Good grief, they go through so much effort to distort everything using weasel words and loaded language. Starting right from the title "black market" when there is clearly a difference between grey market and black market. Ask anyone who imported a JDM Skyline, they'll explain it to you. "What they
believe to be retatrutide" as if third party testing doesn't exist. Ms. Blum does her best to sound as alarming as possible.
The article gives Eli a voice too:
Eli Lilly has warned that products claiming to contain retatrutide may be contaminated or contain other substances entirely. “Any claim that black market retatrutide is the same as Lilly’s genuine medicine as studied in clinical trials is false,” Michael Jamison, a spokesman for the company, wrote.
That's a wild claim in itself. Reta is a molecule. We know how it's shaped. There's only one shape. We can synthesize it, we can test it, and we can measure it. That's like Dasani claiming that no one can imitate their H2O molecule. Only Dasani sells genuine H2O. And of course, Ms. Blum doesn't give any pushback at all, giving them the last word in that section of the article.
Many of the people taking what they believe to be retatrutide buy it from online storefronts, which list the drug as a research chemical that is not for human use — a disclaimer that may let them take advantage of a loophole in drug regulation.
Some loophole. Imagine applying this to anything else dangerous: "Gerber sells their knives as not for honor killings - a disclaimer that may let them take advantage of a loophole in knife regulation."
Can you see how closing this "loophole" would result in applying intent to people who have expressed none? This is called projection.
Reading further, it gets tiresome. Paragraphs spent explaining the value of FDA approval, warning of the consequences of violating their rules. Scare tactics are used with their verbose description of law enforcement activity. Scare tactics don't end there:
An F.D.A. database showed that 40 people have reported having adverse reactions to retatrutide since 2024, including cardiac issues, appendicitis and blurred vision. Of these patients, 14 were hospitalized, and four were described as having “life-threatening” responses.
Even if this figure is true, that means reta has already saved more lives than it has ruined, and is a net gain. Notice they don't cite any deaths. They don't give ANY granular detail at all, because they know what happens if they dig into those 40 instances...
In the end, the author and her employer are shills. Dani Blum is an assistant editor at Forbes, and if you look at her journalistic history she mostly writes about nonsense.
The NYT is run by A. G. Sulzberger, whose sister, Gabrielle Sulzberger, is on the Eli Lilly board of directors. She also served on the boards of Mastercard and Whole Foods.
We are not dealing with honest people and I'm getting tired of everything being propaganda.
