I don’t know a thing about Holmes, I’m just reacting to your framing - don’t all medical tests that real people rely on have error rates? Doesn’t an 11% error rate suggest something that was real and mostly works but maybe wasn’t ready for prime time? The error rate could have been higher, perhaps. You only listed false positives, while the much more concerning problem would be false negatives - people who didn’t get scared or act when they should have. Still, a medical test error rate on its own doesn’t suggest deceit or fraud. People receiving terrifying but wrong results is a common problem that already exists in medicine.
Google tells me the FIT test for cancer has a false negative rate of between 8% and 26%. That appears to be likely worse than the Theranos numbers you cited here.
Google tells me the FIT test for cancer has a false negative rate of between 8% and 26%. That appears to be likely worse than the Theranos numbers you cited here.