and therein lies the problem with hate speech!

I hadn't thought about the system "grooming" people/companies to become looter, but with little consideration, you are absolutely right!

There are also cases where they start out honest and are twisted out of true by government regulation and interference.

Intent is nearly always impossible to determine, we can only judge outputs.

Indeed, and that is my view.

Also, no reason it can't be both.

That is a widespread problem as the old guard fails to compete with new innovators, and as it is said, old age and treachery will overcome young age and strength

Having exposure and working on ideas, concepts, and actual solutions in the areas of Natural Heath, psychology, climatology and quantum physics I see the lamestream and the ole boys clubs are all defending the status quo and refuse to move forward and they will do what ever is necessary to do so.

Don't disagree.

Don't disagree.

government agencies really CANT work. They have no incentives at all to serve their customers . It IS just fear of somehow being blamed that rules their decisions.

Nice analogy. Unfortunately, due to regulation they may not be allowed to build a bridge or rail line for Wyatt

Well spoken

Amen to that. All these regulatory agencies need incentives to take risks for benefit to counter their extreme conservativity coming from fear of failure.

Right there with you! Part of the reason I posted.

What Theranos seeks to do is quite good and I believe it will eventually succeed and I am certainly all for it. However, it seem apparent that the company misrepresented how fully they have the technology working to date and followed a pattern of continued misrepresentation. For that they deserve serious censure to the degree it is found to be the case. Even people I know closer to the company are deeply concerned and most not claiming the company is being victimized.

Just because the technology of a company is wonderful, at least if/when it is perfected suficiently, and is disruptive does not mean it is a good company.

Usually, the very act of the government being against something makes me want to defend it. Other than that, I haven't a clue.

Down with cronyism and having the government support some at the expense of others. I would suggest making FDA approvals voluntary as a start to getting rid of the FDA altogether.

I see two believable narratives here, and I suspect only the insiders know how much to believe each one:

(1) Theranos was a scam that tried to get away with selling poorly done, unreliable lab tests and got caught.

(2) Theranos has worthwhile technology and should be allowed to market its services, but the whole medical industry is being nibbled to death by needless regulation and they are the latest victim of it.

The company's secrecy and demand for non-disclosure agreements supports story (1). (If the company had legitimate intellectual property concerns it should have simply applied for one or more patents.) But the stories of other companies such as "23andMe" support story (2).

I haven't decided which I believe yet.

From what I have read about this it would seem that Theranos is under the gun from the FDA and CMS for daring to bring about a huge change in the medical field.

I have to wonder how much Quest and the other large labs are behind this action.

It kind of sounds like Reardon Steel to me.

Just my .02 Cents.

Agreed. If the whole company is founded on a disruptive technology, they have to be careful it doesn't get away. Look at what happened to American Superconductor's wind business when the German guy stole the power converter IP and sold it to the Chinese. Completely gone.

Sensible comments, William.
Given the news releases, it's hard to determine the truth of this case.
If I was the CEO I'd want any employee or potential employee who was to have any access to company IP to sign a non-disclosure. I work with some researchers who are extremely careful about their trade secrets and I encourage them to be even more so.

Since our company creates software for medical labs we have been following Theranos very carefully. While there has been a lot of research about new laboratory testing mechanisms and the public information on the methodology seemed reasonable, there were a number of concerning aspects.

First, it was highly secret. Jan, as a California licensed med tech was recruited but would have had to sign a non-disclosure to find out virtually anything.

Second it didn't grow at the rate you would expect. One would expect such a game changing technological breakthrough with reasonable funding would grow as fast as they could scale up production. They had a few areas and didn't expand. This led me to suspect they were running tests at a loss while they were perfecting their technology. If you are losing money on testing, you only want to do enough to maintain credibility.

I feel similarly. It seems like such a technology must be able to function. Perhaps the accuracy isn't as good, but at the price it would be a great screening mechanism.

Just have to wait and see. I haven't seen any unbiased reports (given that I do not trust any reports from government sources to be unbiased.)

One thing is certain, Wall Street profited from the IPO, from the price run-up, and will profit from the biased reporting causing the stock price to drop.
I predict that the IP will soon be sold to an existing medical company at fire sale pricing after the media has completely assassinated the character of the CEO (regardless of whether that is ethical or warranted.) The government action has effectively crippled any chance that the company can continue to operate or to fix any problems with the technology under the CEO.