Here’s a blind item worthy of TMZ: Who exactly is the 79-year-old person with apparent government connections who obtained clandestine access to an experimental weight loss drug? On Tuesday, STAT News reported that such an individual recently secured a “compassionate use” exception to be prescribed Eli Lilly’s retatrutide, a medication expected to be the most potent GLP-1-based drug yet. The outlet asked the White House if President Donald Trump was this person, only to reportedly be met with a non-answer. Though the White House has since denied that the application was for Trump, the saga does raise questions about why an undisclosed person seemingly received special treatment. The mystery of the retatrutide patient According to three anonymous sources interviewed by STAT News reporter Lizzy Lawrence, the mystery patient obtained retatrutide through the compassionate use program established by the Food and Drug Administration (formally, it’s called expanded access). As the FDA describes it, the program can allow someone with “a serious or immediately life-threatening disease or condition to gain access to an investigational medical product for treatment outside of clinical trials when no comparable or satisfactory alternative therapy options are available.” The request was made by a senior clinician at the National Institutes of Health named Ranganath Muniyappa, STAT reported. The request was for a patient described as having refractory obesity with obstructive sleep apnea as well as pulmonary hypertension, a type of high blood pressure affecting the lungs and the right side of the heart. The patient was recorded as 79 years old at the time the request was made in April. Muniyappa reportedly noted that the patient had been taking tirzepatide for a year, an approved GLP-1-based drug, but only showed modest loss, and he recommended against bariatric surgery due to the patient’s age and existing health conditions.