Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes begins prison sentence in Texas

Published

12 months ago

May 30, 2023

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Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has begun her prison sentence in Texas.

Holmes, 39, is due to spend the next 11 years behind bars for overseeing an infamous blood-testing hoax.

She entered the federal women’s prison camp located in Bryan, Texas on Tuesday, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The prison camp is a minimum-security facility that houses about 650 women, considered the lowest security risk.

Prison camps also often have minimal staffing and many of the people incarcerated there work at prison jobs.

Last year, a jury convicted Holmes on four felony counts of fraud and conspiracy. She was sentenced to prison time in November.

Holmes, had been on bail, living in the San Diego area.

She was put under investigation in 2017 for the collapse of Theranos, a start-up she founded after dropping out of Stanford University when she was just 19.

Holmes became a Silicon Valley sensation when she promised that Theranos would revolutionise health care, thanks to a technology that could quickly scan for diseases and other problems with a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick.

Forbes dubbed Holmes the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire in 2014, when she was 30 and her stake in Theranos was worth $4.5bn.

Theranos raised nearly $1bn from investors, but it all blew up after The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles exposing serious flaws in Theranos’ technology.

While she was building up Theranos, Holmes grew closer to Ramesh, ‘Sunny’ Balwani, who would become her romantic partner as well as an investor and fellow executive in the Palo Alto, California, company.

Holmes and Balwani, who had been secretly living together while running Theranos, broke up after the Journal’s revelations and the company collapsed.

In 2018, the US Justice Department charged both with a litany of white-collar crimes in a case aimed at putting a stop to the Silicon Valley practice of overselling the capabilities of a still-developing technology – a technique that became known as “fake it ’til you make it”.

Holmes admitted making mistakes at Theranos, but steadfastly denied committing crimes during seven days on the witness stand during her trial.

As she begins her sentence, Holmes leaves behind two young children – a son born in July 2021 a few weeks before the start of her trial and a three-month-old daughter.

Holmes met the children’s father, William ‘Billy’ Evans, in 2017 around the same time she was under investigation for the collapse of Theranos.

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First victim in Jaws has died aged 77

Published

9 hours ago

May 13, 2024

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The swimmer who was the first victim in the 1975 blockbuster Jaws has died.

Susan Backlinie died in her home in California at the age of 77, according to her agent. Her death was first reported by The Daily Jaws website.

The opening scene of Steven Spielberg‘s classic features Ms Backlinie running along the beach and before diving into the water and skinny dipping.

Her character Chrissie Watkins is then suddenly pulled under the water and she screams as she is violently attacked by an unseen great white shark.

Ms Backlinie had been a champion swimmer when cast in the film. She told The Palm Beach Post in 2015 that Spielberg told her: “When your scene is done, I want everyone under the seats with the popcorn and bubblegum.

“I think we did that,” she said.

In the documentary, Jaws: The Inside Story, Spielberg called Ms Backlinie’s sequence “one of the most dangerous” stunts he’s ever directed.

“She was actually being tugged left and right by 10 men on one rope and 10 men on the other back to the shore, and that’s what caused her to move like that.”

Ms Backlinie worked with Mr Spielberg again in the 1979 parody war film 1941, in which she spoofed her Jaws character.

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Patient who had first ever pig kidney transplant dies two months after procedure

Published

1 day ago

May 12, 2024

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Patient who had first ever pig kidney transplant dies two months after procedure

The first person to have a pig kidney transplant has died nearly two months after the procedure.

Richard “Rick” Slayman, 62, underwent the four-hour transplant at a hospital in Boston in March.

It marked the first time a genetically modified pig kidney was transplanted into a living patient. Surgeons said they believed the organ would last for at least two years.

Slayman’s family announced his death yesterday, thanking the doctors who carried out the world-first surgery for their “enormous efforts”.

They said the animal-to-human transplant – known as a xenotransplant – gave them “seven more weeks with Rick, and our memories made during that time will remain in our minds and hearts”.

The transplant team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) said they did not have any indication he died as a result of the transplant.

Slayman, from Weymouth, Massachusetts, previously had a kidney transplant at MGH in 2018, but had to go back on dialysis last year after it showed signs of failure.

As he needed frequent procedures as a result of dialysis complications, his doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant.

His family said Slayman wanted to undergo the procedure to give hope to those on waiting lists for transplants, adding: “Rick accomplished that goal and his hope and optimism will endure forever.”

Pig kidneys had previously been transplanted into brain-dead donors, but only temporarily. Two men have also received hearts from pigs, with both dying within months of their prodecures.

A month after Slayman’s transplant, New Jersey’s Lisa Pisano became the second person in the world to undergo a pig kidney transplant, and the first to have surgery while also having a mechanical heart pump surgically implanted.

The 54-year-old said she “took a chance” after suffering heart and kidney failure, which left her too ill to qualify for a traditional transplant.

More than 100,000 people are on the transplant waiting list in the US – most need a kidney, but thousands die waiting.

In the UK, the NHS said that in the year to March last year, there were 6,959 patients waiting for an organ transplant.

It said 439 patients died while on the active list waiting for it and a further 732 were removed from the transplant list, “mostly as a result of deteriorating health and ineligibility for transplant”.

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Oprah Winfrey speaks of ‘biggest regret’ as she opens up about weight loss struggles

Published

1 day ago

May 12, 2024

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Oprah Winfrey speaks of 'biggest regret' as she opens up about weight loss struggles

Oprah Winfrey has admitted playing a role in perpetuating diet culture during her career and said a dieting item from a 1980s show was one of her “biggest regrets”.

The 70-year-old star – who has been ranked among the most influential women in the world – has been open about her struggles to maintain a healthy weight and attempts to lose weight.

In March she said “making fun of my weight was a national sport” for more than two decades.

In comments reported by NBC, Sky’s US partner, the talk show host told a livestream and live audience: “I want to acknowledge that I have been a steadfast participant in this diet culture through my platforms, through the magazine, through the talk show for 25 years.

“I’ve been a major contributor to it. I cannot tell you how many weight loss shows and makeovers I have done and they have been a staple since I’ve been working in television.”

But she admitted an item on a 1988 edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show was one of her “biggest regrets” when she rolled a wagon of fat on to the stage to represent the weight she had recently lost thanks to a liquid diet and exercise.

She had starved herself for months, she said, admitting that it “sent a message that starving yourself with a liquid diet and set a standard for people watching that I, nor anybody else, could uphold. The very next day, I began to gain the weight back.

“I own what I’ve done, and now I want to do better.”

Winfrey was speaking on Thursday at an event organised by WeightWatchers, whose board of directors she joined in 2015, before saying in February she was leaving.

In 2016, she used an interview in the magazine O to reveal she had lost 12kg, sharing the cover with nine other woman to celebrate their “best body”.

In the issue, Winfrey said, “It was my idea to share the cover with other women who are on the same journey that I am. My own struggles with the scale are well known. I’ve never believed in hiding them.”

In December, she told People she had started taking a weight loss drug, saying she used it “as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing.

“The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for.”