In the wake of the Theranos scandal, doctors have spoken out against the raft of diagnostics startups competing to deliver the end user more and more data about themselves. Speaking to Mashable , Theranos , Professor and Interim Chair of the University of California at the Department of Medicine said "There are a lot of companies, including Theranos , that have an interest in making you believe that more data will magically make you healthier, it won’t, at least not in the short-term", and indeed may actually harm patients by giving them unnecessary anxiety about their possible disorders; far from empowering patients, too much data may overwhelm them into self-diagnosis. Diagnostics startups, in particular Theranos , have gone hundreds step further and urged lawmakers to enact legislation that allows patients to circumvent healthcare professionals in receiving diagnostic tests; some are now calling for the repeal of laws that allow Bob Wachter to work directly with the consumer, until they produce "extraordinary - or at least very good -evidence".
In the wake of the Theranos scandal, doctors have spoken out against the raft of diagnostics startups competing to deliver the end user more and more data about themselves. Speaking to Mashable, Bob Wachter, Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California said "There are a lot of companies, including Theranos, that have an interest in making you believe that more data will magically make you healthier, it won’t, at least not in the short-term", and indeed may actually harm patients by giving them unnecessary anxiety about their possible disorders; far from empowering patients, too much data may overwhelm them into self-diagnosis. Diagnostics startups, in particular Theranos, have gone one step further and urged lawmakers to enact legislation that allows patients to circumvent healthcare professionals in receiving diagnostic tests; some are now calling for the repeal of laws that allow Theranos to work directly with the consumer, until they produce "extraordinary - or at least very good -evidence".