S01.E06: Iron Sisters

[qtpye]

1 minute ago, Carolina Girl said:

If I were an investor, I'd put pulling my money out of Tim Draper's organization ASAP.

 

I know right...how clueless can you get.

I could have a great idea of building a rocket ship powered by Unicorn farts but it does not mean anything unless I can actually produce something.

[DakotaJustice]

59 minutes ago, Carolina Girl said:

If I were an investor, I'd put pulling my money out of Tim Draper's organization ASAP.

 

I literally live 2 blocks away from Draper University. Tim Draper might be respected but he’s also kind of a kook.

[SunnyBeBe]

I’m still trying to figure out where this incredible persona is when it comes to  Holmes.  Where do people get that she was credible, dynamic, convincing, etc.  I don’t see it and never have.  I suspect it’s an excuse for their gullibility.  Their blind belief says as much about them than it does about her.  I have little sympathy for her followers who didn’t quickly react.  

[qtpye]

1 minute ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I’m still trying to figure out where this incredible persona is when it comes to  Holmes.  Where do people get that she was credible, dynamic, convincing, etc.  I don’t see it and never have.  I suspect it’s an excuse for their gullibility.  Their blind belief says as much about them than it does about her.  I have little sympathy for her followers who didn’t quickly react.  

From what little I know about con artists, the mark wants so badly the lie to be true that they ignore all the obvious red flags. 

However, I am not victim blaming but it is insane that she fooled so many people.

I also think that having Channing Robertson on her board also made her credible and all the patents she put her name on that actually should have only belonged to Ian.

[chocolatine]

I loved the first scene between Erika and Tyler, and that Tyler had so much self-awareness of his privilege. I also have mad respect for real-life Tyler to have the courage to rock the boat. Really sad that his own grandfather dismissed his concerns.

The party with everyone wearing masks of Elizabeth's face felt like a scene out of a horror movie. I would not have been able to last more than ten minutes there.

On 3/24/2022 at 6:04 AM, SlovakPrincess said:

The thing with all the armed security escorting Elizabeth everywhere -- completely bizarre.  Is this what CEOs do nowadays?  What do they think will happen to them - get kidnapped for ransom?  

Many CEOs do have a security detail, but it's usually much less conspicuous. When I worked at Facebook pre-pandemic, Mark Zuckerberg did weekly live Q&As in a big auditorium on the Menlo Park campus. There was security at the door - and only badge access to the auditorium - and a few guys tucked discreetly in the corners, but nobody was on stage with Zuck. Jeff Bezos didn't have visible security detail when I worked at Amazon, he just walked around like a normal person. I even shared an elevator with him once.

On 3/24/2022 at 8:04 PM, Jordan Baker said:

And the small touches are so well done. When Ian's widow answers the door, she is clearly in a bad state, as anyone experiencing grief might be. She looks like someone who is having a hard time functioning at all, and one small detail that symbolizes her state is that her roots are an inch or so long.

I also noticed that her shirt was badly wrinkled.

4 hours ago, Carolina Girl said:

If I were an investor, I'd put pulling my money out of Tim Draper's organization ASAP.

I believe he's no longer with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is he?

[Skala]

On 3/25/2022 at 11:46 AM, Cinnabon said:

Patients don’t usually know which specific tests to order , though. And again, most also can’t interpret them without professional help either. Insurance companies wouldn’t be likely to pay for blood panels ordered without a physician’s order. 

But do you all need doctors’ orders before you get your bloodwork done? You don’t decide which tests you want done without professional input, do you? 

And yes, the US system of healthcare is shameful. At least 27 million citizens here still have no healthcare coverage at all, and even more are underinsured.

 

We need to see the doctor first and then the Dr will decide depending on our symptoms what lab tests to order . Then we take our lab test request form to the collection service of our choice to have blood drawn . 

Once results are ready they are forwarded to the doctor and the doctor calls us to give us the results and gives medical advice accordingly .

We don’t need any medical insurance for this process , otherwise most of us probably wouldn’t be able to afford it and would go without treatment !! 

[SunnyBeBe]

8 hours ago, chocolatine said:

I loved the first scene between Erika and Tyler, and that Tyler had so much self-awareness of his privilege. I also have mad respect for real-life Tyler to have the courage to rock the boat. Really sad that his own grandfather dismissed his concerns.

