Someone with a PhD in microbiology explained to me (a layman) why what Theranos was claiming to do was impossible. She said you cannot test only a single drop of blood for certain things because what you are looking for literally may not be there. You need a full vial of blood to have a reliable chance of finding many things.
1. Is this simple but clear explanation basically correct?
2. If so, how could Theranos hoodwink investors for so long when possibly *millions* of well-educated people around the world knew that what they were claiming to do made no sense?
In: Biology
People want to invest in those who make the impossible possible. Who would have thought that the people who kept screwing up trying to get a small rocket in space would eventually be launching a hundred orbital rockets in the span of a year? That blows away the launch rate of any country in history, impossible. And they’ve successfully landed hundreds of boosters in a row? Impossible.
Anyway, they falsified everything, simple as that. Tests they showed were done with other equipment, while they swore it was coming from theirs. People wanted to believe it was true because they stood to make a massive amount of money when it worked, so they weren’t too keen on digging deeper. Theranos kept a tight lid on leaks to make sure the ruse was able to continue.
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