Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

[Polish_Silver]

Creative Destruction? Let's hope so!

• THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW
• September 7, 2013, 12:06 a.m. ET

She calls it "a watershed opportunity to change the trajectory of health costs through price transparency."
Since 1984, the Medicare Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule has set reimbursements for 1,140 unique lab tests across 57 U.S. jurisdictions. That's 64,980 different price controls. Meanwhile, the prices that private insurers negotiate with providers are virtually trade secrets.
Theranos is committing to a half-off discount on Medicare fees.
This strategy may be inviting a hell of a battle with the health industry, where the incentives are rigged against startups and the empire usually finds a way of striking back. Witness the medical-practice regulations that make medicine a cartel against competitors. Pathologists, lab scientists and technicians won't be pleased if their jobs go the way of travel agents.

I hope this works as claimed, and it can work on detect infections as well as endogenous illness.

[bill]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

Thanks for posting.
Credit to Ron Leuty
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...into-view.html

9-13-2013Silent, growing Theranos Inc. is public with its big plans.
In a Wall Street Journal article last weekend, the Palo Alto company, which is developing a miniature medical device that can detect hundreds of diseases with a minute amount of blood, says it is opening in-store, sample-collection centers in Walgreens. It was scheduled to start Monday in a Palo Alto Walgreens, the Journal reported from its exclusive access to Theranos and CEO Elizabeth Holmes.
We did our part to pull the covers back on Theranos — as far as we could without any cooperation from the company —