The party with everyone wearing masks of Elizabeth's face felt like a scene out of a horror movie. I would not have been able to last more than ten minutes there.

Many CEOs do have a security detail, but it's usually much less conspicuous. When I worked at Facebook pre-pandemic, Mark Zuckerberg did weekly live Q&As in a big auditorium on the Menlo Park campus. There was security at the door - and only badge access to the auditorium - and a few guys tucked discreetly in the corners, but nobody was on stage with Zuck. Jeff Bezos didn't have visible security detail when I worked at Amazon, he just walked around like a normal person. I even shared an elevator with him once.

I also noticed that her shirt was badly wrinkled.

I believe he's no longer with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is he?

Omg….I had no idea.  I’d think they had crazy tight security.  
 

I wonder how much creative licensing they took with the scene from the birthday party.  If true, when Holmes ordered that Tyler sing her birthday song AGAIN,  it told exactly what she is.  

Edited March 26, 2022 by SunnyBeBe

[zengirl1215]

On 3/24/2022 at 4:47 PM, AntFTW said:

Might be an unpopular opinion but overall, I thought this episode was pretty boring. However, I will say that I chuckled in the first five minutes looking at Amanda Seyfried's face and those subtle movements as the light is shining in her face and she looks into the camera. It just looked like her face was contorting trying so hard to cover the bullshit. I thought that was good.

This part made me laugh too because of the voice off camera was instructing her to act as if she was just talking to her friends, so the biggest joke was...Elizabeth didn't have any friends besides Sunny. She had employees and older gentlemen board members who treated her like a daughter/granddaughter. Even with the birthday party, George's wife alluded to her having "friends" at the party and Elizabeth's blank expression spoke volumes. If she had a close girlfriend or girlfriend(s) I don't recall any of them being mentioned in Bad Blood, the HBO documentary, the 20/20 episodes or the Dropout podcast. 

On a different note, I think Amanda is a doing a great job. 

[bilgistic]

What does the title, "Iron Sisters", refer to? I think they mentioned it during the show but I wasn't paying close attention.

Edited March 26, 2022 by bilgistic

[slowpoked]

On 3/25/2022 at 1:13 PM, Madding crowd said:

She also talks a lot about her uncle with skin cancer, but a blood test wouldn't have caught that, he needed an earlier biopsy perhaps or maybe nothing could have been done. 

That's the unicorn though, right? That's the ultimate goal. A lot of people do not know that (that cancer diagnosis takes more than just a blood drop), but wouldn't it be amazing to be able to find out that way? That's what EH almost successfully tried to sell.

 

On 3/25/2022 at 1:13 PM, Madding crowd said:

I felt so bad for both Ericka and Tyler although I was surprised Sunny and Elizabeth were so forceful with Tyler considering they wouldn't know how his grandfather would react.

EH and Sunny had the foresight to get ahead of Tyler by reaching out to George first before Tyler can talk to him. That way, they can already frame the narrative that he quit because he couldn't be up to the task, not because something wasn't right with the company. Getting ahead of the narrative is almost always a winning move than telling the truth.

Edited March 27, 2022 by slowpoked

[Cinnabon]

3 hours ago, slowpoked said:

That's the unicorn though, right? That's the ultimate goal. A lot of people do not know that (that cancer diagnosis takes more than just a blood drop), but wouldn't it be amazing to be able to find out that way? That's what EH almost successfully tried to sell.

This is nothing more than a kid wishing they had a flying car. Would be wonderful, but it’s not possible. The fact that intelligent, educated people fell for it is insane. I think most educated (and not so educated) people do know that cancer can’t be diagnosed from a blood test. 

Edited March 26, 2022 by Cinnabon

[40Love]

On 3/25/2022 at 10:32 AM, peachmangosteen said:

On 3/24/2022 at 11:04 PM, Jordan Baker said:

So, a question--did Elizabeth make Tyler repeat the song to humiliate him or because she wanted to hear her praises sung (literally) again? Or both?

Mostly the first thing imo but I'm sure she enjoyed the second thing as well lol.

