Not being honest to investors is one thing. Knowingly peddling faulty lab results to consumers making important medical decisions based on the results and unaware that they were pawns in this game is quite different.

This is what makes the Theranos case qualitatively different from (say) WeWork, and why she's facing criminal charges. You buy office space from WeWork, you get exactly what you pay for, even if there were insane shenanigans going on in investorland. You buy a lab test from Theranos, you're getting essentially fake results and risking your health on it.

What I'm struggling with is how this is criminal.

Like, there are rapid COVID tests out there. They're marketed as accurate. Yet everyone knows they're not foolproof. If I got a positive rapid test, the first thing I'd do is go get a PCR test.

With these Theranos lab tests, it's honestly (to me) a similar thing. If I'm a startup trying to make a cheap HIV test, and I know it's not perfect, it's wrong sometimes, does that make me a criminal for wanting to get real-world users to use my product? Isn't it more of a regulatory oversight if people are making medical decisions based on new and imperfect tech?

Depends strongly on how your represent the accuracy of your test to those using it. If you are up front about the level of accuracy it should be fine.

But my limited understanding of this case is that the Edison machine was so inaccurate as to be near useless. So if customers had been informed about how bad it was, they would not have chosen to use it.

>Sure, she was not honest to investors.

... or the businesses that purchased the machines, and every average person who got tested with those machines and put their faith in the results, all because she was dishonest.

This is the healthcare industry we're speaking of - it's not just investors at stake here, it's everyone's health that she put at stake for the sake of getting herself rich.

Edit: Regarding prototypes in the wild; given that this is healthcare, I don't mind prototypes being used as long as the unknown accuracy of the devices is clearly communicated before they are used, and everyone getting a test understands that they're part of a clinical trial. This was absolutely not the case.

I agree that the prototypes in the wild was done improperly. If it's a prototype used for data gathering with a big "these are prototypes!" waiver, then that's one thing. I'm not sure how they were positioned in the stores they were placed in, if they were marketed as a 100% accuracy miracle box or an up-and-coming technology that still has to have kinks worked out. In either case I'm struggling that this is jail time criminal; I think at best it's a civil issue.

We'll have to agree to disagree here. To me, with the level of fraud she engaged in in every area of her company, and the fact that that fraud impacted the healthcare decisions of individuals who used that test, that is a criminal issue.

She was fucking around with the actual health of people for her own financial gain.

Well there are stories of people who made actual medical decisions from the faulty machines she produced.

I'm guessing everyone who made medical decisions based on her faulty machines cares a great deal.

How can you have so little empathy for the everyday people caught up in this

The faulty equipment in actual pharmacies is problematic, but I can actually see how prototypes out in the wild is a good thing.