The spirit of Elizabeth Holmes

real_aurgathor

If you fail once, more often than not, there is a 2nd or perhaps even a 3rd chance, and while she may be behind bars, her spirit seems to be acting through a proxy. Billy Evans, the partner of the jailed bio-tech inventor and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes is part of a startup called Haemanthus that plans to do medical tests using bodily fluids, 😲

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elizabeth-holmes-partner-rakes-in-millions-for-new-blood-testing-machine/ar-AA1Ex9t0

urbanriot

real_aurgathor She recently had her appeal thrown out, thank God.

real_aurgathor

Her current release date appears to be mid-2032, but she could conceivably get an additional year or two shaved off over time.

Somewhat-Reticent

But Haemanthus will be blessed with AI …

px_eliezer_

real_aurgathor If you fail once, more often than not, there is a 2nd or perhaps even a 3rd chance….

There’s an obvious retort to that, but we cannot discuss politics here….! 😉

real_aurgathor

px_eliezer_

Apophenia. 😉

I think you may be trying too hard to read between the lines…. 😞

Had she distributed more of the ill gotten earnings, she could be considered a 21st century version of Robin Hoodess. 😉

urbanriot

real_aurgathor

Had she distributed more of the ill gotten earnings, she could be considered a 21st century version of Robin Hoodess.

No, not at all, Robin Hood didn’t harm innocent poor people; Elizabeth Holmes harmed everyone who used her fake products, thousands of people.

real_aurgathor

urbanriot

And do you have any concrete examples of people being seriously harmed? (aside from financial harm)

As per another thread, some people seem to have been seriously harmed by Shedeur Sanders’ slide, so I think the word “harm” and its coverage needs to be well defined before claiming a blanket “harm”.

The same cannot be said for many of the patients who paid for and took action on the basis of the estimated one in 10 inaccurate Theranos tests.
At her recent trial Holmes was found guilty of investor fraud, but not of defrauding patients.

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o178

In other words, the tests were accurate about 90% of the time – that would be a pretty good yield when pickings stocks, for one, 😉

dave

real_aurgathor

Presumably most of those that invest in a Holmes-adjacent company to let AIs have our precious bodily fluids are aware of what happened at Theranos, and are assessing risk appropriately.

px_eliezer_

real_aurgathor Apophenia.

Failure of imagination. 😉

px_eliezer_

real_aurgathor And do you have any concrete examples of people being seriously harmed?

One of the most troubling patient stories that (FDA Special Agent George) Scavdis would learn about was the case of a pregnant woman whose Theranos test indicated that she was miscarrying. Gratefully, she later learned, she was not. Another woman revealed to Scavdis the pain and fear she experienced when her Theranos blood test indicated that her life-threatening ectopic pregnancy had been dissolved when, in fact, it had not.

Scavdis also spoke with a doctor so alarmed by a Theranos test’s highly abnormal results that he urged his patient to go directly to a nearby emergency room because he feared the individual was at serious risk for a heart attack. The hospital rushed tests of its own, using a different diagnostic method, and discovered, with much good news for the patient, that the individual’s results were well within the normal range.

https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/regulatory-news-stories-and-features/patient-advocacy-lies-heart-fda-agents-theranos-case
(FDA US Government site)

Theranos sent out inaccurate results to patients being screened for cancer, to women monitoring their pregnancies, and to one victim who was led to believe she had the precursor virus to AIDS, among many other examples. Theranos itself eventually concluded a patient impact existed for every test run on patients and voided all tests with its analyzer.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/elizabeth-holmes-sentenced-more-11-years-defrauding-theranos-investors-hundreds
(DOJ US Government site)

urbanriot

real_aurgathor

And do you have any concrete examples of people being seriously harmed?

Sure but you can easily google that yourself, I don’t know why you’re always asking for “concrete examples” of things that are obvious or you can read about on your own. Why do you think she’s in jail?

Out of the 1.5 million people questioning their results, and 150,000+ people who had tests that were later invalidated, at least three victims testified in her trial to harm.

People had changed their heart medication as a result of flawed tests, they’d taken blood thinners or stopped taking blood thinners as a result of flawed tests, people thought they had cancer and didn’t, people were told they didn’t have cancer but did, etc..

so I think the word “harm” and its coverage needs to be well defined before claiming a blanket “harm”.

The dictionary does a great job defining harm:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/harm

physical injury or mental damage; hurt:
moral injury; evil; wrong.

Yep, the dictionary does a great job covering this event in its entirety.

the tests were accurate about 90% of the time

… right, but also wrong 10% of the time thus invalidating 100% of the tests taken with the flawed process.

real_aurgathor

urbanriot Why do you think she’s in jail?

Holmes was found guilty of investor fraud, but not of defrauding patients.

urbanriot at least three victims testified in her trial to harm.

I would expected a few more based on the claims made here.

urbanriot

real_aurgathor

Holmes was found guilty of investor fraud, but not of defrauding patients.

Sigh. I spent more time than I’d like typing a post to you to explain the legal world until I realized your questions aren’t in good faith, that I waste more time replying to your superfluous posts than my time should allow so I deleted that and decided it would be easier to drop some candies along the path and hopefully you can educate yourself on how the legal world works.

You originally asked about “harm” but now you’re referring to “fraud”… which is it? Legally there are two issues here, which do you want to try her on?

And at the same time, why? Why are you trying to white knight this scumbag’s legal issues? Everyone else here knows she’s a vile piece of shit, why are you trying to validate her activities?

Zer0Cool

this scam artist still has people willing to give her money?

Somewhat-Reticent

real_aurgathor I would expect mere victim patients’ issues to be
steamrolled by investors’ megabuck issues. /Sardonic
( Realistically, aren’t patients’ medics responsible for validating test accuracy? )
…
( Shouldn’t this discussion be entitled “The spirit of Theranos” ?
After all, there were others just as culpable. )

px_eliezer_

Somewhat-Reticent ( Realistically, aren’t patients’ medics responsible for validating test accuracy? )

No.

The average healthcare provider is not responsible for riding herd on clinical laboratories.

That’s why lab companies are state-licensed in some states, federally regulated under CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments/CLIA), and voluntary certifications from the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and others.

When the Feds cancelled the CLIA certificate of Holmes’s Theranos labs, that was the beginning of the end.
https://www.genengnews.com/news/theranos-and-its-ceo-slapped-with-cms-sanctions/

But again, the average physician or other provider is usually in no position to evaluate or doubt the results provided by a licensed lab.

Sometimes if something seems quite unusual, I might request that a test be repeated by the lab company, or once in a great while I might ask a patient to get the test done again at a different lab.

But if a blood clotting test (as one example) is wrong, I can’t determine that by physical examination. I have to depend on the lab company.

Theranos Has Junked Two Years of Blood Test Results
https://time.com/4341219/theranos-invalidated-blood-test-results/

real_aurgathor

Somewhat-Reticent ( Shouldn’t this discussion be entitled “The spirit of Theranos” ?
After all, there were others just as culpable. )

As per google AI:

Theranos’ core idea, a revolution in blood testing, was conceived by Elizabeth Holmes while she was a student at Stanford University. The initial concept involved developing a system to test blood samples with minimal volume and a more convenient method than traditional venipuncture.

px_eliezer_

real_aurgathor

The idea was not the problem, rather the problem was with the execution.

And subsequent attempts to deny/distract from the issues that resulted.

real_aurgathor

Perhaps they can do it better this time. 😉