I think both too... and a threat as well. She wanted to show Tyler she had power over him... in his own granddad's house, surrounded by people he's known his whole life. He had no protection against her and if he kept pressing the issue she could control the situation and him. 

[Irlandesa]

On 3/25/2022 at 8:10 PM, qtpye said:

From what little I know about con artists, the mark wants so badly the lie to be true that they ignore all the obvious red flags. 

Sunk cost fallacy also plays a part.  Many of these board members already invested much of their money and and credibility into backing her that they couldn't handle the thought of what not supporting her would cost them so they doubled down.  And many likely didn't know how fantastical the situation was.

That birthday party traumatized me.  A company I used to work at briefly had a CEO who developed a bit of a cult at our company and some of his supporters thought it'd be funny to hand out masks of the CEO at a meeting to "surprise" him with when he joined the meeting. Seeing this bit in the episode tonight brought back those feelings of creepiness that I had when they did this.  I made my excuses during that meeting and quickly escaped.  Luckily, the board of our company was much more competent than the Theranos board and quickly saw that the Emperor wore no clothes. But even after he was dismissed, some of his "fans" tried to get employees to revolt.  And just like Elizabeth, the devotion made absolutely no damn sense because he wasn't particularly charismatic.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Irlandesa

[Irlandesa]

13 hours ago, bilgistic said:

What does the title, "Iron Sisters", refer to? I think they mentioned it during the show but I wasn't paying close attention.

It was part of the Theranos ad she shot about women breaking the glass ceiling.

You can read about it here.  That's a blog post from Elizabeth introducing the concept.

[Whimsy]

On 3/26/2022 at 1:39 AM, Skala said:

We need to see the doctor first and then the Dr will decide depending on our symptoms what lab tests to order . Then we take our lab test request form to the collection service of our choice to have blood drawn . 

Once results are ready they are forwarded to the doctor and the doctor calls us to give us the results and gives medical advice accordingly .

We don’t need any medical insurance for this process , otherwise most of us probably wouldn’t be able to afford it and would go without treatment !! 

Actually, if you use MyChart, or some equivalent, the process is similar to what I just went through a couple weeks ago: 

1. See dr
2. they tell you to go to whatever lab (Quest for me) for the bloodwork
3. They take several vials of blood
4. later that day you get a notification that you have the test results
5. you read the test results and see you have some results that are considered either higher or lower than average
6. never hear from your dr to go over what these test results mean 

so, I’m guessing I’m not alarmingly too high or too low in those areas despite what the graph shows?  

[peachmangosteen]

35 minutes ago, Whimsy said:

you read the test results and see you have some results that are considered either higher or lower than average

never hear from your dr to go over what these test results mean 

[MollyB]

3 hours ago, Whimsy said:

Actually, if you use MyChart, or some equivalent, the process is similar to what I just went through a couple weeks ago: 

1. See dr
2. they tell you to go to whatever lab (Quest for me) for the bloodwork
3. They take several vials of blood
4. later that day you get a notification that you have the test results
5. you read the test results and see you have some results that are considered either higher or lower than average
6. never hear from your dr to go over what these test results mean 

so, I’m guessing I’m not alarmingly too high or too low in those areas despite what the graph shows?  

 Wow, I thought I was the only one who experienced something like this.  In my case, it was flags on my urine tests.  My doctor's nurse/lackey called with the results to say everything was fine except my cholesterol, so dr. had sent a statin prescription to my pharmacy. (He and I had already talked about cholesterol and I didn't want to take statins, but I guess he forgot.)  I asked about the urine tests, as I had already been diagnosed with kidney stones.  She got back to me and said dr. said not to worry.  Less than two weeks later I was taken to the emergency room for, yup, you guessed it.  Kidney stones.  Had to have them removed.  I have since changed doctors.

I also have stage 1b breast cancer and got very, very upset about this moron touting a machine that could detect Cancer, just so no one has to say goodbye too soon (or whatever bullsh*t she spouted).  Yeah, I get blood tests (venous and vials) regularly that tell all my immune levels and I get CT's and mammograms to see if any tumors are evident.  No freakin drop of blood is going to detect cancer or tell you what kind and where.  This woman should be given life in prison.  And all the uninformed rich people that backed her should be crammed in the cell with her.

rant over.

