Deception in the Digital Age: An Examination of Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos Scandal
Imagine a scenario in which an individual undergoes blood testing for medical purposes. The results of the test indicate that the person is not pregnant, whereas, in fact, she is experiencing a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. Alternatively, consider a scenario where an individual receives a false diagnosis of HIV. These are just some of the scenarios that represent the issues associated with the practices of Theranos, which was founded by Elizabeth Holmes at age 19. Theranos was a private healthcare technology company that was exposed for promoting unreliable technology and producing inaccurate test results. Blood tests are an important tool for maintaining good health, but the thought of blood being withdrawn can be anxiety-inducing in some situations. While visiting my primary care physician and I get informed that blood work needs to be completed, I immediately feel fearful and nervous. As someone who gets queasy from the tiniest sight of blood, it is unfortunately a necessity that needs to be completed. Phlebotomies, also known as blood withdrawals are actually proven to trigger a physiological effect in the body, leading to elevated heart rates, sweating, or nausea. When I complete blood tests, I experience a vasovagal response. My blood pressure begins to drop due to high levels of stress. It tends to be even more worrying when the phlebotomist cannot locate my vein, which occurs pretty commonly due to smaller veins. I truly cannot imagine enduring all these side effects, to only discover out that I have been deceived and could have been potentially harmed due to the extreme monetization and corporate greed of Elizabeth Holmes. Theranos’s unethical practices as they related to blood testing technology, including the misuse of unreliable equipment that did not meet biomedical quality standards, false advertising, and lack of transparency, posed a significant risk to public safety and undermined the integrity of scientific research. Financial gain was prioritized over ethical and legal standards as well as public health, revealing the overdue need for stronger regulatory auditing and greater accountability in the development and use of technology.
Elizabeth Holmes was a student enrolled at Stanford University, planning to major in chemical engineering. During this time, she was employed as a student researcher and lab assistant at the school. She dropped out to begin her startup, Theranos. It was founded by Holmes in 2003 with the intent of reshaping and reforming the blood testing industry. The company claimed that its revolutionary technology could possibly perform blood tests with just a few droplets of blood, a momentous development over the larger volume of blood needed for conventional blood testing.
She partnered with Ramesh Balwani in 2009, where he agreed to support Theranos and provided Holmes with a ten-million-dollar loan. Eventually, he later on became chief operating officer and president at the company. As Theranos continued to acquire investments from several investors and enter major partnerships with Walgreens and Safeway, Holmes was hailed as the world’s “youngest self-made female billionaire” at the age of just thirty by Forbes.
However, in 2015, journalist John Carreyrou uncovered issues and concerns with the claimed technology and practices of the company, claiming that Theranos machinery was unreliable and fabricated wrong results, posing serious threats health risks. The now-defunct blood-testing company resulted in the loss of about 900 million dollars, the misdiagnoses of ten patients, and the termination and unemployment of roughly 800 employees. Both Holmes and Balwani were found guilty on various charges, including wire fraud and defrauding investors, who are both facing numerous years of imprisonment. The Theranos scandal perfectly highlights the significance of transparency and ethics within the tech industry, as well as the consequences of fraudulent behavior on the wellbeing of individuals.
I want to mention how Elizabeth Holmes is a prime embodiment of a privileged white woman. Her upbringing enabled her to reside in a luxurious million-dollar home located in the locality of the Houston Country Club. Furthermore, prior to attending Stanford, she received her education from a prestigious private school, St. John’s School. Her father, Christian Holmes IV, served as a vice president at the now-defunct Enron corporation, which allowed her to establish major connections and ties with venture capitalists and investors. As a result, she had infinite opportunities that were not accessible to most people. With privilege, comes ethical obligations that need to be addressed. Holmes capitalized from her privilege and manipulated it for her own personal gain at the expense of others.
One cannot help but wonder what would have happened if a woman of color had done what Elizabeth Holmes did. According to Bari Williams, only 2% of venture capital funding goes to women, and Black women receive a mere 0.34% of those funds. Thus, it is evident that Elizabeth Holmes was able to use her white advantage and entitlement to deceive her way into Silicon Valley.
The disparity between her light sentence and the treatment that individuals from marginalized groups receive is a representation of how unjust the system can be. It is unlikely that a Black, Latino, or any individual from an underrepresented group would receive the same preferential treatment and leniency that Elizabeth Holmes has been granted. This disparity further emphasizes the existing inequalities and focuses on how ethics tie into some inequities that still exist in society today.
Theranos is the outcome of a legal loophole that continues to be enforced to this day. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has specific regulations in regards to medical devices. They are classified amongst different classes (Class I, Class II, and Class III) which are associated with different risk factors. In 2015, the FDA announced that the device was classified at Class II. Theranos classified their self individually and declared that the device was a Class I. They were also corruptly shipping and disregarding the appropriate authorization. Along with incorrectly categorizing the tests, the company was able to exploit and go behind legality. The regulatory category that the Theranos tests is categorized by laboratory-developed tests, and that pertains to a kind of diagnostic test that is made and utilized by one laboratory. This categorization of examination is not evaluated by the FDA, which shows how the company did not need to have the tests assessed prior to administering them to people.
This raises the important question of enforced policies and demonstrates why stronger regulation is actually needed, since other establishments are now giving tests that lack assessment of efficacy. My question is, why has nothing been learned from this humiliation? I would expect at least some new rules to be enforced to make sure something of this sort never transpires again.
There are a multitude of tests that should not be available on the market today and can lead to inaccurate diagnoses, which just shows how the whole Theranos debacle can hypothetically reoccur. From the year of 1976, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not altered the procedure to monitor medical devices. At this time, the tests were simple and lacked the technological advances we have today. Advancements are being made, and technology continues to change day-to-day. There has been no proposals or changes to the identification of medical devices and what constitutes them to be considered as not a “relatively simple lab test”.
As exemplified by this matter, the potential destruction caused by imprecise medical testing cannot be overstated. Not only does it undermine the integrity of medical professionals and organizations, but it correspondingly poses a serious threat. It is imperative that anyone involved in these industries to prioritize the accurateness and trustworthiness of their testing to warrant safety. This can involve ensuring that appropriate quality control measures are enforced, frequently documenting and verifying testing methods, and participating in constant training and education to stay up to date with the cutting-edge advancements in medical testing.
Elizabeth Holmes disregarded the ethical implication of providing misinformation and producing/distributing corrupted technologies that do not meet their designated functionalities. Holmes is an agent, and her “powers can be variously exercised…over herself, over human society, and over natural or artificial environments… Such an increasingly powerful agent has corresponding moral duties and responsibilities to oversee not only the development of her own character and habits but also the well-being of each of her spheres of influence” (Floridi, 17). It is crucial to prioritize ethics and public well-being over profit and ambition. In the future, it is critical to integrate a strong ethical framework that serves as a foundation for biomedical technology for the sake of not jeopardizing public health and safety.
Holmes lack of understanding and unrealistic vision of methodologies in the industry will continue to affect and prevent future technological investments. Trust is inevitability lost by investors as a consequence of this scandal. It has aided in regard to alerting investors to be more cautious and to pay closer attention to the significance of data. The success of the tech industry is highly dependent on the trust of the public, which is only earned and maintained through ethical development of innovative technology in the info-sphere.
