Books: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

A chilling account of one woman’s mission to become a self-made billionaire, Bad Blood is an exceptional demonstration of courageous journalism by John Carreyrou. Elizabeth Holmes was named by Forbes magazine as the youngest self-made female billionaire in the US after her company, Theranos, was valued at $9 billion in 2014. Carreyrou paints a disturbing image of Holmes’s desire to attain financial success above all else: a Stanford drop-out, Holmes had had a string of entrepreneurial ventures (and failings) before focusing her ambitions on Theranos — a company set up to ‘revolutionise’ blood testing using a single drop of blood from a finger prick. Perhaps most disturbing was how far Holmes was prepared to go to secure her own financial success; despite a string of problems with the device, she continued to deceive investors with her cunning charm and calculated omissions of the facts. With friends in high places and a striking ability to manipulate rich men, the money kept on coming. Holmes was a master of deception; her vision and charisma her only selling point, for the technology she so desperately desired would never work. Finger-prick testing was never successful, and full blood draws were always needed, which were then run on established commercial analysers to give accurate results. Laboratory technicians who raised concerns were promptly fired, forced to sign comprehensive non-disclosure agreements, and frogmarched out of the building. Any employee found discussing Theranos’s activities outside of the workplace was slapped with an entirely unaffordable lawsuit and personal threats. Holmes would stop at nothing to get what she wanted, even if it meant putting the health of the public at risk or driving employees to suicide.

Bad Blood is a worrying account of the power of persuasion, reiterating the essential need for critical and expert review of medical devices prior to their use within the public domain. With Holmes now facing a prison sentence for fraud, this book is a stark reminder to us all that success in health care must be far more than an enchanting pitch from a deluded visionary.

• © British Journal of General Practice 2019