Question from an outsider (of medicine and of medical research): Why is this study
new? I mean I can understand why it is
news (for the mass media)...but isn't this something that would've have been tested long ago to a certain degree? At least to a degree in which, today, doctors are content that a venous draw is a statistically useful amount of blood to derive health results from? Wouldn't that have to based on some study that purported to find the minimum volume of blood needed to reliably represent someone's health?
Not only does it seem like a very fundamental question to have already asked...it doesn't even seem like a very difficult study to do. It's not substantially longitudinal over time -- for every subject, you take several pinpricks, and run the tests. Or logistically difficult to manage.
So I get why it's news, in terms of Theranos and what not...but this has to have been something that was studied many times over many decades. Or is the NYT misinterpreting/signifying the significance, i.e. the Rice scientists found a previously undetectable kind of difference, but which is, yes, technically shows that blood drops are different?
Not only does it seem like a very fundamental question to have already asked...it doesn't even seem like a very difficult study to do. It's not substantially longitudinal over time -- for every subject, you take several pinpricks, and run the tests. Or logistically difficult to manage.
So I get why it's news, in terms of Theranos and what not...but this has to have been something that was studied many times over many decades. Or is the NYT misinterpreting/signifying the significance, i.e. the Rice scientists found a previously undetectable kind of difference, but which is, yes, technically shows that blood drops are different?