TS Picks: October 24, 2016
Theranos’s bad blood tests; presidential science lessons; “three-parent” babies
Oct 24, 2016
Tracy Vence
PUBLIC DOMAIN PICTURES, CIRCE DENYER
Selections from The Scientist’s reading list
- The Wall Street Journal spoke with patients who were affected by inaccurate Theranos blood tests. “Rattled patients who told The Wall Street Journal they sought more information about their results said they got no response, and weeks or months passed before Theranos told many patients that their results were unreliable.” The Wall Street Journal also reviewed an undisclosed report from the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which found that 834 of 2,890 quality-control checks using the company’s proprietary Edison devices “exceeded the company’s threshold of two standard deviations from its average result,” the publication reported.
See “Theranos Restructuring with Research Focus”
See “Theranos CEO Banned from Running Labs for Two Years”
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Science last week (October 20) offered “science lessons for the next president,” including backgrounders on evolving pathogens and applications of CRISPR.
- Last month, New Scientist reported on the birth of the first baby to have been treated with mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT). Now, “that ‘three-parent’ baby may soon have company—if it does not already,” Nature reported last week (October 29). “Numerous scientific groups and government agencies are debating whether the procedure should be allowed in clinical use. Most conclude that mitochondrial replacement should be performed only under the auspices of a clinical trial and with independent oversight.”
