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U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#31

Post by ben_jones »

whbk wrote: post #28
fnbr wrote: post #9

I have no sympathy for her. It's incredibly irresponsible to do what she did- play marketing games with medical technology. Theranos' unethical behaviour has made it much more difficult for future innovation in the medical field, and has potentially cost lives. This sanction is appropriate. My fiancee works as a laboratory scientist in a hospital conducting patient sample testing, and her and her co-workers take thei…

Agreed - she should be imprisoned. You don't get to play with lives.

I think that's the problem. It hasn't been linked to deaths yet. I fear it might be impossible to link a ~year of invalidated blood testing as the cause of death.

Did Theranos test for fatal diseases? Did they just test for mundane stuff?

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#32

Post by tamana »

sndean wrote: post #15

If they're going to ban her from operating labs for two years, does that mean they think she'll be, in some way, rehabilitated and capable of soundly running labs after that? Maybe there is little precedent, but that length of time seems a bit arbitrary (and too short?).

It's a time out in the corner , with two years of lost revenue, to think about what she did wrong and make a plan to build a proper lab

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#33

Post by ben_jones »

sndean wrote: post #15

If they're going to ban her from operating labs for two years, does that mean they think she'll be, in some way, rehabilitated and capable of soundly running labs after that? Maybe there is little precedent, but that length of time seems a bit arbitrary (and too short?).

Revocation of the laboratory’s CLIA certificate which, as dictated by the regulations, includes a prohibition on owners and operators of the lab from owning, operating or directing a lab for at least two years from the date of revocation

I think it's a case where the company had a certificate revoked as part of that process is a direct ban on the person in charge of said lab, which bubbled up to Holmes. I would've supported a direct levy on her but this just seems to be aimed at the company.

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#34

Post by BinaryIdiot »

rtpg wrote: post #20
fnbr wrote: post #9

I have no sympathy for her. It's incredibly irresponsible to do what she did- play marketing games with medical technology. Theranos' unethical behaviour has made it much more difficult for future innovation in the medical field, and has potentially cost lives. This sanction is appropriate. My fiancee works as a laboratory scientist in a hospital conducting patient sample testing, and her and her co-workers take thei…

I agree with the sentiment, this stuff's important. But when does "playing marketing games" become OK? Maybe for mobile games, but even then you have kids taking their parent's credit cards out of wallets and spending 100s... everything's important to somebody. Clearly medical tech is extra important, and the consequences even more grave, but I hope this is a lesson to everyone that trying to dupe all of society some…

> But when does "playing marketing games" become OK?

When it comes to anything that can affect your health in medical related capacities it's tough to say it's ever okay. But duping a 9 year old into buying $200 worth of bullshit in-app purchases? Also very unethical, in my opinion, but at least it doesn't directly result in inaccurate medical care which could easily lead to serious injury or death.

So ultimately I'm not sure it's ever ethically okay but that's probably going to depend on each person's definition of "playing marketing games".

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#35

Post by Animats »

rgbrenner wrote: post #23
Animats wrote: post #13

The WSJ article and the Theranos press release [1] don't agree. There's no mention of the 2-year ban in the press release. The press release indicates it's business as usual for Theranos at their Arizona lab. Supposedly only their Newark (CA) lab is being shut down. [1] http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160707006570/en/Ther...

It's the first point in the sidebar: Revocation of the laboratory’s CLIA certificate which, as dictated by the regulations, includes a prohibition on owners and operators of the lab from owning, operating or directing a lab for at least two years from the date of revocation But yes.. they really didn't care to expand on that at all... or explain how it would impact their business.

Yes, I missed that. But does this mean Holmes has to be fired to keep the Arizona lab open?

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#36

Post by foota »

joeyrideout wrote: post #26
Animats wrote: post #13

The WSJ article and the Theranos press release [1] don't agree. There's no mention of the 2-year ban in the press release. The press release indicates it's business as usual for Theranos at their Arizona lab. Supposedly only their Newark (CA) lab is being shut down. [1] http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160707006570/en/Ther...

First bullet point in the list of sanctions in the Theranos press release you linked: "Revocation of the laboratory’s CLIA certificate which, as dictated by the regulations, includes a prohibition on owners and operators of the lab from owning, operating or directing a lab for at least two years from the date of revocation " (emphasis mine)

Wouldn't Theranos be the owner and operator of the lab?

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#37

Post by BinaryIdiot »

arcticbull wrote: post #4

Hear that? That's the sound of $9B in valuation disappearing :| There is really a thin line between delusion and brilliance.

I'm beginning to wonder if at any point they will pack their bags, return what's left to investors and close up shop...or maybe they'll just keep going until it's completely dead? Hell maybe they pivot to be a traditional lab with traditional equipment?

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#38

Post by Fricken »

fnbr wrote: post #9

I have no sympathy for her. It's incredibly irresponsible to do what she did- play marketing games with medical technology. Theranos' unethical behaviour has made it much more difficult for future innovation in the medical field, and has potentially cost lives. This sanction is appropriate. My fiancee works as a laboratory scientist in a hospital conducting patient sample testing, and her and her co-workers take thei…

Trying to imagine myself willfully misleading her investors and the public for as long as she did, and at that scale extends beyond my capacity for empathy. I suspect she's genuinely delusional. I don't know how else someone could do something like that.

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#39

Post by School-Cotton »

gravypod wrote: post #30
rgbrenner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think wikipedia has you covered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

Thanks, everyone else just downvoted. Thanks for taking the time to link. Has there been any clue as to why this ban has come about? That seems rather harsh for a "simple" (I'm using that very loosely) mistake. Is there evidence of faking data or other nefarious deeds on the side of the company?

People downvoted because going to Wikipedia is something you could have very easily done yourself. This is like if I commented "what's China?" on a post about the Chinese economy.

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#40

Post by Fede_V »

I'm usually a huge fan of pg, but in his essay about founders, there was one section which I wasn't very comfortable with: http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

Specifically, when he talks about naughtiness, he says:

Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter.

I have absolutely no interest in trying to play language games - and maybe I'm misunderstanding what pg is saying, but it has always seemed to me that the judgement of whether the rule that was broken was consequential or not is post-hoc. For example: had airbnb gotten in serious trouble and floundered in the aftermath of when they started scraping craigslist for listings, they wouldn't be clever and naughty, but reckless and foolish. Had zenefits managed to grow even more or hire some key lobbyists and get the law changed in time, their CEO would be hailed as a visionary genius that cut through pointless red tape.

Anyway: the reason I brought that up is that a lot of the ethically dubious things that Elizabeth Homes did are very similar to things which a lot of tech companies did at one time or another. Trying to push ambitious young men and women to look at rules and regulations as something they should take pride in hacking and bypassing is a dangerous game - even more so in fields that are highly regulated.

Addendum: part of the original hacker ethic was to ignore stupid rules. For example, we take delight in Feynmann cracking safes at Los Alamos, or finding some clever hack to bypass a pointless procedure. However: I think it's one thing to hack a system to make a point about how stupid it is, but it's completely different if you add a monetary incentive, and suddenly the rules that get broken are those that stand in the way of you making money. The two sets have a fairly small overlap.

Addendum two: in a complex society like the one we live in, we have a lot of dumb rules. I'm not trying to defend them - we should obviously get rid of them, even in healthcare. A lot of economists have written intelligently about how to make the approval process of the FDA more agile.

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