BAD BLOOD
Have you ever been in the grocery store and thought, “Gee, wouldn’t it be great if I could get my blood tested while I’m here?” Well, the folks at California-based supermarket chain Safeway felt the same way, so five years ago they inked a deal for roughly $350 million to build blood test clinics in more than 800 Safeway stores nationwide.
And while a medical clinic in a grocery store isn’t that bizarre a concept, Theranos, the company behind the Safeway clinics, has been accused of struggling with and neglecting to use its proprietary blood test technology, which it claims can perform a wide range of tests with only a prick of a fingertip.
Sound too good to be true? It’s looking like it just might be.
While Safeway and Theranos used to have mad love, it looks like it’s all bad blood these days. A Nov. 10 exposé by Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou revealed that Theranos is now severing ties with Safeway. In five years the Theranos-anchored clinics never began blood testing and are currently being used for flu shots and other travel-related vaccines.
Baby, now we got problems. This, by the way, is Carreyrou’s second exposé on Theranos’ crumbling empire.
He first reported on the company at the end of October, exposing its failure to publically use its oh-so-simple and reliable blood testing technology since the company was founded in 2003.
Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has gone to the mattresses for her company, likening the Wall Street Journal to a “tabloid” and posting a highly scientific response to the Journal’s allegations on the company’s website.
However, Safeway executives told the Wall Street Journal they were less than impressed with the company’s blood testing technique — one executive was told his test results strongly suggested he had prostate cancer. Results by a traditional lab showed nothing abnormal.
ROADS? WHERE WE’RE GOING, WE DON’T NEED ROADS.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s just a test missile the Navy launched off the coast of California. Reports released later detailed the missile’s route: North on the 5, then the 405, then the 605, back to the 405 and finally west on the 105, before jetting off the pier into the deepness of the night. Then it reappeared in San Francisco heading west on the 280, then the 80, then the 880, then the 980, then the 580, then the 680, then back to the 5 where the missile stealthily traveled south until it came to a rest in front of the Capitol building in Sacramento.
Sorry, folks. Despite thousands of social media pictures questioning the existence of UFOs, aliens, Superman and apocalypse-threatening asteroids over the weekend, the Navy confirmed it launched an unarmed test missile from a submarine. A test they had to keep secret for national security purposes. Something they have done before, and something they will most likely do again. Oh wait, they did launch another one on Monday night that didn’t leave quite the same blue streak or cause quite the same ruckus.
So calm down you spacey Californians. You’re not going to die, not just yet and not because of a blue streak flashing across the sky. At least that’s what the Navy wants us to believe… E.T. phone home.
