A year after Trump touted ‘right to try,’ patients still aren’t getting treatment

WASHINGTON — For Frank Mongiello, Jan. 30, 2018 was a day of hope. After dedicating the last few years of his life to the “right-to-try” movement, an effort to get dying patients access to experimental treatments, Mongiello heard President Trump use his first-ever State of the Union address to urge Congress to pass a federal law on the issue.

Just one year later, the law is in place. But Frank, who suffers from ALS — and for whom the national law is even named — still hasn’t gotten access to treatment.

“We had a lot of hope that if the right to try was passed it would give an incentive for the drug companies to make available the drugs. But now it doesn’t seem as though the drug companies are giving away their drugs either,” Marilyn Mongiello, Frank’s wife, told STAT. She speaks for him in interviews because he is only able to communicate via technology that turns his eye movements into text. In a brief email exchange, Frank confirmed to STAT that he has not found treatment but that he remains optimistic, despite his worsening condition.

Patients and family members like Frank and Marilyn — a half dozen of whom spoke to STAT — described