In an extremely odd case, a single 79-year-old patient was granted early access to Eli Lilly’s powerful, still-experimental obesity drug retatrutide through the Food and Drug Administration’s “compassionate use” program—raising immediate questions if that sole patient is President Donald Trump, according to a report by Stat News.
Lilly’s retatrutide is a highly anticipated next-generation obesity drug that targets GIP and glucagon hormones in addition to GLP-1. It is currently in late-stage trials to treat obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea, and other conditions. Data from a Phase 3 trial that Lilly released in May indicates that patients with obesity (but without diabetes) who took the drug for 80 weeks lost 28 percent of their weight, an amount comparable to bariatric surgery.
Millions of Americans with obesity are eager to get the drug, with options being limited so far to enrolling in a clinical trial or trying to obtain it by dodgy methods.
But according to a barebones public notice and Stat’s sources, a single person has been granted early access through the expanded access, aka “compassionate use” pathway, which is typically used to grant access to patients with a “serious or immediately life-threatening disease or condition” and who are not able to enroll in a clinical trial, often because they are too ill.
The access request was first made in April, when the person was 79 years old (Trump turned 80 on June 14). It was made by a senior clinician at the National Institutes of Health named Ranganath Muniyappa, who requested it on behalf of a patient with refractory obesity, obstructive sleep apnea, and pulmonary hypertension, which is high blood pressure in the lungs. Sources told Stat this patient had spent a year on tirzepatide, a drug that targets the GLP-1 and GIP hormones. But the patient had achieved only moderate weight loss on the drug.
I’m gonna have to agree with Desai here. It’s a stupid fucking question. As much as I hate the guy, the only link is a 79 year old. This is national enquirer level of reporting.
No, the only links are “79 years old,” “name not given,” and “literally the only person in the country who was approved for this”
That doesn’t strike you as “Hmm, maybe we should see if the fat-assed President is once again abusing his office for personal gain?”
“Name not given” applies to every person alive, and “only one person” also applies to everyone alive. Therefore the only link to Trump is “79-year old”, and I suppose “obese”, but the nature of the treatment and approval says to me that it rules him out instead of includes him.
As far as investigating abusing his office for personal gain, this is like saying Dahmer is murderer because he stepped on a bug. Maybe investigate the bodies instead.
Why do you think it rules him out? IMO the rushed approval and special treatment says to me that it is him.
There’s no smoking gun proving it of course but it fits his MO.
Congrats; you aren’t curious enough to solve a fucking Scooby Doo mystery.
Why on earth you would (a) continue telling people that and then (b) insist that it makes you look like anything other than a pedantic dumbfuck is beyond explanation.
I would point out that it wasn’t just the age. It that, but also things like very few people on the planet knew this drug was being researched at Eli Lily. When you look at the pool of people that could have had access to that knowledge, fit the age, weight, and description of other symptoms, it becomes a little easier to guess.
The very few people on the planet who have access to their annual statement?
This isn’t skunk works.
Also it’s basic patient privacy. The journalist asking the question surely knows that.
And the drug name itself seems like a parody almost as if it’s really saying retard-itude.
I had to re-read it 3 times to not read retard-itude. That may not have been the best naming choice ever.