askafriend wrote: post #176
mrdmnd wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read a 32 page script and now I want you to write major television shows. Is that your actual job? This is really good.

This dude co-created Firefox and was director of product at FB for a while...definitely not a screenwriting background but smart man nonetheless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake_Ross

Wow, and he did it all before the age of 30. I feel like a loser.
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