[Softball Fan]

Legally, I think the jury was right to convict her, but I have little sympathy for big investors like the DeVos family and Murdoch. They were sophisticated investors and the fact that people like Kissinger, Schultz, and Mattis were on the Board of Directors should have immediately raised a “duty of inquiry” flag: what do these people — especially Kissinger and Schultz at their ages — know about running a hi tech company or the technology?

 Plenty of blame to go around other than Republicans.   $1.4 billion invested in Theranos, a large part of it from VC and private equity firms.  The amount those Republicans invested was small potatoes.  Walgreens invested $140 million and put test kits in their stores without verifying they worked which is pretty damning.  There are all kinds of government agencies from the FDA to the SEC that should have been doing due diligence. 

Do you think Henry Kissinger and Mattis should have been in the lab checking out the results and doing medical testing?   Channing Robertson, Stanford chemical engineering professor, was on the Theranos board and kept a close watch on the actual lab procedures and results.  William Foege, MD and formerly with the CDC, was on the board and had a better background for evaluating the tests.

Inspectors from Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, should have been inspecting the process and test results.  IMO agencies like CMS are far more culpable than Mattis or Kissinger being on the board for discovering the problem.

CMS is supposed to make sure labs are checking the accuracy and precision of each test performed in their lab. Also among CMS inspectors’ tasks: ensuring that correct results are reported to patients and that a blood sample tested on one day will return the same results on the test at a later date. To do that, inspectors check a company’s maintenance procedures, patient test reports, and quality control data. Inspectors are supposed to walk the lab floor, says James Nichols, a pathologist at Vanderbilt University and the government relations committee chair for the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. "Inspectors typically will read the procedure, review the data supporting method validation, and then tour the lab particularly to see the instrument workstation and speak with the technologists performing the testing to ensure that what they are doing matches what is written in the test policy."

[Softball Fan]

Legally, I think the jury was right to convict her, but I have little sympathy for big investors like the DeVos family and Murdoch. They were sophisticated investors and the fact that people like Kissinger, Schultz, and Mattis were on the Board of Directors should have immediately raised a “duty of inquiry” flag: what do these people — especially Kissinger and Schultz at their ages — know about running a hi tech company or the technology?

 Plenty of blame to go around other than Republicans.   $1.4 billion invested in Theranos, a large part of it from VC and private equity firms.  The amount those Republicans invested was small potatoes.  Walgreens invested $140 million and put test kits in their stores without verifying they worked which is pretty damning.  There are all kinds of government agencies from the FDA to the SEC that should have been doing due diligence. 

Do you think Henry Kissinger and Mattis should have been in the lab checking out the results and doing medical testing?   Channing Robertson, Stanford chemical engineering professor, was on the Theranos board and kept a close watch on the actual lab procedures and results.  William Foege, MD and formerly with the CDC, was on the board and had a better background for evaluating the tests.

Inspectors from Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, should have been inspecting the process and test results.  IMO agencies like CMS are far more culpable than Mattis or Kissinger being on the board for discovering the problem.

CMS is supposed to make sure labs are checking the accuracy and precision of each test performed in their lab. Also among CMS inspectors’ tasks: ensuring that correct results are reported to patients and that a blood sample tested on one day will return the same results on the test at a later date. To do that, inspectors check a company’s maintenance procedures, patient test reports, and quality control data. Inspectors are supposed to walk the lab floor, says James Nichols, a pathologist at Vanderbilt University and the government relations committee chair for the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. "Inspectors typically will read the procedure, review the data supporting method validation, and then tour the lab particularly to see the instrument workstation and speak with the technologists performing the testing to ensure that what they are doing matches what is written in the test policy."