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...=image_gallery

http://www.flickr.com/photos/depsecdef/8660144172/

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci....html?page=all

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci....html?page=all


Elizabeth Holmes has a compelling story to tell.
Leaving Stanford University in 2003 at the urging of her mentor, the 19-year-old chemical engineering major started a company to develop her idea for a hand-held medical device, one that could read a minute amount of blood and produce a real-time assessment of how a drug is interacting with the body.
In the decade since, Holmes has surrounded herself with a cast of technical experts and a board of business, political and military heavyweights, while amassing roughly $100 million from top-drawer investors.
The result? Holmes’ company, Theranos Inc., stands on the cusp of unleashing a revolution in drug development and home health care that could spawn a new industry, much like the Bay Area’s Genentech Inc. did in biotech, Facebook Inc. did in social media and Apple Inc. did for personal computing. In the process, Theranos and its technology threaten to turn the business of consumer laboratory testing upside down.
But it’s a story Holmes and Theranos have little interest in telling. Instead, the story of Theranos is one of extreme stealth and closely guarded secrets.
The Palo Alto-based company operates from two large campuses with little signage to identify the company inside. It doesn’t talk to the media. Its bare-bones website was recently reworked, but contains little information apart from director biographies and job listings. When it leased its Newark campus last year, city officials, real estate brokers and others involved were sworn to secrecy on details of the transaction, even holding the tenant’s name in confidence.
Legal documents from court cases involving Theranos explain the stealth as a strategy to keep potential competitors in the dark as it continues to develop a device that sensitively integrates chemistry, software, microfluidics and biomathematics.
“The company’s culture is such that confidentiality is the essence of its existence,” Holmes, Theranos’ CEO, said in a declaration in one case.
Most potential sources contacted for this story — Holmes, her Stanford professor mentor, Theranos employees, former employees, possible suppliers, scientific collaborators, possible competitors, defendants in lawsuits, board members and financial backers — either didn’t return phone or electronic messages, referred questions to Theranos or refused to comment on the record. Some cited sweeping nondisclosure agreements they had signed with the company.
But despite the hush drawn around Theranos, its scale and scope hint at profound ambitions, and its pace of activity is quickening as it appears to move toward manufacturing its device.
Theranos is ramping up hiring, has signed two huge leases in the past two years and has built a board with military and political clout. (See “Theranos Picks up the Pace” infobox.)
Yet it all comes back to Holmes, the enigmatic powerpack at Theranos’ center.
Over the company’s first decade, Holmes is the one constant. In that time, Theranos has raised millions of dollars — from the likes of Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison and Menlo Park venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson — integrated nano, micro and biotechnologies into a consumer-friendly device, and battled insiders and outsiders threatening to disclose the company and its secrets.
“I certainly went through a period where it became clear to me that, if I needed to, I would restart this company as many times as possible to make this thing happen,” Holmes said in a March 2009 lecture at Stanford, in one of her few public comments since the company’s inception. “And having that level of conviction makes it not about the money or the people or the title or the role.”
Feeling right
By the time Texas-born Holmes dropped out of college as a sophomore, she already had built an enviable résumé. She spent many of her teenage years in China (she speaks Mandarin) and started a company that sold software to Asian universities, according to lectures and a single radio interview given by Holmes and the websites hosting those talks. She also worked in a Singapore lab, helping to develop a novel protein microarray — essentially a lab on a chip — for detecting the deadly SARS virus.
Holmes had little background in biology when she started the job in Singapore but quickly determined that the tools and technologies that microarrays used to detect blood components, or analytes, were outdated.
Once she returned to Stanford, she said in the lecture, she “begged” her way into various labs to learn how to integrate microfluidics, the same technology used in inkjet printing.
“When I would work on this, I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing,” Holmes recalled in her Stanford lecture, “so it didn’t take very long for me to decide that this was what I wanted to go do.”
(The video is one of four outside presentations or articles archived on Theranos’ website — none since 2010.)
That work ultimately led to the formation of Theranos.
“I wasn’t going to my classes, and I was spending all of my time talking to VCs, and then logistically (classes) just seemed like a waste of money,” Holmes recalled.
What Holmes envisioned — and what Theranos engineers, an outside design consultant and others ultimately built — was a hand-held device. The device has gone through many changes, but it basically uses a microneedle to take a very small sample of blood, run a chemistry lab in its cartridge and transmit the findings to patients, doctors, or — in the case of a clinical trial — a drug-development company and researchers. The cartridge is key, allowing users to target certain biomarkers by changing out that piece.
The turnaround time for getting critical health data is not only quicker than the three days or so available through central labs — like those run by Quest Diagnostics Inc. or Laboratory Corp. of America — but higher quality and more predictive of a drug response, Holmes said in her Stanford lecture.
The speed of the Theranos system could help drug-development companies, for one, save time and money and get the right drugs to the right patients at the right time — a cornerstone of the personalized medicine movement.
Holmes led Theranos through three separate financings, raising about $50 million from December 2004 through December 2006, according to an August 2007 complaint Theranos filed in Santa Clara Superior Court against three former employees it accused of misappropriating trade secrets.
Theranos said in a July 2010 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had raised $45 million from a single, unidentified investor.
Yet while Theranos still doesn’t appear to have a mass-market commercial product, it may have a head start against potential competitors — and its hush-hush corporate mindset is designed to keep it that way.
‘Most secretive company’
Theranos wanted to “maintain and extend” its lead in developing its system by “operating deeply in ‘stealth mode,’” the company’s complaint against the three former employees said. In fact, Holmes said in a declaration in the 2007 lawsuit that she and other Theranos managers “regularly and routinely communicated and continue to communicate to all Theranos employees … that Theranos wanted to avoid at all cost any interaction with or disclosure of its efforts to any of its potential competitors or other investors who could fund a company copying our integration of such disparate technical expertise.”
The case was dismissed at Theranos’ request in January 2009.
“They’re the most secretive company I’ve ever dealt with,” said Terrence Grindall, community development director for Newark, where Theranos leased space at the Pacific Research Center. “That’s not all bad. They said they have competitors and their technology is invaluable.”
The company in July disclosed a makeover of its board of directors, with former Secretary of State George Shultz, Holmes and Theranos President and COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani as the only holdovers.
Among those who left are Robert Shapiro, the former chairman of drug company Pharmacia Corp. , venture capitalist Pete Thomas of Redwood City’s ATA Ventures — another early Theranos investor — and Channing Robertson, the recently retired Stanford chemical engineering professor who encouraged Holmes to start her company.
The new board includes former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a retired four-star general and former Defense Secretary William Perry.
Most companies seek to fill their boards with directors with a wide range of experience and expertise, said Steve Hobbs, a managing director who specializes in board composition at Protiviti, a risk and benefits consulting subsidiary of Menlo Park-based staffing firm Robert Half International Inc.
Theranos’ board now consists mainly of directors with diplomatic or military backgrounds.
“Maybe, collectively, these folks bring the experience (Theranos is) looking for,” Hobbs said.
Upper-level directors like those on Theranos’ board can help raise money “but that’s not the key ingredient in fundraising,” Hobbs said. “But having a brand name on the board can help in the credentialing of the organization.”
Theranos’ connections are deep. Perry, for example, was at an April meeting between Holmes and Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who visited with Silicon Valley tech companies, according to the department’s website.
Theranos would not say whether Perry had joined the board by then.
Yet despite its big names, revolutionary goals, groundbreaking technology and apparent ramp-up, Theranos continues to move stealthily. Requests to speak with Holmes or other executives, board members and the company’s financiers were consistently rebuffed, and the company declined to provide any answers to written questions.
“We are not granting interviews at this time or providing information past what is currently available on our website,” a company spokeswoman said in an Aug. 15 email message. “As we have additional news to share, we will be sure to follow up with you directly.”

