Medical Professionals Against Theranos Strategy

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Position: Against Edison Perspective: Medical Professionals against Theranos Strategy: Theranos’s unethical past and why it shouldn’t be restarted (Ian Scheibelhut, Paityn Orning, Emily Driste, Maggie Harms, Emma Bodnar)

*Theranos, (a word combination of Therapy and Diagnosis) was once known as a revolutionary company to promise to detect diseases through a single finger prick. It has collapsed due to a number of unethical practices and should under no circumstances be rebooted.* Background Theranos had been a research-and-development operation, meaning that they launched their services to the public through a partnership with Walgreens before being completely transparent with the public about how their new innovations work1. For example, the documentary2 showed evidence of entrepreneurs touring the Theranos labs where they were strictly prohibited from seeing the actual insides of the machines and other in-depth information regarding the Theranos process. It was evident that Elizabeth Holmes and her employees of the business had significant information to hide from the public. This gave potential commercialized partners every right to be suspicious of just how efficient and state-of-the-art this company really was. Medical Professionals are against Theranos because in the past it did a lot of unethical things in order to attempt to revolutionize healthcare, including giving a lot of false positives and false negatives. Theranos was wrong about a lot of its tests, and made some people think they were diagnosed with some illnesses when they weren’t. It was bad science and impacted a lot of people in a negative way3. A company that is instigated by a woman with indictions of criminal charges does not deserve a second opportunity to serve the American public. Our primary reasons to be against Theranos were because the health and safety of the patients was endangered, and that the medical technology doesn’t exist to create Theranos in the first place. What is relevant to your analysis: As medical professionals, we think the negatives outweigh the positives for Theranos. First of all, it affects the false-negative people because it gives them the wrong result of what they have. Or vice versa, if the patient does have this disease but the Edison says that they do not. This could harm patients in the long run and could potentially lead to death. George Cembrowski, an expert in lab utilization and quality control stated, “..patients who get faulty test results also may worry needlessly while they are taken on a diagnostic odyssey. If results are flawed, then it leads to a patient on this journey of more testing and overtesting to make sure the initial results were correct”. The amount of money that patients would be putting into seeing if the test result is true

1 "Elizabeth Holmes Theranos Scandal: A Complete Timeline." 29 Jan. 2019, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/01/222855/theranos-scandal-timeline-what-happened-eli zabeth-holmes-documentary. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019. 2 "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley | Documentaries ...." https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-inventor-out-for-blood-in-silicon-valley. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019. 3 "Theranos Is Shutting Down - The New York Times." 5 Sep. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/health/theranos-shutting-down.html. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019.

1 or not is astounding. As you can see, this is a big inconvenience for the patient4. Another reason why theranos would not work is that the blood work is being done in the Edison instead of being done in a lab, so the results would not be accurate. Plus, pieces of the machine would fall off, doors wouldn't close, and the device couldn't properly regulate its temperature, Tyler Shultz, a former Theranos employee told 60 minutes in 20185. Relying on technology to give you can accurate answer to your problem is very controversial. As medical professionals, we acknowledge that patients would not trust Theranos right away and need to factor that in. For example, it affects the false-negative people because it gives them the wrong result of what they have. Also, it affects the false-negative people thinking they could have an STD, but in reality, they don’t6. Medical professionals know the blood work is being done in the Edison instead of being done in a lab, so they know it won’t be accurate. Plus the technology doesn’t exist to do it anyway. The debt to harmed patients is extreme and needs to be addressed before Theranos starts again. As medical professionals we acknowledge that patients won’t trust Theranos right away and need to factor that in. Your Task/Strategy: Our strategy is to point out the many reasons why Theranos is impractical and should simply be abandoned. Advances in medical technology should still be pursued, but in a vastly different direction. Justification We have a lot of evidence and have the benefit of history being on our side, everything we say is based off of hard facts, and we have the benefit of being informed medical professionals (so we have all the information). Counterpoints Because if theranos would be able to work, then it would go against our evidence and theory. Some counterpoints that could be argued are that the FDA didn’t find any safety risks, it reduced the price of testing by up to 90%, testing was completed faster7, there is use of a finger stick rather than a needle and less blood is needed, and it could provide results for over 200 tests. They also had their nanocontainer FDA approved for use in diagnosis of herpes simplex.8

Personal Plea: The medical technology doesn’t exist to create Theranos. Of course we should pursue a less painful and invasive alternative to blood testing, but Theranos isn’t the answer. Due to it’s unethical past, the fact that the technology doesn’t exist to create an Edison machine in the

4 "How Many Patients Were Harmed at Theranos? - The Dark ...." https://www.darkintelligencegroup.com/the-dark-report/laboratory-compliance/many-patients-ha rmed-theranos/. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019. 5 "What Was Theranos Edison Machine Supposed ... - Refinery29." 12 Mar. 2019, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/224904/theranos-edison-machine-blood-test-technol ogy-explained. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019. 6 "What Was Theranos Edison Machine Supposed ... - Refinery29." 12 Mar. 2019, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/224904/theranos-edison-machine-blood-test-technol ogy-explained. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019. 7 Auletta, Ken. “Blood, Simpler.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, July 9, 2019. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/15/blood-simpler. 8 Rosenbloom, Micah. “In Defense Of Theranos.” TechCrunch. TechCrunch, November 21, 2015. https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/21/in-defense-of-theranos/.

2 first place, and the impossible task of regaining patient trust Edison should be abandoned forever.

Citations

Auletta, Ken. “Blood, Simpler.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, July 9, 2019. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/15/blood-simpler.

"Elizabeth Holmes Theranos Scandal: A Complete Timeline." 29 Jan. 2019, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/01/222855/theranos-scandal-timeline-what-happ ened-elizabeth-holmes-documentary. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019.

"How Many Patients Were Harmed at Theranos? - The Dark ...." https://www.darkintelligencegroup.com/the-dark-report/laboratory-compliance/many-pati ents-harmed-theranos/. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019.

"The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley | Documentaries ...." https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-inventor-out-for-blood-in-silicon-valley. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019.

“Theranos Is Shutting Down - The New York Times." 5 Sep. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/health/theranos-shutting-down.html. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019.

"What Was Theranos Edison Machine Supposed ... - Refinery29." 12 Mar. 2019, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/224904/theranos-edison-machine-blood-test-t echnology-explained. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019.

Rosenbloom, Micah. “In Defense Of Theranos.” TechCrunch. TechCrunch, November 21, 2015. https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/21/in-defense-of-theranos/.