Theranos

Theranos blood sample size vs. conventional blood sample

Story in the Wall Street Journal, complimentary dead tree edition, so no link, about Elizabeth Holmes and the implosion of Theranos, her multi-billion dollar blood testing empire. The story was a little short on real information so I went looking for more, but all I found was more of the same. They are all talking about it, but no one is telling us just what it is.

Proprietary equipment that the lab Theranos says delivers rapid blood analyses. Jim Wilson/The New York Times

    It is a machine that tests blood for any number of things using a very small sample. Has anyone seen this machine? (Okay, one guy took one picture, above) Has anyone tested it? Whatever machinery is inside is secret, but surely you could devise tests to determine whether it is delivering accurate results, and surely the government would require that of any kind of medical equipment, wouldn't they? Yes, no, maybe so. None of the stories I came across explained any of this.
    All of which makes me think this might be a smear campaign orchestrated by medical equipment establishment who want this upstart squashed. Do I have any evidence? No, I just have the feeling that I have seen this show before: rich guys at the top of big corporations squashing little upstarts just because they can. They might try and justify it to themselves and their henchman that they are protecting their interests, but they aren't really. They're just being big, fat pigs.
   On the other hand, Henry Kissinger, the king of the pigs, was on the board of Theranos, so there might be other forces in play here.