Neva Staton discussed the biggest corporate fraud since Enron as chronicled in John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies at the January Delphi Study Club meeting in the Tonkawa Public Library McAninch Room.
Carreyrou, a Nobel Prize-winning journalist, broke the story of Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes’ development of a breakthrough device supposed to perform the whole range of lab tests from a single drop of blood. Holmes, a brilliant 19-year-old Stanford dropout interested in chemical engineering, spent five days writing a patent application for a patch to draw blood and analyze it. In May 2004, she filed paperwork for her startup company and by the end of the year had raised $6 million from investors in a microchip system for analyzing blood, which existed only on paper.
Over 10 years she conducted research to develop a handheld device with a cartridge and reader system, similar to a diabetes monitor, which could diagnose 400 diseases from a drop of blood and transmit the information to a personal physician. Her charismatic sales presentations,claiming falsely that she was working with the military and had FDA clearance, convinced investors to sink millions into her venture. She built a company valued at more than $9 million and employing 800 workers, but the technology actually did not work. Investors were treated to demonstrations in a mockup laboratory, but results were really processed in another laboratory and often were faked. In 2013 Theranos went “live” and arranged for patients in Arizona to be able to have blood drawn at Safeway and WalGreen stores for instant analysis.
Holmes worked to silence employees and journalists who questioned the procedures and was able to perpetrate the fraud for three years until Carreyrou broke the story in 2015.
IOOF Cemetery needs donations
The IOOF Cemetery is in need of donations to continue operation of the cemetery, Garry Davis announced this week. Brent Bailey is caretaker. Donations can be sent to P.O. Box 121 with checks made to the Tonkawa Cemetery for upkeep.
Davis said money is short because of fewer funerals.
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