OK downvoters convinced me I am wrong having 10s of billions of $ at stake obviously is unlikely to incentivise parties on either side to finance studies that would be favorable to their position and to spend their PR budgets on having those studies highlighted in the press.

The article claims the researchers are independent and external. Do you believe the nyt or the researchers are lying? Obviously Theranos has an interest in the outcome of these tests, but I think medical researchers would applaud less expensive and accurate tests.

They don't have to lie just spin. For the study in question number of test subjects looks very low to draw any meaningful conclusion.

So here's the thing - people like to say "This doesn't look like a big enough study..." but you never see them say what would be.

Basically: How do you justify your belief that their sample size is to small?

There are calculations to do this. 60 patients is, while small, pretty standard for a study like this, and decently powered. The authors also used the appropriate techniques to deal with small numbers in particular strata when they were controlling for the variables they mention.

for 5% confidence interval with 80% confidence level you would need 164. For 1% confidence interval with 95% confidence level 9604. For 1% confidence interval with 99% confidence level 16641.