Theranos' Elizabeth Holmes charged with fraud

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/15/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-ch.html

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Ya can’t win 'em all, Boies, Schiller, & Flexner.

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They ripped off rich people. Of course there are charges.

If they’d stuck to ripping off everybody else, they’d be getting promoted onto every other company’s board.

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OK, this is weird. I just assumed she was already in jail.

can we talk about how it is 2018 and there are only two major lab testing companies in the entire USA without any competitive pricing?

if you are one of the millions of working poor in the USA that cannot get insurance, you are screwed every time you need a lab test

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What’s even weirder is Theranos still exists.

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Yes, we definitely need a more competitive lab testing field. That was why people were initially excited by Theranos – it would have been a game changer. If it hadn’t been a total fraud.

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It would be off-topic in this thread, but I think a thread to discuss that is an excellent idea. Please @ me if you do. I think it’s a discussion very much worth having.

Absolutely. And Holmes and Balwani’s fraud have made it that much harder to solve the problem. Like all con artists, they’ve scared capital away from honest enterprise.

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I know, right? What’s up with that?

I think part of it is that the lab work processes have to be tested and certified to be accurate and produce consistent results every single time; that’s one of the things that fell Theranos was that their gear… did not. Especially if a life-changing diagnosis hinges on the test results. (i.e., there’s a high entry bar, which can be expensive to clear.)

Not trying to defend Theranos at all, just wanting to put that out there.

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Certainly, but the extent to which they went, swapping results from an actual on-site lab down the hall for their machine’s output while the hosts distracted investor representatives, shows clear and systematic fraud. They knew they couldn’t deliver, and they ran a con to keep investment coming in, investment that could have gone to real medical research.

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Watch a few Youtube videos of Elizabeth making her pitch. She seems more stupid and befuddled rather than dazzling and brilliant. Silicon Valley and VCs are easily hoodwinked.

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Prison, please, for both, Lizzie and boyfriend Sunny. I don’t need 20 years, but something north of seven, or preferably ten, would start to be appropriate.

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Well, when you take someone who watched Steve Jobs’ cult of personality presentations and thought, “I could do that,” but they have nothing more than marketing and bullshit to actually pitch, you get Theranos.

Personally, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would give their company a name that sounds like an evil villain. It’s supposedly a combination of “therapy” and “diagnosis,” but it sounds too similar to Marvel supervillain Thanos, whose name is a contraction of the name of the Greek personification of death Thanatos. The name Theranos sounds like a comic book supervillain’s corporate front, like LexCorp or Alchemax.

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My bet would be that she’ll get a cabinet position.

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Overly attached CEO.

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Grumpy_cat_%2527good%2527

Now when will they go after that epipen ■■■■■?

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Got him three months ago. Also fraud.

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White, pretty, blond, criminal as fuck, given a pass by almost everyone for no fucking reason whatsoever, but NOT the daughter of Donald Trump. I give her 5 out of 6 Ivankas.

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Shkreli wasn’t epipen.

The problem is that the 1000%+ increases to drugs is perfectly legal. No one can touch it, and the idea of government regulating drug prices scares those with the money to buy drug company stock (who also buy politicians).

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