The Washington Post published a very interesting article earlier this month, in which they used email correspondence to reveal that Theranos pitched their system to the military, but there were concerns from a DoD official about it.[1]
>An official evaluating Theranos’s signature blood-testing technology for the Department of Defense sounded the alarm in 2012 and launched a formal inquiry with the Food and Drug Administration about the company’s intent to distribute its tests without FDA clearance
Holmes contacted General Mattis, who had been promoting Theranos within the military, and he tried to bypass the concerns. In the end, Theranos never demonstrated the system to the military. Mattis joined their board a year later.
>According to a Theranos spokeswoman, Mattis and Holmes met in 2011 at a Marine Memorial event. Mattis, busy overseeing the war in Afghanistan as commander of the U.S. Central Command, expressed interest in testing Theranos’s technology in combat areas, according to the e-mails.
>“I’ve met with my various folks and we’re kicking this into overdrive,” Mattis wrote to Holmes in June 2012. “I’m convinced that your invention will be a game-changer for us and I want it to be given the opportunity for a demonstration in-theater soonest.”
>He urged Holmes to call or e-mail him if she felt they needed to talk.
>A month later, frustrated by the military regulatory expert who had contacted the FDA, Holmes took him up on that offer.
>“I know how incredibly busy you are but thought it was the right thing to let you know the following,” Holmes wrote.
>She noted that a deputy director working for a division of the military that oversees regulatory issues and compliance had launched a formal inquiry to regulators without warning Theranos.
>“I would very much appreciate your help in getting this information corrected with the regulatory agencies,” Holmes wrote in the e-mail to Mattis. “Since this misinformation came from within DoD, it will be invaluable if this information is formally corrected by the right people in DoD.”
>Within hours, Mattis forwarded the exchange to military officials, asking “how do we overcome this new obstacle.”
>“I have tried to get this device tested in theater asap, legally and ethically,” Mattis wrote. “This appears to be relatively straight-forward yet we’re a year into this and not yet deployed.”
>The field demonstration Mattis was seeking never took place.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/inter...