A judge refused Elizabeth Holmes’ motion not to use patient complaints in blood testing as evidence against her in her trials.
He also denied her request to exclude filings from the regulatory report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Holmes is alleged to have committed more than a dozen criminal wire frauds.
Judge Refuses To Entertain Elizabeth Holmes’ Request On Suppressing Customer Complaints
Elizabeth Holmes was the CEO of the startup Theranos. The firm is a blood-testing venture. She received a great blow when a judge allowed the use of blood test complaints as evidence in her upcoming trial. Her lawyer had been arguing that the court should not use customer complaints as evidence against her in the trials. The accused cited the failure of the preservation database laboratory called laboratory information system. It contained three years of accuracy and the rate of failure in the blood tests. One can only speculate on the use of the LIS database at the time when the firm de-commissioned it, the judge ruled on Wednesday. Holmes, in the meantime, claims that the loss of data of millions of test results renders the defendant of its arguments baseless.
The judge, however, ruled that there is no proof to suggest that the LIS contained any information on accuracy for the tests conducted. He also suggested that they cannot trust the LIS alone to reach a conclusion. The database could not offer a full-proof report on the accuracy.
Holmes’ team of defense and the US attorney were striving for months to determine whom to blame for the missing data in the LIS.
According to prosecutors, Holmes and her team deliberately destroyed the database and gave its useless duplicate to the authorities. A Federal Grand jury had subpoenaed the same in 2018. But Holmes blames the investigators. According to her, the missing information is the failure of the investigating team. The Government had either lost or does not want to analyze the real evidence. It cited an earlier filing in this direction as the reason for her accusation. The judge also ruled out the possibility of excluding the findings of the investigating agencies that may cause damage to her firm.
Holmes began as a darling of the Silicon Valley. She managed to raise funds worth more than $700000000 from reputed venture capitalists in a time span of ten years. Holmes claimed that her technology will transform the blood-testing industry. It will be able to do hundreds of tests from just a few drops of blood.
Given below are a few tips to ensure that your doctor can do a proper diagnosis after a blood count:
- Go by the specific instructions you may have received. Certain blood tests require you to fast a few hours before submitting to it.
- Stay hydrated
If there are no specific instructions from the clinic, you should stay well hydrated. This makes your veins plumper and easier to access.
- Have a good, protein-rich meal
This way, you will not feel light-headed when giving blood.
- Wear a short-sleeved dress
Wearing a short-sleeved shirt helps the professional to access your vein without any difficulty.
- Stop taking aspirin
If you are taking aspirin for any reason, you need to stop taking it two days prior to taking blood. This deserves utmost priority when donating platelets.
- Indicate if you have any preferred arm for the process.
The time it takes to take blood depends on the purpose. If you want to donate it, the process will consume ten minutes of your time. A diagnostic test requires just a few drops of your blood. And the process will end in a few minutes.