[ltullos]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

What's disappointing here is that only the authorized communication is approved for discussion. Alternative views are derogatorily labelled. In this case, the non-authorized vector of dicussion is called "distorted" in order to thwart any further consideration of this view. Any other member who decides to follow-up on this vector can expect the same treatment, so the discussion is shut down. What a shame.

Reggie, I assure you my post was not intending to shut down any discussion as I think this is why we all come here. I accept that my label of "distorted" was harsh; but it just struck me that your view had become too cynical. Personally, I'm a big believer in the power of data (used constructively) to effect change, and the state today is that most medical tests are obviously way too expensive and done too late to promote prevention. I've worked in the semiconductor industry for 39 years and in that time have had a front-row seat to the explosion in innovation that can only come from increasing the power of analysis exponentially even as the cost declines linearly. The main area of our lives that has been the least impacted by this has been our healthcare, but MEMs are now starting to revolution this as well - and I can say that from a front-row seat in the world's leading producer of MEMs devices. The ability to collect and correlate big data cheaply and continuously has the potential to improve early detection and prevention like nothing else can. However, what we absolutely must be on-guard against is who owns and has access to that data. My biggest fear is that the insurance companies will gain access and use it against us, which is one more reason we need to move to single payer system and take it out the hands of those with pure profit motives. Finally, I would just add that I've done no research into Theranos or Elizabeth Holmes, and therefore have no opinion on the credibility of her or the company; but I do fully believe that they are targeting the right area to make real breakthroughs and to dramatically lower the cost and improve the value of diagnostic monitoring and testing. Again, sorry for offending you in my original post; and hope this opens the dialogue back up.

[c1ue]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

The idea being that a larger and more nuanced set of data, measuring underlying molecular pathology over the time course of disease progression can be leveraged to identify a more specific cause or multi-factor profile of the disease. Couple this massive data set with an informatics platform capable of providing advanced analytics and some important correlations may be established between genetic profiles, protein physiology, and clinical outcomes.

As someone who follows Big Data - I can tell you that right now, Big Data is pretty much a buzzword on par with nano.

Or in other words: hand waving, magical Wizard of Oz chicanery.

In Auto Insurance, for example, the big to do has been about Progressive's Usage Based Insurance program via a device called Snapshot.

The sales pitch is that Snapshot measures how safely you drive, and you get lower insurance as a result.

