Ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes says 'I don't know' 600+ times in depo tapes

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She and Sunny better take a deal. Doing a few years in a federal pen isn't that bad. While inside she will see inmates making gadgets that actually do work. There is some amazing ingenuity in there. Maybe some of them can help her figure out how to make the Edison function properly.
 
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WEBB PINKERTON said:
She and Sunny better take a deal. Doing a few years in a federal pen isn't that bad. While inside she will see inmates making gadgets that actually do work. There is some amazing ingenuity in there. Maybe some of them can help her figure out how to make the Edison function properly.
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Since her motto was "fake it until you make it" you may be correct
 
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WEBB PINKERTON said:
She and Sunny better take a deal. Doing a few years in a federal pen isn't that bad. While inside she will see inmates making gadgets that actually do work. There is some amazing ingenuity in there. Maybe some of them can help her figure out how to make the Edison function properly.
Click to expand...

You know, it's no picnic. She will have to kick someone's a** the first day, or else will be someone's bi***.

Also, new requirements for the Edison may include being small enough to fit inside a rectum for easy transportation (point of care), and of course, double as a shiv.
 
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The book bad blood is a must read....Really unbelievable the stuff that happened there
 
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Med Director New England said:
The book bad blood is a must read....Really unbelievable the stuff that happened there
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Really unbelievable that our organizations sat back and let it happen. It was one of the most obvious cons of all time. Nice job CAP.
 
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gbwillner said:
You know, it's no picnic. She will have to kick someone's a** the first day, or else will be someone's bi***.

Also, new requirements for the Edison may include being small enough to fit inside a rectum for easy transportation (point of care), and of course, double as a shiv.
Click to expand...

It ain't Shawshank. It will likely be a very nice federal pen. No worrying about Boggs attacking you.
 
WEBB PINKERTON said:
Really unbelievable that our organizations sat back and let it happen. It was one of the most obvious cons of all time. Nice job CAP.
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I don't know about that... hindsight is 20/20 but in the early days there was a lot of excitement about Theranos and they duped a ton of people. Friends of mine from grad school considered accepting jobs there (one did), and these were good scientists with solid publication records. I definitely thought Theranos was legit until the first major expose piece. It's embarrassing to remember speculating that "microfluidics like they've got working at Theranos" was going to change our industry a clinical laboratory colleague. If you really saw through Theranos before October 2015, then my hat goes off to you - a lot of us wanted to believe it was real.

As for CAP, don't you think they are generally playing catch up to where the cutting edge is? Though cases like this do prove the need for regulation of LDTs.
 
I know a lot of clinical lab professionals who were skeptical pretty early on, myself included. It might be because I had more background at that point in test development and validation. Definitely well before October 2015. Our lab leadership certainly wasn't fooled. In fact our division director was in contact with one of the Theranos people and Theranos was going to send us samples to do comparison testing. He said, kinda conspiratorially, at a small team meeting, "we're going to catch them with their pants down." But in the middle of the details being worked out, they just went radio silent. My own lab director and one of our fellows published a perspective piece on why it wasn't a good idea to let patients order their own lab tests.

As for CAP, I just don't think the way we regulate labs is effective at identifying and weeding out problems. If you have nice pretty policies and documentation and pass proficiencies you're golden. That doesn't mean you do good work, especially if people don't actually follow said policies. We had a tech in one lab who would get a flag on the heme analyzer and gonto manual diff, but she didn't know how to do a diff so she'd b.s. her count to get the exact same percentages of each cell type as the analyzer said. In situations where you had things like reactive lymphs and the analyzer would throw an artifically high monocyte count and stuff like that. But she passed all her heme competencies because the were poorly set up. I've seen lots of that nonsense. I'm not sure what the solution is, but all we're really assessing currently is documentation.
 
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Most of us with any background in clinical pathology new most of their claims were BS or at best extremely over hyped.
They were promising magic in a box. Selling a perpetual motion or antigravity machine requires evidence.

CAP and professional organizations are not responsible for identifying fraud or debunking false claims in clinical lab equipment/service.
This was not CAP laboratory either.
So the clinical aspects of their testing were beyond any inspection.
CAP and other organizations don't have resources or the authority for this kind of problem.

