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microgiant t1_iz9da4r wrote

I wonder if the Theranos debacle made it harder for these people to get research funding.

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Careful_icarus22 t1_iz9eln9 wrote

I was just about to say a woman just went to jail making claims like that. How many times do you think they checked their work before saying it out loud.

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molybend t1_iz9jbeq wrote

She got sentenced recently but doesn't have to report to jail until the spring.

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Alan_Smithee_ t1_izapyel wrote

That’s very sporting of them.

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CatManDontDo t1_izb2fd0 wrote

No one wants to pay for this lady to have a baby in prison

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Alan_Smithee_ t1_izb5rnm wrote

Oh she was up the duff? I imagine that’s no coincidence. How convenient for her.

Is she at least under house arrest, not as part of her sentence?

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DigNitty t1_iza00cf wrote

Well she didn’t only make the claim. The sentence should be “a woman may see a jail cell one day after defrauding many people with claims that were proven to be knowingly false.”

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SlouchyGuy t1_iza44a8 wrote

Not really, Theranos suggested completely innovative method that didn't require reagents and multiple tests and tested for everything. This one is a traditional testing method

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_DirtyDog t1_izfi0wl wrote

You mean new method. Innovative implies it was both new and good.

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Fryceratops t1_iz9lxnz wrote

It might have unless they approached people who are experts in the field for money. Theranos targeted people who wouldn't know that they were stating that they could do the impossible.

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TK-741 t1_izc0jx6 wrote

Was about to say.. where have I heard this before?

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HarkansawJack t1_iz9e4ao wrote

Ms Holmes is that you?

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IronGigant t1_iz9mr4c wrote

Surely not, my name is...Miss...Shblombes...the Third...

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pi_face_ t1_iz9zyq8 wrote

I've sold blood tests to Brockway, Ogdenville and North Havenbrook, and by gum, it put them on the map!

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ra10cracker t1_iz9dcwm wrote

Holy moly if this true health care enters a new era. Wonder what clever ways big pharma will twist & manipulate this to keep benefiting shareholders. Health care here is about money, not people.

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socokid t1_iz9gocn wrote

> Health care here is about money, not people.

This is true in the US, not true in virtually all of the rest of the free world.

We have to pay our middle men here (insurance companies) and it's just one of the reasons we pay sooooo much more for the same health care people get in other countries.

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PlasticPeter t1_iz9mpl7 wrote

You're correct. A quick google search shows the US pays $1,055 per capita for administrative costs, more than 3 times as much as the next highest developed country, Germany at $306. An estimated $600B to $1T was spent in the US on admin costs in 2019.

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Barbarake t1_iz9jsdc wrote

Once a year I get a small check from my insurance company. Evidently at least 80% of the money they take in must be spent on medical care and they usually don't quite meet it, hence the refund. So that's at least 20% right off the top the insurance companies keep.

But that's not all. You have to also remember that doctors and hospitals, etc have to pay people to deal with the insurance companies. The doctors and nurses have to spend extra time doing all sorts of documentation to satisfy the insurance companies. There's lots of costs on the other side that also have to be paid for.

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katarh t1_iza3l4g wrote

Medical coding has to be done regardless of who pays for a procedure - it's the only way to accurately track what happened during a visit.

The problem comes in when you code it incorrectly, and the insurance rejects it because it's not the code they expected. Had a biopsy get initially rejected by my insurance because the hospital used code 111111-X instead of code 111111-Y and it was the dumbest thing.

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oh-propagandhi t1_izbcqj5 wrote

While that's totally true it's not just coding. It's collecting from insurance companies, and each company uses different systems and procedures. If you have one company you are dealing with most of the time (medicare) then you streamline the process on both sides.

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lazyeyepsycho t1_iz9ex2e wrote

Fortunately most of the developed world isnt America.

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Spoonbills t1_iz9je09 wrote

The US funds more medical research than any other country. “In terms of absolute expenditures, China is the world's second biggest spender on R&D, with $468 billion versus the United States's investment of $582 billion in 2018 according to OECD's purchasing power parity comparison.”