[chocolatine]

1 hour ago, MollyB said:

And all the uninformed rich people that backed her should be crammed in the cell with her.

Especially Channing Robertson, who, as a Stanford professor of chemical engineering, should have known better, but chose to dismiss Ian Gibbons's concerns and double down on his support for Elizabeth.

But I also kinda like how the Theranos scandal (and to a lesser extent, the WeWork one) has exposed VCs for the idiots they can be. In the tech/startup world they are treated with such reverence as if they have preternatural wisdom and foresight, but in reality they're just MBAs who base investment decisions more on hype than technological/scientific feasibility.

Edited March 27, 2022 by chocolatine

[Cinnabon]

5 hours ago, Whimsy said:

Actually, if you use MyChart, or some equivalent, the process is similar to what I just went through a couple weeks ago: 

1. See dr
2. they tell you to go to whatever lab (Quest for me) for the bloodwork
3. They take several vials of blood
4. later that day you get a notification that you have the test results
5. you read the test results and see you have some results that are considered either higher or lower than average
6. never hear from your dr to go over what these test results mean 

so, I’m guessing I’m not alarmingly too high or too low in those areas despite what the graph shows?  

Some doctors won’t call you if all of your results were WNL (within normal limits).

and as Molly B just said “No freakin drop of blood is going to detect cancer or tell you what kind and where.”  Did these educated backers TRULY believe that it could?  

Edited March 27, 2022 by Cinnabon

[slowpoked]

On 3/26/2022 at 1:02 PM, Cinnabon said:

The fact that intelligent, educated people fell for it is insane. I think most educated (and not so educated) people do know that cancer can’t be diagnosed from a blood test. 

To me, the most disappointing of all was Channing Robertson. Because of his early presence on the board, he gave credibility to Theranos and EH. He didn't have either the guts, or the foresight to tell her that while the concept is good, it cannot be executed with the current, or even the near-future technology. Or he also got greedy and could only see the $$$$.

For those that jumped on board afterwards, I'm kind of surprised they didn't ask why there wasn't any doctor on board. Yes, chemistry is important for this to work, but it would be a doctor who would eventually say there are limits to what a blood drop can detect, and as much as we want to know of cancer on a single blood drop, it's near impossible at this point in the medical field. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by slowpoked

[ShelleySue]

This weekend I rewatched the documentary, The Inventor on HBOMax. I saw it when it came out a few years ago but it was interesting watching it again because I wanted to see the "real" Tyler Schultz, Erika Cheung, Phyllis Gardner, etc. It was absolutely creepy seeing Elizabeth Holmes because Amanda Seyfried has nailed her.

[qtpye]

24 minutes ago, ShelleySue said:

This weekend I rewatched the documentary, The Inventor on HBOMax. I saw it when it came out a few years ago but it was interesting watching it again because I wanted to see the "real" Tyler Schultz, Erika Cheung, Phyllis Gardner, etc. It was absolutely creepy seeing Elizabeth Holmes because Amanda Seyfried has nailed her.

Believe it or not that documentary was kind to her. She was much worse than what was presented.

Her polished image and general good looks made her a media darling for a while.

 

[Carolina Girl]

4 hours ago, qtpye said:

Believe it or not that documentary was kind to her. She was much worse than what was presented.

Her polished image and general good looks made her a media darling for a while.

 

Living in Northern California and working near Silicon Valley, the "excitement" with which this fraud was celebrated was amazing.  The VC's and her Board never questioned her.  When I was explaining the Theranos "model" to my sister, who managed the working laboratory at a medical building, she just looked at me, shook her head and said "no way this can be done.  No way in hell."  But you know, she's not worth millions and doesn't have a degree.  What she does have is a score of years dealing with blood draws and tests.  

And as far as the venous puncture goes, she says that she never had a problem with people terrified of blood draws.  They simply look the other way and the "pain" isn't any different really than the finger stick.  

