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Can you expand? Investors are risk-heavy VCs who expect more than 50% of investments to fail Patients just saw a blood testing service promising the same accur

by shmatt 5y ago

Can you expand? Investors are risk-heavy VCs who expect more than 50% of investments to fail Patients just saw a blood testing service promising the same accuracy as a blood draw and went for it

AdamN 5y ago
I might be wrong but my understanding is that the patients' blood was tested on legit equipment so they did get valid results. It just wasn't using the Theranos technology. So investors (and Wallgreens) were defrauded because they were mislead but the patient experience was valid (since the results were correct and from proper equipment).
- bryan0 5y ago
  > I might be wrong I think you are: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/21/22687026/theranos-patient-bad-test-miscarriage-pregnancy https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/21/22687026/theranos-patient...
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    Or Not. https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-problems-blood-tests-edison-machines-2015-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-problems-blood-test...
    - bryan0 5y ago
      Not exactly sure what you are referring to, but this seems consistent with my article. > To use traditional machines, Theranos had to dilute some of the smaller samples it collected. It appears that Theranos carried out another 60 tests using this method in December 2014. > Some of the potassium results at Theranos were so high that patients would have to be dead for the results to be correct, according to one former employee. This is because, lab experts told The Journal, "finger-pricked blood samples can be less pure than those drawn from a vein because finger-pricked blood often mixes with fluids from tissue and cells that can interfere with tests."
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I am not a lawyer, this is just my rationale: Holmes clearly lied to investors, and even if she may have "believed" in the long term prospects of her company, she also clearly intentionally lied to investors to get their money. The investors were also obviously harmed (they lost their money). Also, the fact that VCs expect a lot of their companies to fail is totally irrelevant. VCs (and more importantly, the law) also expect founders to tell the truth on simple statements of fact, e.g. "We recieved this much revenue" or "This machine can perform X, Y, Z tests now". Again, Holmes didn't just exaggerate or say "This machine can perform X, Y, Z tests in the future". She flat out lied about the current capabilities of her company. With patients, most of the tests were done on standard equipment. I don't believe patients were ever told "we will test your blood on Edison", and more importantly, they probably wouldn't have cared that much - they just wanted their test results. So with the tests done on standard equipment, hard to argue there was much harm done there. Now, some tests were done on Edison, and I know Walgreens invalidated a whole bunch of Theranos tests. But even then, it's harder to say Holmes intended to deceive in that case (a prerequisite for the fraud charge) - presumably they chose to run them on Edison and not the other equipment because they thought Edison could handle those tests. The fact that the lab was sloppy, the fact that Edison had issues, that in my mind wouldn't be enough to assert wire fraud on the part of Holmes. All in all it's just kind of hard to say that patients were really defrauded at all. If Theranos had instead just completely made up some of their test results, and Holmes directed that behavior, then yes, that would have been fraud against patients, but that's not what happened.

by shmatt 5y ago

Can you expand? Investors are risk-heavy VCs who expect more than 50% of investments to fail Patients just saw a blood testing service promising the same accuracy as a blood draw and went for it

AdamN 5y ago

I might be wrong but my understanding is that the patients' blood was tested on legit equipment so they did get valid results. It just wasn't using the Theranos technology. So investors (and Wallgreens) were defrauded because they were mislead but the patient experience was valid (since the results were correct and from proper equipment).

bryan0 5y ago
> I might be wrong I think you are: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/21/22687026/theranos-patient-bad-test-miscarriage-pregnancy https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/21/22687026/theranos-patient...
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  Or Not. https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-problems-blood-tests-edison-machines-2015-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-problems-blood-test...
  - bryan0 5y ago
    Not exactly sure what you are referring to, but this seems consistent with my article. > To use traditional machines, Theranos had to dilute some of the smaller samples it collected. It appears that Theranos carried out another 60 tests using this method in December 2014. > Some of the potassium results at Theranos were so high that patients would have to be dead for the results to be correct, according to one former employee. This is because, lab experts told The Journal, "finger-pricked blood samples can be less pure than those drawn from a vein because finger-pricked blood often mixes with fluids from tissue and cells that can interfere with tests."

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

I am not a lawyer, this is just my rationale: Holmes clearly lied to investors, and even if she may have "believed" in the long term prospects of her company, she also clearly intentionally lied to investors to get their money. The investors were also obviously harmed (they lost their money). Also, the fact that VCs expect a lot of their companies to fail is totally irrelevant. VCs (and more importantly, the law) also expect founders to tell the truth on simple statements of fact, e.g. "We recieved this much revenue" or "This machine can perform X, Y, Z tests now". Again, Holmes didn't just exaggerate or say "This machine can perform X, Y, Z tests in the future". She flat out lied about the current capabilities of her company. With patients, most of the tests were done on standard equipment. I don't believe patients were ever told "we will test your blood on Edison", and more importantly, they probably wouldn't have cared that much - they just wanted their test results. So with the tests done on standard equipment, hard to argue there was much harm done there. Now, some tests were done on Edison, and I know Walgreens invalidated a whole bunch of Theranos tests. But even then, it's harder to say Holmes intended to deceive in that case (a prerequisite for the fraud charge) - presumably they chose to run them on Edison and not the other equipment because they thought Edison could handle those tests. The fact that the lab was sloppy, the fact that Edison had issues, that in my mind wouldn't be enough to assert wire fraud on the part of Holmes. All in all it's just kind of hard to say that patients were really defrauded at all. If Theranos had instead just completely made up some of their test results, and Holmes directed that behavior, then yes, that would have been fraud against patients, but that's not what happened.