But what does SnapShot actually do? It apparently collects only 3 pieces of data:

1) Miles driven
2) Times when driving
3) Decelerations over a certain threshold

1) is purely actuarial - you drive less, you should pay less insurance since your risk is less

2) is measured purely as a function of how often you drive from the midnight to 4 am period. Certainly there are relatively more accidents in that time period due to drunken driving, but people working the night shift...too bad

3) is equally problematic. If you are a jump on the accelerator/slam on the brakes type, this might make sense, but the threshold can as easily be triggered by your braking when some idiot cuts you off. I shudder to think what the results must be like in the places where people just aren't very courteous drivers.

More worrisome - if in fact SnapShot only collects these 3 types of data, it seems more than slightly problematic that sufficient detail can be gathered to discover 'real' driving safety indicators. Snapshot also isn't 24/7/365 - you install it for 1 to 6 months, then send it back. Part of this is because I don't think anyone wants to be monitored full time - there just isn't any upside to it for the consumer - but the other part is that SnapShot is a GSM device attached to the car's OBDII port. The GSM requires a data plan, thus SnapShot costs Progressive a monthly fee which incidentally is charged to the consumer.

Elizabeth Holmes has a compelling story to tell.

Proof is in the pudding.

After seeing any number of $100M companies fail - as well as succeed - secrecy is not a positive development.

If Theranos in fact has such brainpower and a commanding lead in technology/development, secrecy beyond the most basic precautions is pointless.

If, on the other hand, Theranos has a few tricks which anyone can replicate, then this doesn't make for a great company.

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

3) is equally problematic. If you are a jump on the accelerator/slam on the brakes type, this might make sense, but the threshold can as easily be triggered by your braking when some idiot cuts you off. I shudder to think what the results must be like in the places where people just aren't very courteous drivers.

c1ue

They could normalize the person's data to regional statistics.

We already have this:

1) if you go accident free for a few years, your rates go down.

2) if You make any claim at all, your rates go up.

I thought that the states had prevented insurance companies from offering too many discounts to good drivers, because, if you take this to extremes, it ceases to be insurance---ie everyone pay's their own costs.

[c1ue]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

They could normalize the person's data to regional statistics.

We already have this:

1) if you go accident free for a few years, your rates go down.

2) if You make any claim at all, your rates go up.

I thought that the states had prevented insurance companies from offering too many discounts to good drivers, because, if you take this to extremes, it ceases to be insurance---ie everyone pay's their own costs.

There are a lot of things that can be done - and I'm sure there is more being done than what I outline above which is public.

The thing is - the primary paradigm shift isn't a structural one. The reason insurance companies key on accidents - besides them being forcing events to payouts - is because they are trackable.

Now that potentially the numbers and types of data which are trackable increases - how does this affect overall insurance policymaking?

For example: if 12% of Progressive's customers join SnapShot, how should the pricing of the remaining 88% be affected? The data for this 12% is much greater, but the data for the remainder will remain the same.

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that the ramifications for the business of auto insurance would probably take decades to play out.

Instead of having age, DL#, sex, education, accident history, traffic ticket history, race, and perhaps a handful of other data points - the insurance company could have literally hundreds or thousands more categories of data points like how fast you drive vs. the speed limit, or average speed, which parts of town you go to/live in, average throttle position, average braking intensity, average length of drive, percent highway vs. residential driving, etc etc. The possibilities for data collection are tremendous, and the task of determining which categories and at what levels should insurance be affected even more enormous.

Equally the region issues are non-trivial. Do downtown LA drivers behave similarly to San Bernadino? to San Diego? to Palm Springs? to Fresno? Palm Desert? All of these areas are within 250 miles of LA - but driving behavior is very very different from my personal anecdotal experience.

[jpatter666]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

As someone who follows Big Data - I can tell you that right now, Big Data is pretty much a buzzword on par with nano.

Or in other words: hand waving, magical Wizard of Oz chicanery.

As someone who works in the tech industry (and in Big Data) I agree that many companies embrace the buzzword without any real implementation of the relevant technology. Using a Big Data store does not necessarily make you a Big Data company. But for many organizations, that's all they need to claim they are "Big Data".