[anyanka323]

I've seen the HBO documentary, listened to the podcasts, and read the Carryou book and it really wasn't until watching the last two episodes that from my POV the worst thing that Theranos, Holmes, and Balwani did was how badly they treated their employees.  Most of them, including Ian Gibbons, Erika Cheung, and Tyler Schultz, and the other composite characters on the show bought into the mission and the thought that they were making the world a better place.  Instead, they had to endure a workplace where collaboration and working together with colleagues across departments was very much discouraged because TPTB (Holmes, Balwani, and their yes people) didn't want it coming out that their product was a failure. 

As someone who works in a highly siloed, very top down workplace, aspects of Theranos really struck me, especially claiming to have an open door policy and using feedback given in the supposed spirit and good intent against people wanting to do their jobs and have a good workplace.  Granted, my workplace is nowhere near as toxic or dysfunctional as Theranos was in its prime, but it's still not a great workplace.  

Just what we've seen on the show makes you wonder how effective and/or competent their HR and compliance people were.  There's been multiple incidents of bullying and hostile and intimidating behavior (from Sunny, Elizabeth, and the yes people), gender and racial discrimination, and violation of the ADA, especially with Ian Gibbons.  I wonder how busy the Northern California EEOC office was processing complaints from Theranos in its heyday. 

Having that toxic and hostile work environment and work culture, in addition to the medical fraud is probably the worst of Theranos' offenses.  Taking advantage of rich, gullible older white men with not much scientific literacy seems mild by comparison. 

[xaxat]

9 minutes ago, anyanka323 said:

Taking advantage of rich, gullible older white men with not much scientific literacy seems mild by comparison. 

This is what

Spoiler

angered me about the legal verdict in Holmes' trial. They got her on the finical fraud. Not because her "business model" put people's lives at risk.

 

Edited March 28, 2022 by xaxat

[bluegirl147]

15 hours ago, anyanka323 said:

Just what we've seen on the show makes you wonder how effective and/or competent their HR and compliance people were. 

Surely they didn't hire people to be in those positions who would actually do their jobs. After dealing with ineffective employees at insurance companies and customer service reps at wireless companies I have come to the conclusion inept people are sometimes hired on purpose.  

15 hours ago, xaxat said:

This is what

  Reveal spoiler

angered me about the legal verdict in Holmes' trial. They got her on the finical fraud. Not because her "business model" put people's lives at risk.

 

Yep. She got in trouble for screwing over rich people.

[Carolina Girl]

On 3/27/2022 at 11:03 AM, chocolatine said:

Especially Channing Robertson, who, as a Stanford professor of chemical engineering, should have known better, but chose to dismiss Ian Gibbons's concerns and double down on his support for Elizabeth.

I think it was Robertson's continuing participation in the Theranos business design that probably was a big factor that kept investors, et al. supportive of Holmes' "dream", assuming that if there was no "there there" that Robertson would have left the company.  Couple that with Holmes' outright LIES and no one refuting same and you had a lovely recipe for industrial suicide.

[ShelleySue]

Now I forgot where I heard it, but Tyler Schultz (either real or actor portrayal) said that there were two Theranos - carpet and tile.  The carpet was the offices and the tile was labs.  We've seen all of the drama in the labs, but except for Elizabeth, Sonny and the attorney we really haven't seen the "carpet" world. What were all of those people in the desks doing? I work in a high tech office (I'm a General Counsel) so I know that people in offices around me are engineers, procurement, accounts receivable, accounts payable, etc. But what I'm really wondering about Theranos is while people in the labs (tile) had an idea of what was really going on, did the carpeted world know the truth or did they think that everything was hunky dory? People were "siloed" so were their different breakrooms or were people monitored while they were eating? Tyler gave Erika that piece of tape for her computer camera, but who knows where other cameras and/or microphones were located.

Spoiler

Even though I know the outcome, I can't wait for the next two episodes.  I am not very religious, but if I was, I would worship karma.

 

[Jordan Baker]

3 hours ago, ShelleySue said:

 Tyler gave Erika that piece of tape for her computer camera, but who knows where other cameras and/or microphones were located.

Was the tape ever mentioned in the show? After Tyler gave it to Erika, I mean. I remember thinking that putting the tape over the camera would  be noticed immediately, based on how hypervigilant the security people were. I thought one or both of them would be called on it, but I don't think that happened.

