
Customers Flocked to this Futuristic Medical TricorderDecember 15, 2016 |
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Customers generally paid between $149 and $269 for the disk-shaped devices. One spent nearly $17,000 on a deal for 100 of them. Now, they will soon be little more than paperweights.
Scout was designed to measure vital signs like body temperature and oxygen saturation of the blood. It automatically uploaded that data to a smartphone, where it could be tracked and shared with the customer’s doctor.
When Scandu started advertising it, Scout wasn’t even fully developed, much less approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which reviews all but very basic medical devices for safety and efficacy. The startup got around that obstacle by selling the devices on Indiegogo while simultaneously enrolling customers in a research study run in collaboration with the Scripps Translational Science Institute.
Image: Some rights reserved by France1978
Tags: bioethics, deception, fraud, science, startup, technology, tricorder