All this said, I do think Big Data opens up many possibilities. Usually these follow along one of two paths (although occasionally both):

1 ) The nature of (most) Big Data stores allows for much easier storage and manipulation of nearly any data type than strictly relational (i.e. Oracle databases). This allows for deep queries (usually via some iteration of Hadoop) to determine relationships that might not otherwise be apparent.
2 ) Massive data storage. Usually, this flies hand-in-hand with (1) but not always. I've seen many cases where an apparently relational database is moved to a Big Data store because it allows for massive volumes of data writes cheaply and quickly. In cases where needing to write the data quickly is required, but reading it back is not nearly the same priority level, this is very *very* useful.

It's this second case where I'm seeing a lot of "Big Data" companies, that really IMHO aren't.

[Bundi]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

[QUOTE=c1ue;268470] Proof is in the pudding. [QUOTE]

Hi c1ue,

Excellent points about the degree of relevance of data inputs to bottom line output measures. Analyzing randomness or non-correlated factors is a wasted cost. Unfortunately there is a fair amount of this non correlated treatment as well as R&D spend now permeating healthcare. As in your auto insurance example, measuring items 1-3 may or may not reflect outcomes risk.

The same may well be true of many bio markers. Currently one way to know for sure is to run massive clinical trials over several years and measure pathology and actually mortality rates to get at the ultimate treatment measure, improved survival. In order to achieve statistical power sufficient to lay claim to a survival benefit, a trial may last for years, cost many tens of millions of dollars, and frequently show no benefit at all. Worse yet, scientists may not actually know why there was not a sufficient correlation between the hypothesized mechanism of action on the identified target and a desired survival benefit. A desired survival benefit in the total population included in the study, that is. It is certainly possible (though most often not statistically justified by a sub cohort analysis) that certain cohorts within the study did experience a survival benefit or at least a potentially meaningful efficacy on secondary or tertiary endpoints. The problem is that you don’t know until after the fact which sub groups and associated profiles may have behaved in a certain way, therefore did not structure of power the study to evaluate those more relevant populations.

If there is a way to use existing and future data to tease out the many different sub types of currently defined disease states and to understand the different molecular bases of these disease sub types, chemists, biologists, and clinicians could theoretically have a better idea of which factors are correlated to a specific outcome and discover therapeutics as well as design studies much more efficiently. A key point, one that you make in your analogy, is that not knowing in advance which factors are correlated to an outcome or even which sub groups (e.g. cohorts of drivers) have demonstrated a correlative outcome (accidents) relationship to measurable factors (items 1-3), renders the design of a program highly inefficient.

Bottom line is that while our understanding of disease has improved over the years, there is still too much that is not known about causative factors and this is especially true of multi factorial disease states and disease states that are way too broadly defined, i.e. not defined by underlying molecular factors but defined by tissue type or some broad term that covers several distinct molecular sub types.
All that said, no doubt that big data and personalized medicine are b.s. buzz words being thrown around to sell this and that idea. I view this whole field as a series of ongoing experiments. Separate experiments with specific parameters in each case. One at a time a specific scientific or applied technological question is asked and an answer is attempted by use of ever increasing volumes (relevant or not) of molecular and clinical and various other perhaps important data fields. My hunch is that there will be a benefit to this approach however I also strongly suspect that the degree of benefit will vary very widely and on a case by case basis. In some cases, there will be strong correlations, in others weak or none at all.

A very important aspect of these efforts is the ability to see into the body and evaluate specific factors on a regular and ideally non-invasive fashion. Theranos (I have no idea if they are legit) and many many other companies are pushing productively on this degree of visibility although my own personal opinion is that some important areas are still highly limited. The more visibility and at lower cost the better the data set. This like all things will take time, lots of it, but it is happening.

