40. Theranos: Medicine's Unhealthy Infatuation with Technology

The blood testing company Theranos was the darling of the medical establishment for years before a journalist helped expose the fact that its technology didn’t work. Now the CEO Elizabeth Holmes has gone from being the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire to being on trial for fraud. 

But the fact that the company got so big on so little evidence points to a bigger problem with American medicine. In this episode I’ll be talking to pathology professors Daniel Holmes of the University of British Columbia, and Eleftherios Diamandis, of the University of Toronto. We talk about what the dramatic rise and fall of Theranos, about what testing technology can’t do to improve our health, and why the medical establishment focuses so much effort on screening the healthy, while remaining ill-prepared for a true crisis. 

“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam, with funding by the Society for Professional Journalists. Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman with music by Kyle Imperatore. If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!