[slowpoked]

7 hours ago, ShelleySue said:

did the carpeted world know the truth or did they think that everything was hunky dory?

They probably think everything is hunky-dory. I mean, look at EH's new assistant that Ian talked to. She seemed so upbeat and jolly. I highly doubt she will  be like that if she knew the real shit going on. It seems like it's the lab people who are telling others, or new people, to get the hell out asap.

[chocolatine]

8 hours ago, ShelleySue said:

Now I forgot where I heard it, but Tyler Schultz (either real or actor portrayal) said that there were two Theranos - carpet and tile.  The carpet was the offices and the tile was labs.  We've seen all of the drama in the labs, but except for Elizabeth, Sonny and the attorney we really haven't seen the "carpet" world. What were all of those people in the desks doing? I work in a high tech office (I'm a General Counsel) so I know that people in offices around me are engineers, procurement, accounts receivable, accounts payable, etc. But what I'm really wondering about Theranos is while people in the labs (tile) had an idea of what was really going on, did the carpeted world know the truth or did they think that everything was hunky dory?

To be fair, at any tech company the non-tech people (sales, account management, HR, admin, etc.) don't know how the product works. They know what it does, but not how to build it. And in larger companies, only very senior-level tech people - principal engineers/architects, technical fellows, CTOs - know how the entire thing works end-to-end. Everyone else only knows how their component works - front-end, data engineering, DevOps, etc.

[Maximona]

On 3/29/2022 at 2:45 PM, ShelleySue said:

But what I'm really wondering about Theranos is while people in the labs (tile) had an idea of what was really going on, did the carpeted world know the truth or did they think that everything was hunky dory?

Certainly seemed to me as though that in-house lawyer—what was her name?  Linda?—knew exactly what was going on.

But was not about to make moral judgments about it because that wasn't what she was getting paid to do.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Maximona

[Hanahope]

On 3/27/2022 at 6:51 PM, slowpoked said:

To me, the most disappointing of all was Channing Robertson. Because of his early presence on the board, he gave credibility to Theranos and EH. He didn't have either the guts, or the foresight to tell her that while the concept is good, it cannot be executed with the current, or even the near-future technology. Or he also got greedy and could only see the $$$$.

the first episode addressed how he got suckered in.  first she knew a few things that impressed him enough to allow her into the graduate lab class, so she wasn't dumb.  and then he mentioned how he was offered stock in some company (yahoo maybe?) that he declined and as a result missed out on millions.  so her early impression plus fomo got him onboard with theranos and then later she offered him a big consulting salary, so he continued in supporting it to the end.

those masks as the party were as creepy af.  

as we get into these later episodes i see how the view point changed from almost exclusively Elizabeth, to many more other people.  and now we don't see as much any discussions about decisions made or intent to actually lie.  enough foundation was laid in the Novartis demo, the Pfizer trial and taking apart the Seiman's machine.  

[Lovecat]

On 3/25/2022 at 4:13 PM, Madding crowd said:

The thing that is the most annoying is Elizabeth constantly saying "It will no longer be too late to say goodbye" when blood tests aren't going to detect cancer or other diseases on their own and if people are having symptoms, their doctor is already ordering tests. She also talks a lot about her uncle with skin cancer, but a blood test wouldn't have caught that, he needed an earlier biopsy perhaps or maybe nothing could have been done. 

 

On 3/26/2022 at 12:19 PM, slowpoked said:

That's the unicorn though, right? That's the ultimate goal. A lot of people do not know that (that cancer diagnosis takes more than just a blood drop), but wouldn't it be amazing to be able to find out that way? That's what EH almost successfully tried to sell.

 

On 3/26/2022 at 4:02 PM, Cinnabon said:

This is nothing more than a kid wishing they had a flying car. Would be wonderful, but it’s not possible. The fact that intelligent, educated people fell for it is insane. I think most educated (and not so educated) people do know that cancer can’t be diagnosed from a blood test. 