DNA sequencing, for all of its hype, is a rather empirical metric. Sequence a person’s genome and you get the specific sequence of all his/her genes. Nothing particularly ambiguous about that. Of course disease is not always strongly correlated to the specific sequence of a single gene, sometimes it is but most of the time it is far more involved than that empirical sequence. DNA is a code and cell machinery turns it into RNA which is then turned into a protein based on the original code. Yet at processing steps along this DNA->RNA->->Protein assembly line, manipulations can take place that influence the ultimate function of the protein in ways that go beyond the influence of the original DNA sequence code. Furthermore, similar proteins can function differently depending on the specific tissue or physiologic mix of factors in which they are existing. What I am trying to say is that gene sequence is a factor but the further downstream one gets from that code, the more complexity that is introduced and in many cases the less fidelity that is available to discern the relationship between gene code and pathology. Throw in environmental, random physiologic, and several other existing variables and getting at the deep and detailed basis of disease progression over time is not necessarily an easy thing to do and the difficulty of doing so is not uniform across pathologies, it is a differentiated as the disease causes themselves.

Like all biomedical research, I expect a long tough slog not a silver bullet. That said, I welcome the big data push (worry as I do about abuses!!), at least in so much as it is yet another experiment to run and one that in theory anyway, has some rationale.

Here are a couple of papers that may help or may just confuse things. Either way, can’t hurt to peruse. The second is a rebuttal to the first which I really like.

Personal Omics Profiling Reveals Dynamic Molecular and Medical Phenotypes
https://register.mssm.edu/seminar/CL...13-dudley1.pdf


A Personal Perspective on Prospects for Personalized Medicine Jul 22nd, 2012 by Neil Greenspan - See more at: http://evmedreview.com/?p=1351#sthash.MVPHhHoq.dpuf
http://evmedreview.com/?p=1351

[c1ue]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

All this said, I do think Big Data opens up many possibilities.

I agree - there are all sorts of possibilities.

Translation into real world, however, is far more problematic.

On the medical side, for example, a huge issue which Big Data cannot help with is patent trolling. Whatever Theranos can do - the issue of how much must be paid for a given test is only partially a function of the cost of carrying it out.

DNA sequencing, for all of its hype, is a rather empirical metric.

Yes, DNA sequencing can be a tool - but of course expression is what really matters. The state of the art in that area is far from mature.

However, what I'd point out is very little to do with SOTA in DNA sequencing or expression. It is the sheer numbers involved.

The papers you refer to are interesting - and I'll look at them more when I have the opportunity - but what jumps out right away are numbers like 289896 rare SNMs, 51,248 rare indels, 3301521 high confidence SNMs, etc etc. (the OMICs paper).

The same paper also notes that their study was carried out over the span of little more than a year, with 14 - 20 sampling periods.

Care to hazard a guess on how much this must have cost? Even disregarding the initial sequencing cost?

How far will this fall in the next decade?

And in reference to the above patent troll note - how many of these tens to hundreds of thousands, or millions of SNVs or whatever are 'intellectual property'?

Like all biomedical research, I expect a long tough slog not a silver bullet. That said, I welcome the big data push (worry as I do about abuses!!), at least in so much as it is yet another experiment to run and one that in theory anyway, has some rationale.

I agree on the tough slog - my concern is more on the societal impact side.

For example: so long as medicine is profit based - just how much benefit is there for a regular person to have all his genetic/disease predilections revealed for all the world to see?

What is the impact of such detailed information - without necessarily accompanying understanding of effect?

The best example I can think of offhand is chicken nuggets.

Some person sequenced chicken nuggets and found that *gasp* they're less than half protein. Duh.

But how many people now will refuse to eat chicken nuggets because they're not actually all protein?

