As we are in the second week of Elizabeth Holmes’ defense, we are more interested in who she is, rather than the scam that Theranos marketed. Is she a deceitful, self-centered individual or is she a totally naïve person?
In Summarizing the Week
In a summary prepared by Reuters New Service (November 24, 2021), the three main points that came up were that:
- She admitted to using the Pfizer logo on falsified documents to convince companies (such as Safeway and Walgreen’s) that Pfizer had approved the technology.
- She defended the use of using “third-party” machines over her own products, essentially faking the blood tests.
- She “interpreted” the data she received from subordinates as meaning the Theranos technology worked.
As to other tests, the “Jurors saw a 2009 slide of ‘completed successes” naming studies conducted with pharmaceutical companies like Novartis, AstraZeneca, and Merck.”
It was all smoke and mirrors.
The question remains if the pharmaceutical companies who supposedly “approved” the Theranos technology were approving the tests done on the hidden “MiniLab” machines or on the conventional technologies.
Whenever pressed for answers such as the use of Pfizer and Schering-Plough’s logos on “validation reports,” she replied, “I’ve heard that testimony in this case, and I wish I had done it differently.”
What else?
In prior posts I conveyed that the touted approvals for the technology by the U.S. Army were untrue. Theranos shipped a couple of units to an Army center for testing, but they were not fully used in the field nor is there firm data on the test results. The test sample size was too small and no conclusive results could be had. There was no Army partnership, though Holmes claimed otherwise.
Going into the trial, there was speculation that the Holmes legal team would focus on Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani’s (Holmes’ ex-boyfriend and company COO) as having manipulated and abused her. That seems to have gone away.
The new strategy seems to be that Holmes acted on erroneous information given to her by her subordinates. It is rather a moving target. Every time there are questions about who was in control, Holmes appears to a defense that she was innocent of wrongdoing and that others were culpable for her downfall.
The problem with that defense is that those whom Holmes accuses of causing her company’s collapse, are all available to cross-examination.
The Walls
Elizabeth Holmes appears to be someone caught between two walls. One is the Wall of Naivete and the other, the Wall of Deceit. Was she duped all along and hence an unexperienced victim? Or is she an ambitious person driven by greed and lies?
Nothing is ever black or white but which way will the case lean?
Theranos, almost sociopathically, was single-minded in its purpose to launch a company that used flawed equipment, with false results, based on falsified endorsements. The question that remains is if “all of it” was an intention borne of absolutely no ethics or if it was done “behind Elizabeth Holmes back,” where she was manipulated and compromised in a series of lies?
Ethically, all of this seems to revert back to me at least, is that Theranos was playing with people’s lives. Blood tests are extremely serious and indeed laboratory technicians are professionally bound to report information with the highest degree of accuracy. What of a blood-testing machine that is so flawed the results were hidden, faked or augmented?
Elizabeth Holmes is facing major jail time as is Balwani. On trial here is more than Theranos, but ethics itself. When all was said and done, she was the CEO. It was her vision, and those were her employees. Is she culpable or not? Ethically it comes down to that.
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