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lazyeyepsycho t1_iza7ka3 wrote

Thats awesome for the top few %, im sure their promt and fast treatment will soothe peoples angst at $800 a month insurance for a 5k deductible.

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Extranationalidad t1_izd0qti wrote

I do not want to sound as though I am in favor, overall, of the parasitic and broken American medical system. However, substantial investment in medical research matters a lot even when the first round of beneficiaries are the rich.

The number of major advances in genetics, in reproductive health, in cancer treatment, in mental health pharmacology, in reconstructive surgery, etc, all because rich people wanted to make sure that their fetuses were healthy and blond or that their skin moles were promptly removed or that they had constant access to anxiety medications that mixed well with a martini are legitimately vast.

I think it is a mistake to look at the amount of money going into American medical research and conclude that because rich people benefit first that it does not therefore make the world a healthier place.

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Spoonbills t1_izb54m7 wrote

I'm not suggesting it's a good thing. I'm saying there are a lot of US corporations poised to take advantage of medical advances.

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LazyBox2303 t1_izuopmk wrote

You don’t want to use any of the drugs, treatments or surgeries developed in the U.S? I hope your country can provide all that you need.

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lazyeyepsycho t1_izuwja3 wrote

For reference your post is called a strawman argument.

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LazyBox2303 t1_izwmte9 wrote

That may be true. But I would rather you answer my straw man question than discuss the way healthcare is organized in the U. S, I am also interested where you think you should live in order to receive the best healthcare? As for me, I’ve always been happy with the care I’ve received in Los Angeles.

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Darwins_Dog t1_izck9fj wrote

There's not much big pharma can do in this case. It's a test for specific molecules so the most they could do would be patent a specific method or instrument.

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natefoxreddit t1_iza6eyb wrote

I love this blood test advancement stuff. Between the time my daughter was born (2011) and my son (2015), we went from ultrasounds to get the sex of the baby (well into pregnancy) to a blood test much earlier in the pregnancy. And far more accurate.

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Eko01 t1_iz9e2c6 wrote

A non-sensationalist article about cancer? And they thought it couldn't be done.

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aswhole t1_iz9qbjz wrote

Elizabeth Holmes is that you again?

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voodoosquirrel t1_iza3jpy wrote

What is the specificity? IMO this is even more important than the sensitivity, why wouldn't they report that?

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Otterfan t1_izbefnf wrote

Science/health journalism always neglects specificity. From the paper's abstract:

> We developed three machine learning models based on urine (Nurine = 220 cancer vs. 360 healthy) and plasma (Nplasma = 517 vs. 425) GAGomes that can detect any cancer with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.83–0.93 with up to 62% sensitivity to stage I disease at 95% specificity. [...] In a validation study on a screening-like population requiring ≥ 99% specificity, combined GAGomes predicted any cancer type with poor prognosis within 18 months with 43% sensitivity (21% in stage I; N = 121 and 49 cases).

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chalkoutlin3 t1_izaisyf wrote

we’ve heard this story before..

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LazyBox2303 t1_izuqxtp wrote

Doesn’t everything worthwhile cost money? The rich and the gamblers invest and build things most of us would never do. They do it to make money and to provide things people need and want.

I realize health care in the U.S. is expensive. Research is expensive too. If we were a Socialist country like Canada or England, the costs would be less. But we have many times more people here and I think the quality of service would go down and the waiting times, up. This would not be my choice.

A Socialist country might be a better choice for some people to live in and where health insurance is for everyone. I’ve been reading that Canada has Socialist health care. They are also very liberal in assisted suicides if they won’t or can’t provide care for expensive treatments.

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Wisest-wizard t1_izbfg77 wrote

I feel like I’ve heard this before

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basedank t1_izddamy wrote

I recently presented a study which basically detected bacterial and fungal DNA in the blood and based on their different compositions in different types of cancer or healthy individuals, it was able to distinguish between healthy vs cancer patients and between many cancer types with relatively good discrimination (>.75 AUROC).

Would be interesting to talk about that as well

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dadimondi t1_ize128u wrote

And it only costs 200 Lifetimes of salary

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Raul_McCai t1_izaozkd wrote

Elizabeth???? Ms Holmes? Is that you?

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