It was Theranos that had an obligation to provide correct lab results and make sure investors knew what they were buying.

However, there were plenty of people asking how this was going to happen.
Theranos would always say they will provide the data. They never followed through.
If folks got too critical Theranos Lawyers came calling with threats.
 
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AZpath said:
Most of us with any background in clinical pathology new most of their claims were BS or at best extremely over hyped.
They were promising magic in a box. Selling a perpetual motion or antigravity machine requires evidence.

CAP and professional organizations are not responsible for identifying fraud or debunking false claims in clinical lab equipment/service.
This was not CAP laboratory either.
So the clinical aspects of their testing were beyond any inspection.
CAP and other organizations don't have resources or the authority for this kind of problem.

It was Theranos that had an obligation to provide correct lab results and make sure investors knew what they were buying.

However, there were plenty of people asking how this was going to happen.
Theranos would always say they will provide the data. They never followed through.
If folks got too critical Theranos Lawyers came calling with threats.
Click to expand...


What was most interesting to me was that there were 2 Medical Directors (CLIA lab directors) at Theranos while all of this went down. They let it happen. It was likely a combination of greed, ignorance, and fear of repercussions for speaking out. I wonder if they lost their licenses over this.
 
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Naruhodo said:
I don't know about that... hindsight is 20/20 but in the early days there was a lot of excitement about Theranos and they duped a ton of people. Friends of mine from grad school considered accepting jobs there (one did), and these were good scientists with solid publication records. I definitely thought Theranos was legit until the first major expose piece. It's embarrassing to remember speculating that "microfluidics like they've got working at Theranos" was going to change our industry a clinical laboratory colleague. If you really saw through Theranos before October 2015, then my hat goes off to you - a lot of us wanted to believe it was real.

As for CAP, don't you think they are generally playing catch up to where the cutting edge is? Though cases like this do prove the need for regulation of LDTs.
Click to expand...
.
It is the wild west with LDTs right now. Validation studies that seem too small-scale for my liking. I wonder if the lasting effect of Theranos will be heavy regulation of LDTs.
 
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gbwillner said:
What was most interesting to me was that there were 2 Medical Directors (CLIA lab directors) at Theranos while all of this went down. They let it happen. It was likely a combination of greed, ignorance, and fear of repercussions for speaking out. I wonder if they lost their licenses over this.
Click to expand...

Wasn't the first medical director a Dermatologist? LOL. Seems like I remember reading that years ago.

After using google, looks like it was this Sunil Dhawan guy

Our Providers - Milpitas, CA Dermatologist

He doesn't even list Theranos on his CV it appears. LOL
 
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WEBB PINKERTON said:
Wasn't the first medical director a Dermatologist? LOL. Seems like I remember reading that years ago.

After using google, looks like it was this Sunil Dhawan guy

Our Providers - Milpitas, CA Dermatologist

He doesn't even list Theranos on his CV it appears. LOL
Click to expand...

In the Bad Blood book, the dermatologist was one of Sunny's buddies who came in as lab director, when the prior medical director left over ethical concerns. Theranos was also so secretive that they forbid their employees from even posting their affiliation with Theranos in LinkedIn profiles. The book was a damn good read...
 
Exactly why non-pathologists should not be allowed to be lab medical directors.
 
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WEBB PINKERTON said:
Sounds like he has a derm lab for the last two decades? In-office lab perhaps? Guess that qualified him to be medical director of a blood testing startup.....Makes sense he was one of Sunny's buddies.

Theranos Is Looking For a New Lab Director in California

I guess I need to read Bad Blood book. Been putting it off long enough.
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All pathologists and most laboratorians should read it along with ACKERMAN'S treatise A TRIAL IN PHILADELPHIA
 
Daddydoc said:
Exactly why non-pathologists should not be allowed to be lab medical directors.
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Good luck with that...I see lots of people with all kinds of credentials signing out tests, so I think the horse is out of the barn.

Fair enough, I was a basic researcher back when I first read about Theranos and hem never was my area. The person I knew who left a Genentech postdoc for Theranos didn't list it on her CV for a while (referred to it vaguely as a highly valued silicon-valley healthcare startup, hehe), but I think once she landed her first post-Theranos job she put it back on. I'm sure it makes for some colorful stories at the very least...
 
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