[reggie]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

Reggie, I assure you my post was not intending to shut down any discussion as I think this is why we all come here. I accept that my label of "distorted" was harsh; but it just struck me that your view had become too cynical. Personally, I'm a big believer in the power of data (used constructively) to effect change, and the state today is that most medical tests are obviously way too expensive and done too late to promote prevention. I've worked in the semiconductor industry for 39 years and in that time have had a front-row seat to the explosion in innovation that can only come from increasing the power of analysis exponentially even as the cost declines linearly. The main area of our lives that has been the least impacted by this has been our healthcare, but MEMs are now starting to revolution this as well - and I can say that from a front-row seat in the world's leading producer of MEMs devices. The ability to collect and correlate big data cheaply and continuously has the potential to improve early detection and prevention like nothing else can. However, what we absolutely must be on-guard against is who owns and has access to that data. My biggest fear is that the insurance companies will gain access and use it against us, which is one more reason we need to move to single payer system and take it out the hands of those with pure profit motives. Finally, I would just add that I've done no research into Theranos or Elizabeth Holmes, and therefore have no opinion on the credibility of her or the company; but I do fully believe that they are targeting the right area to make real breakthroughs and to dramatically lower the cost and improve the value of diagnostic monitoring and testing. Again, sorry for offending you in my original post; and hope this opens the dialogue back up.

Thanks for the nice note.

But in reply to your points, I'm sure you understand that data collection thru diagnostic monitoring leads to and enables control systems.... and the better the sensory systems the increased fidelity of the control systems. So, while you assume that this control will be employed to "improve" public health, it is my contention that it will be used to CONTROL public health. My evidence for this is to look at how the food industry employs science to design food systems that attack human health, while the pharmaceutical and medical industries create "solutions", that target the symptoms caused by these core conditions, which create new conditions while leaving the core condition untreated.

[Forrest]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

Thanks for the nice note.

But in reply to your points, I'm sure you understand that data collection thru diagnostic monitoring leads to and enables control systems.... and the better the sensory systems the increased fidelity of the control systems. So, while you assume that this control will be employed to "improve" public health, it is my contention that it will be used to CONTROL public health. My evidence for this is to look at how the food industry employs science to design food systems that attack human health, while the pharmaceutical and medical industries create "solutions", that target the symptoms caused by these core conditions, which create new conditions while leaving the core condition untreated.

The core conditions are easy to treat...if you attempt prevention, and radical attentions to the body's needs. Low stress, lots of sleep, exercise, and eat your veggies...clean ones, with all the appropriate minerals, vitamins and enzymes. Fruits and proteins are fine too if cleanly raised. But very few people want preventative medicine, much less a preventative lifestyle, and fewer still will attack dis-eases by bombarding the body with raw veggie juice. It's too much of a life change. Of course, you do get to live and enjoy yourself, but you have to lay off the Freetos permanently.

On the other hand, I've been wondering when someone was going to bring out some version of the Star Trek medical scanning device. This product will be interesting to watch as it develops, but I too see it as a means of using information as control, however good the underlying motive might be. I am suspicious of all that venture capital mixed with so much secrecy. It really sounds more like a DARPA project.

[reggie]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

The core conditions are easy to treat...if you attempt prevention, and radical attentions to the body's needs. Low stress, lots of sleep, exercise, and eat your veggies...clean ones, with all the appropriate minerals, vitamins and enzymes. Fruits and proteins are fine too if cleanly raised. But very few people want preventative medicine, much less a preventative lifestyle, and fewer still will attack dis-eases by bombarding the body with raw veggie juice. It's too much of a life change. Of course, you do get to live and enjoy yourself, but you have to lay off the Freetos permanently.

On the other hand, I've been wondering when someone was going to bring out some version of the Star Trek medical scanning device. This product will be interesting to watch as it develops, but I too see it as a means of using information as control, however good the underlying motive might be. I am suspicious of all that venture capital mixed with so much secrecy. It really sounds more like a DARPA project.

But the core conditions are not even part of the conversation, nor the testing regime.

