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The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

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Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#41

Post by Thriptic »

dpandya wrote: post #10

One of the most concerning aspects of the Theranos investment has been the total lack of due diligence in this process. Putting aside the technology for a moment (it could be considered difficult to evaluate for most investors), due diligence failed on multiple counts. For example, Holmes told potential investors they had over $100 million in revenue when, in reality, they had close to $100,000 in revenue. That's a b…

There is a far simpler way to look at this, and that is to say that this is why we have peer review in science. If a scientist won't release data or methods, there is a 99% chance they are bullshitting their claims. Theranos's product happened to be adjacent to my research space, so I was already highly skeptical when I heard the initial product claims. When I heard they weren't releasing data however, I strongly suspected they were bullshit. Many years later, sure enough..

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#42

Post by pdonis »

megablast wrote: post #36
pdonis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is everything wrong with American media in one article 100% agree. What she should have done was not cancel the feature, but write what actually happened--right after it happened, not now, when Theranos has already been outed as a fraud and she's just another one jumping on the bandwagon.

> What she should have done was not cancel the feature Why do you imagine this is her choice? If you want to write a new feature to add voice control to an app, and your boss says no, we don't want that, do you go ahead and do it??

> Why do you imagine this is her choice?

Quite likely it wasn't. But that just means there are two things wrong with journalism, not one. Not only does this journalist not show any sign of recognizing that the information she is providing now should have been provided much earlier, but, if your suspicion is correct, even if she had recognized it, her boss would have overruled her.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#44

Post by wyattpeak »

pdonis wrote: post #40
wyattpeak wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What story? "I went to Theranos, didn't get to talk to anyone who did the test, then there was a fire alarm"? It all fits together quite nicely in hindsight when stuffed with a bunch of vague accusations and synthesis about motives, but I would have agreed with any editor axing the story at the time. For the record, I assume her suspicions about people getting cagey, and maybe even the fire alarm, are quite right. Bu…

> What story? "The actual services Theranos appears to be providing to patients does not match the services Theranos claims to provide in its PR statements." That seems like (a) useful information to other potential Theranos patients, and (b) exactly the sort of information that "investigative journalism" is supposed to be providing to the public.

But that's not true. Theranos were absolutely doing finger-prick tests, as is stated in the article.

The fact that the journalist didn't see any may well be cause to go back and try to find evidence, but a lack of evidence isn't a story in itself.

I'd point out, too, that if the journalist believed at the time that it was an outright lie, I seriously doubt that she would have dropped it - it's too big a story. More likely she had some misgivings which have been amplified in the wake of the recent news.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#45

Post by xenihn »

zer0day wrote: post #8

I started to write a thoughtful and balanced analysis of this article...but then I stopped myself. The reason I stopped myself is that I thought about all the journalists like this lady who played the same game with Theranos and continue to play similar games with all of the rotten corporate and government entities in the county. Then I started getting genuinely pissed off! What. the. f*ck did I just read? She openly…

Journalists don't get paid enough to not act in their own best interests. You're getting mad at the wrong person here.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#46

Post by pdonis »

wyattpeak wrote: post #44
pdonis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What story? "The actual services Theranos appears to be providing to patients does not match the services Theranos claims to provide in its PR statements." That seems like (a) useful information to other potential Theranos patients, and (b) exactly the sort of information that "investigative journalism" is supposed to be providing to the public.

But that's not true. Theranos were absolutely doing finger-prick tests, as is stated in the article. The fact that the journalist didn't see any may well be cause to go back and try to find evidence, but a lack of evidence isn't a story in itself. I'd point out, too, that if the journalist believed at the time that it was an outright lie, I seriously doubt that she would have dropped it - it's too big a story. More l…

> Theranos were absolutely doing finger-prick tests

Yes--much, much less often than their PR led people to expect. Also, they were actually getting much less information from a single finger prick than their PR was claiming. That's why they were having to do full venipuncture blood draws for tests that their PR led many people to believe would only require a finger prick.

