Hacker News Reader

Comment by nullnilvoid | Hacker News Reader

Why is Elizabeth Holmes not in jail? She lied blatantly about their blood-testing medical equipments which can potentially kill people with wrong testing results, and delayed treatments. One of her employees committed suicide, partially because of the pressure she put on him. Why is she not in jail?

View on HN

My feelings exactly. Moreoever, how do they still manage to have 220 employees? What kind of person would continue working for them with even the tiniest clue about what they're doing?

Someone who cannot afford to leave, I suspect.

Genuinely curious. What law do you think she personally broke?

Lying to the media/public, though largely unethical, doesn't strike me as being illegal.

Piling back-breaking stress on an employee also doesn't strike me as illegal.

> She lied blatantly about their blood-testing medical equipments which can potentially kill people with wrong testing results,

I think is the only one which is actually crime and which she has already been punished for.

Exactly how was she punished? Are you talking about her ban from running a blood testing lab? I don't consider that a punishment, more like a rap in the knuckles. Consider that real people were hurt by her/Theranos's actions, people who were misdiagnosed and as a result given wrong medications.

Lying about medical equipments is like fraud. It is like selling snake-oil to patients.

Though it may be "like" fraud, lying to the public/media is not criminal. So, if that's the charge, she should not be in jail.

Perhaps she misrepresented facts to investors, but that seems extremely hard to prove to a criminal extent.

Theranos may have also misrepresented facts to regulatory agencies. However, my guess is that the CEO of an organization that lies to a regulatory agency can't be held accountable to a criminal extent.

Would be genuinely curious to hear a solid case for her to be put in prison backed by facts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com