For example, the health industry invests an inordinate amount of money, testing, education on maintaining low cholesterol in order to mitigate atherosclerosis. But I could care less how much cholesterol my body has as long as my endocrine system is working properly. Unfortunately, my enodcrine system is under attack from flouride, bromide and chlorine, and therefore I'm unable to properly process cholesterol so that it does not result in atherosclerosis. Instead of testing and treating my endocrine system, I'm put on statin drugs that are neurotoxic. What's disgusting is that a regime of Iodine can purge the endocrine deflating toxins and allow the body to heal the atherosclerosis. But try and find a lab that will test your bromide, chlorine, flouride and iodine levels. Or, try and find a Doc that even understands the relationship between endocrine system and atherosclerosis. The information and tests available to properly diagnose and treat the condition are not even part of the system. That is this system's greatest strength... the knowledge necessary to heal is not part of the system. One has to step out side convention in order to gain real insight.

The following link provides some insight
http://www.healthy-eating-politics.c...eficiency.html

[shiny!]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

But the core conditions are not even part of the conversation, nor the testing regime.

For example, the health industry invests an inordinate amount of money, testing, education on maintaining low cholesterol in order to mitigate atherosclerosis. But I could care less how much cholesterol my body has as long as my endocrine system is working properly. Unfortunately, my enodcrine system is under attack from flouride, bromide and chlorine, and therefore I'm unable to properly process cholesterol so that it does not result in atherosclerosis. Instead of testing and treating my endocrine system, I'm put on statin drugs that are neurotoxic. What's disgusting is that a regime of Iodine can purge the endocrine deflating toxins and allow the body to heal the atherosclerosis. But try and find a lab that will test your bromide, chlorine, flouride and iodine levels. Or, try and find a Doc that even understands the relationship between endocrine system and atherosclerosis. The information and tests available to properly diagnose and treat the condition are not even part of the system. That is this system's greatest strength... the knowledge necessary to heal is not part of the system. One has to step out side convention in order to gain real insight.

The following link provides some insight
http://www.healthy-eating-politics.c...eficiency.html

Well said!

[Forrest]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

But the core conditions are not even part of the conversation, nor the testing regime.

For example, the health industry invests an inordinate amount of money, testing, education on maintaining low cholesterol in order to mitigate atherosclerosis. But I could care less how much cholesterol my body has as long as my endocrine system is working properly. Unfortunately, my enodcrine system is under attack from flouride, bromide and chlorine, and therefore I'm unable to properly process cholesterol so that it does not result in atherosclerosis. Instead of testing and treating my endocrine system, I'm put on statin drugs that are neurotoxic. What's disgusting is that a regime of Iodine can purge the endocrine deflating toxins and allow the body to heal the atherosclerosis. But try and find a lab that will test your bromide, chlorine, flouride and iodine levels. Or, try and find a Doc that even understands the relationship between endocrine system and atherosclerosis. The information and tests available to properly diagnose and treat the condition are not even part of the system. That is this system's greatest strength... the knowledge necessary to heal is not part of the system. One has to step out side convention in order to gain real insight.

The following link provides some insight
http://www.healthy-eating-politics.c...eficiency.html

More reason than ever to think that the information gathered and used will not be for the benefit of those attempting to receive healing. Why would a system not seeking to treat core conditions otherwise need such a testing system?

I hope you are finding access for the Iodine regardless, and are taking enough to match the Japanese. It seems to work for them.

[shiny!]

Re: Breakthrough Of Instant Diagnosis

More reason than ever to think that the information gathered and used will not be for the benefit of those attempting to receive healing. Why would a system not seeking to treat core conditions otherwise need such a testing system?

I hope you are finding access for the Iodine regardless, and are taking enough to match the Japanese. It seems to work for them.

Like a gun, hammer or any tool, this new blood testing technology can be used for good or ill. The privacy concerns are real. But speaking as someone who needs frequent blood tests but who has such crappy veins that blood tests are all but impossible, this new technology is a godsend. I'm not willing to live my entire life in miserable health or die from a treatable disease because I'm afraid of NSA-type spying on my blood. The ways the information could be used against me are a problem, but only if I'm alive. Without blood monitoring I might not be alive at all. This technology is coming in the nick of time for me, because nearly all my attempts to get "routine" bloodwork are ending in failure.