> The fact that the journalist didn't see any may well be cause to go back and try to find evidence

Which she didn't.

> if the journalist believed at the time that it was an outright lie, I seriously doubt that she would have dropped it - it's too big a story. More likely she had some misgivings

Which she should have followed up at the time, if she were really an investigative journalist.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#47

Post by nemild »

whoisjuan wrote: post #22
nemild wrote: post #12

If it's useful for anyone, I made a list of all the ways engineering media can be manipulated (including journalists): https://github.com/nemild/hacking-engineers I added this example to it since it's a particularly good example of how marketing/PR uses threats of access and cherry picked demo sessions to get their favored view out. (Contributions welcome)

Question. When are companies open positions with title names like "Growth Hacker, are" is their expectation to find someone who would deploy this kind of tactics? I ask because it seems that there's a line of thought that wants to legitimize some of these behaviors (voting rings, for instance.)

You're absolutely right, that's often the intent.

I approached my project with the hope of creating antibodies that makes those techniques less valuable. Or at minimal, help a few people better understand the incentives/techniques behind what they're seeing.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#48

Post by DoreenMichele »

pdonis wrote: post #26
zer0day wrote: post #8

I started to write a thoughtful and balanced analysis of this article...but then I stopped myself. The reason I stopped myself is that I thought about all the journalists like this lady who played the same game with Theranos and continue to play similar games with all of the rotten corporate and government entities in the county. Then I started getting genuinely pissed off! What. the. f*ck did I just read? She openly…

> This is everything wrong with American media in one article 100% agree. What she should have done was not cancel the feature, but write what actually happened--right after it happened, not now, when Theranos has already been outed as a fraud and she's just another one jumping on the bandwagon.

Maybe you have heard of the Overton Window?*

You essentially can't publish it if it a. Falls too far outside what the public will readily believe and b. Is not adequately backed up with verifiable hard facts.

Speculation that they intentionally pulled the fire alarm would have been considered mudslinging and yellow journalism at the time the research was done. It's print-worthy now because we now know that Theranos did so much dishonest crap that pulling the fire alarm is not unbelievable and is such small potatoes in the grand scheme of things that it isn't even mudslinging. It's a nit.

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#49

Post by wyattpeak »

pdonis wrote: post #46
wyattpeak wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not true. Theranos were absolutely doing finger-prick tests, as is stated in the article. The fact that the journalist didn't see any may well be cause to go back and try to find evidence, but a lack of evidence isn't a story in itself. I'd point out, too, that if the journalist believed at the time that it was an outright lie, I seriously doubt that she would have dropped it - it's too big a story. More l…

> Theranos were absolutely doing finger-prick tests Yes--much, much less often than their PR led people to expect. Also, they were actually getting much less information from a single finger prick than their PR was claiming. That's why they were having to do full venipuncture blood draws for tests that their PR led many people to believe would only require a finger prick. > The fact that the journalist didn't see any…

I said it may well be cause to go back, not it /is/ cause to go back.

I've read a couple of articles just today that don't seem to check out in some minor way. I can think of one widely-reported story off the top of my head that appears to be grossly misrepresentative of fact if not false. An investigative journalist probably has dozens. Choices need to be made.

The fact that this wasn't pursued for months strongly suggests that none of this evidence was nearly as compelling as it's now being painted.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#50

Post by jonathanyc »

Is there an industry of “black hat PR” people that handle this sort of thing? Would be really interested if there were any autobiographical novels from that sort of person, though I suppose, like bank robbers, their success insists they remain unknown.

EDIT: Just remembered the movie Wag the Dog the Wikipedia article calls the black hat PR people portrayed therein “spin doctors”. But that seems more like just PR to me, not setting off fire alarms to scare away reporters (though the spin doctors in the movie construct a fake war).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog

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