When Maya Reinhardt was born in Colorado in 2001, she arrived blue and breathless—her tiny heart failing while doctors rushed to save her life. At just three days old, she underwent open-heart surgery, clinging to life with the help of a ventilator. Complications soon followed. She developed sepsis and stopped growing. In addition, a blood test returned with a fatal genetic disease: cystic fibrosis.
Today, Maya is thriving, and it’s thanks in part to a treatment she received under the Goldwater Institute’s Right to Try—a law that protects patients’ right to access certain experimental drugs not yet approved by the federal government. Maya and her mom Jennifer discuss Maya’s miracle journey in a new video released by the Goldwater Institute.
Maya spent years watching her world shrink as her disease progressed. Walking up the street became exhausting. Hiking in the Colorado foothills was unimaginable. As her lung function declined, so did her options. Doctors could offer symptom management, but not a cure. And as Maya got older, the infections came faster and hit harder. By her mid-teens, Maya was losing lung function at an alarming rate. A virulent bacterial infection resistant to antibiotics was destroying her lungs, and nothing in the American medical system could stop it.
That’s when Maya’s mother, Jennifer, did what families facing rare and degenerative diseases so often must do: she went looking beyond the system. After countless hours on message boards and patient forums, Jennifer learned about bacteriophages—naturally occurring viruses that target specific bacteria. “This is a real medicine. It’s been around for a hundred years. It’s just not approved in the United States because it’s so individualized,” Jennifer explains.
Ordinarily, if a treatment is not approved by the federal government, patients cannot access it, even if a doctor prescribes it. But thanks to the Right to Try, a law passed by 41 states and enacted federally in 2018, terminally ill patients can access investigational treatments that have completed Phase I clinical trials but are not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Jennifer found a doctor across state lines in Oregon who was willing to help—and Goldwater’s Right to Try law made treatment possible. In 2017, Maya received bacteriophage therapy—an investigational, individualized treatment that targeted the bacteria destroying her lungs. It was not a cure for cystic fibrosis. But it did something just as important: it bought her time until a new treatment called Trikafta was available, which ultimately enabled her lungs to heal.
“All of a sudden I was no longer dying. All of a sudden I was no longer sick. I mean, it was literally night and day within a week. I was an entirely different person,” Maya said. “I’m as healthy and happy as everybody else. I’m in university getting As and Bs in my classes studying biotech. You just, you never know what’s going to happen, so you can’t stop fighting just because you think your fate is sealed. Because it’s not.”
Others who suffer from rare diseases deserve the same chance at life that Maya has, but the government is still standing in the way. Medical science is entering a new era—one defined by gene-based, patient-specific therapies. However, our regulatory framework is still stuck in a one-size-fits-all past. Without reform, patients with rare and ultra-rare diseases are forced to wait while promising, personalized treatments remain trapped in bureaucratic limbo. That’s where the Right to Try for Individualized Treatments comes in. This new law builds upon the success of the original Right to Try by opening the door for patients to access gene-based therapies. As of December 2025, it is the law in 16 states with more on the way. With 95% of rare diseases lacking FDA-approved treatments, there’s an urgent need for reform.
Today, Maya’s lung function is better than that of an average healthy adult. She’s in college studying biotechnology. She hikes, works out, and lives a life she once believed was impossible. And her story illustrates exactly why Right to Try for Individualized Treatments matters.
Right to Try is not about recklessness or desperation. It is about dignity. It is about allowing patients, in consultation with their doctors, to pursue individualized treatments when no approved options remain.
Maya is alive today because her family was given the freedom to try.
Others deserve that same chance.
Learn more at RightToTry.org.
