The former Theranos CEO is barred from receiving payments from federal health program.

Elizabeth Holmes—the disgraced and incarcerated founder of the infamous blood-testing startup Theranos—is barred from participating in federal health programs for nine decades, according to an announcement from the health department Friday.

The exclusion means that Holmes is barred from receiving payments from federal health programs for services or products, which significantly restricts her ability to work in the health care sector. It also prevents her from participating in Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health care programs. With a 90-year term, the exclusion is lifelong for Holmes, who is currently 39.

The exclusion was announced by Inspector General Christi Grimm of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.

Holmes is serving an 11-year, three-month sentence for defrauding investors of her blood-testing startup, Theranos, which she founded in 2003. At the time, Holmes claimed to have developed proprietary technology that could perform hundreds of medical tests using just a small drop of blood from a finger prick. The remarkable claim helped her drive the company’s valuation to a stunning $9 billion in 2014, and set up lucrative partnerships. But, in reality, the technology never worked. The company collapsed in 2018, and she was convicted of fraud in 2022.

    • @[email protected]
      81•10 months ago

      You are mistaken. Real doctors and patients made serious medical decisions based on the results from her tests.

      One of the most troubling patient stories that Scavdis would learn about was the case of a pregnant woman whose Theranos test indicated that she was miscarrying. Gratefully, she later learned, she was not. Another woman revealed to Scavdis the pain and fear she experienced when her Theranos blood test indicated that her life-threatening ectopic pregnancy had been dissolved when, in fact, it had not.

      https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/regulatory-news-stories-and-features/patient-advocacy-lies-heart-fda-agents-theranos-case

      • @[email protected]
        1•10 months ago

        But isn’t it part of the story that they had the actual tests done by other, established laboratories, because their own equipment never worked?

        I guess every laboratory has a number of incorrect diagnoses. And real doctors and patients act on those as well.

        It’s not like Ms. Holmes was filling in fake reports on her phone to scam patients, is what we’re saying

        • @[email protected]
          13•10 months ago

          The promise Theranos made was that their tests could be run with a much smaller sample of blood than other labs. Therefore, the results were inherently unreliable even if they used real machines, because they didn’t have the sample amount the machines were designed for.

    • @[email protected]English
      22•10 months ago

      The only people impacted were the “defrauded investors.

      I don’t know where you got that idea.

      The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has decided that Theranos’ Newark, California, facility poses “immediate jeopardy to patient safety.”

      In December 2013, a lab inspector found that the lab didn’t meet the required standards for at least 10 different blood tests.

      Despite the changes that Theranos implemented after the 2013 inspection, the company’s California lab failed even the simplest of tests the next year. The company obtained “unsatisfactory” scores — 70 percent and 40 percent — for two blood typing tests in early 2014,

      In April 2015, Theranos was caught once again skipping over a fundamental safety procedure, at a lab in Scottsdale, Arizona. Theranos couldn’t produce data showing that its staff has tested the lab’s commercial instruments before using them on customer samples,

      https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/27/10853340/government-says-theranos-lab-poses-immediate-threat-to-public-safety