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It is probably mean-spirited of me, but the first thing that passed through my mind after reading this article is "like Theranos, except in Africa". Hopefully,

It is probably mean-spirited of me, but the first thing that passed through my mind after reading this article is "like Theranos, except in Africa". Hopefully, I'm wrong, and this will be an amazing game-changing medical device that saves many lives.

dbasedweeb 8y ago
It would be mean-spirited to want that to be the case, it’s somewhere on the skeptical-cynical spectrum to think it’s likely. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
tialaramex 8y ago
Maybe. However the idea of Theranos was it would replace tests you were going to do anyway. It needed to be just as good. In some contexts a less invasive, easier to do, or just plain cheaper test can make sense for screening even if it's not good enough to replace your other tests. So there's a middle ground between "replaces blood tests for malaria" and useless. My pathologist friend was telling me that because machines are still very bad at figuring out if cells from a smear might be cancer but very good at figuring out if a sample has HPV fragments they've switched to letting the machines check samples for HPV and then, since cervical cancer is almost invariably caused by HPV a human looks at the smears for the HPV positive patients to search for cancer. Humans aren't great at this either, but this approach means each individual worker spends more time looking at the smears that actually might have cancer, so hopefully that lets them do a better job.
Waterluvian 8y ago
I thought the exact same thing but from an optimistic perspective: let's show Holmes how real scientists, real entrepreneurs practice their craft.
- rossdavidh 8y ago
  That would be an awesome outcome! Also, it occurs to me that by being far away from a hotbed of hype for investment, the chances of it being looked at uncritically are less. So hopefully it will be a good comparison.
maxerickson 8y ago
Theranos sold bogus test results to hundreds of thousands of people: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2018/06/07/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-experimented-arizonans-bad-blood-book/675541002/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2018/06/0... Understand the shade you are throwing!
- jiminy_john 8y ago
  Did not catch it but where you one of the guys pointing out how wrong Theranos seemed to be? No? Then you are just virtue signaling in a SJW kind of way.

dbasedweeb 8y ago

It would be mean-spirited to want that to be the case, it’s somewhere on the skeptical-cynical spectrum to think it’s likely. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

tialaramex 8y ago

Maybe. However the idea of Theranos was it would replace tests you were going to do anyway. It needed to be just as good. In some contexts a less invasive, easier to do, or just plain cheaper test can make sense for screening even if it's not good enough to replace your other tests. So there's a middle ground between "replaces blood tests for malaria" and useless. My pathologist friend was telling me that because machines are still very bad at figuring out if cells from a smear might be cancer but very good at figuring out if a sample has HPV fragments they've switched to letting the machines check samples for HPV and then, since cervical cancer is almost invariably caused by HPV a human looks at the smears for the HPV positive patients to search for cancer. Humans aren't great at this either, but this approach means each individual worker spends more time looking at the smears that actually might have cancer, so hopefully that lets them do a better job.

Waterluvian 8y ago

I thought the exact same thing but from an optimistic perspective: let's show Holmes how real scientists, real entrepreneurs practice their craft.

rossdavidh 8y ago
That would be an awesome outcome! Also, it occurs to me that by being far away from a hotbed of hype for investment, the chances of it being looked at uncritically are less. So hopefully it will be a good comparison.

maxerickson 8y ago

Theranos sold bogus test results to hundreds of thousands of people: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2018/06/07/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-experimented-arizonans-bad-blood-book/675541002/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2018/06/0... Understand the shade you are throwing!

jiminy_john 8y ago
Did not catch it but where you one of the guys pointing out how wrong Theranos seemed to be? No? Then you are just virtue signaling in a SJW kind of way.