 

On 3/27/2022 at 12:24 PM, MollyB said:

I also have stage 1b breast cancer and got very, very upset about this moron touting a machine that could detect Cancer, just so no one has to say goodbye too soon (or whatever bullsh*t she spouted).  Yeah, I get blood tests (venous and vials) regularly that tell all my immune levels and I get CT's and mammograms to see if any tumors are evident.  No freakin drop of blood is going to detect cancer or tell you what kind and where.  This woman should be given life in prison.  And all the uninformed rich people that backed her should be crammed in the cell with her.

rant over.

There are blood markers for many types of cancer, including melanoma (LDH--I am a Stage IIIC melanoma survivor and have had that marker checked every 3 months for the last 4 years) and prostate cancer (PSA), but yeah, these tests aren't run unless there is a clinical indication.  Ain't nobody going to be running regular tests for every blood marker under the sun "just in case"...  And even if there are clinical signs/symptoms AND a blood result indicative of a particular type of cancer, official diagnosis and staging will STILL depend on biopsy and scans, so Elizabeth Holmes can take several seats with her nonsense.

[Rootbeer]

1 hour ago, Lovecat said:

There are blood markers for many types of cancer, including melanoma (LDH--I am a Stage IIIC melanoma survivor and have had that marker checked every 3 months for the last 4 years) and prostate cancer (PSA), but yeah, these tests aren't run unless there is a clinical indication.  Ain't nobody going to be running regular tests for every blood marker under the sun "just in case"...  And even if there are clinical signs/symptoms AND a blood result indicative of a particular type of cancer, official diagnosis and staging will STILL depend on biopsy and scans, so Elizabeth Holmes can take several seats with her nonsense.

The problem with most cancer markers is that they are non-specific and an elevated level doesn't necessarily indicate cancer in an asymptomatic person.  They're mostly useful in people known to have the specific cancer who were shown to have elevated levels before they were treated.  Then, they can be followed to try to detect recurrences early.

For example, Ca-125 is often used to monitor ovarian cancer.  It is only present in certain types of ovarian cancers; there are plenty in which it is never found.   Also, it is reliably elevated in 80% of advanced cancers, which are ones that are already detectable.  It is often absent in early cancers, even those that will be positive once the cancer spreads.  So, a woman could have ovarian cancer and be falsely reassured by a negative Ca 125 test. Finally, especially in pre-menopausal women, it can be elevated when other conditions are present that are NOT cancer.  For example, normal menstrual bleeding at the time the test is drawn can cause a false positive test.  So can non-cancerous conditions like endometriosis.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Rootbeer

[Tachi Rocinante]

On 3/25/2022 at 3:33 PM, lovinbob said:

Here's a question I meant to ask. Is Elizabeth that pretty? Blond, fit, big eyes, but ... nothing to write home about. Certainly not someone who I'd think would be capable of making the rich and powerful swoon. 

It would have been very interesting to see Kate McKinnon in this role, possibly too comical? (Another SNL performer, Chloe Fineman, does a great impression.)  Regardless, Amanda Seyfried is killing it.

She is pretty plain.  The turtlenecks did her no favors.

Kate McKinnon would have been awful in this, mostly because of her overexposure on SNL.  Has she ever done a serious role?

[Kel Varnsen]

On 3/25/2022 at 3:33 PM, lovinbob said:

Here's a question I meant to ask. Is Elizabeth that pretty? Blond, fit, big eyes, but ... nothing to write home about. Certainly not someone who I'd think would be capable of making the rich and powerful swoon. 

Not sure about actual Elizabeth, but the show has done a great job of making Amanda Seyfried, who is ridiculously attractive, look kind of off and a little weird looking. The scene where she was walking to the car to go to the party was one of the first times I thought she looked really hot.

On 3/27/2022 at 2:03 PM, chocolatine said:

Especially Channing Robertson, who, as a Stanford professor of chemical engineering, should have known better, but chose to dismiss Ian Gibbons's concerns and double down on his support for Elizabeth.

I really don't get this guy and hope we get some more follow up. I mean I understand he felt burned by missing out on Yahoo. But at the same time he is an engineering professor at Stanford. Not some little no name, for profit school that is on the second floor of a strip mall. Elizabeth can't be the first student he has met since Yahoo who was really smart and had a potentially million dollar idea can she? 

Laurie Metcalf was unsurprisingly awesome though. I am amazed her character didn't stand up and respond when she was being trashed by Elizabeth during that interview.