President Trump suggested opening up a botanical extract touted by a major donor, CEO of MyPillow Mike Lindell, as a treatment for COVID-19, even though it comes from a poisonous plant and there have been no medical studies to show if it is safe or effective in humans.
Asked by CBS News’ Paula Reid on Monday whether he would sue the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the use of oleandrin, extract from the Neanium oleander plant, to treat the virus, the president replied, “No, I did not. . ” He added, “I have heard of it, yes.”
And he asked Reid, “Is it something that people talk about very strongly? We’ll see.”
The oleander plant is extremely poisonous. “All parts of the plant are poisonous. When eaten, it causes heart arrhythmias, such as irregular heartbeats, and can be fatal to both humans and animals,” medical ethnobotanist Cassandra Quave wrote Tuesday in “The Conversation.”
Lindell, who called the president “a Day 1 supporter,” joined the board of Phoenix Biotechnology last week – the company that wants to develop and market the product. Lindell has no scientific background.
Lindell says the company’s CEO, Andrew Whitney, contacted him on Easter Sunday to shake the extract as a cure. According to the Washington Post, Lindell helped set up a meeting that would allow Whitney to set a tone in the White House for the president.
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Lindell said he has been taking oleandrin since April and described it as “the wonder of all time.” He claimed that the extract was tested on humans but did not provide any evidence to that effect. A study that has not been published and has not been peer reviewed examined the effect of oleandrin on African green monkey cells in a test tube and found that it significantly reduced ‘virus production’.
The lead investigator on that investigation kicks back against the company’s claims. Dr Scott Weaver, a virologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, said in a statement to CBS News that laboratory results are “only the first step” and do not necessarily predict that a drug made from the substance would be effective in human beings.
Quave, an assistant professor at Emory University who was not involved in the study, notes that this test did not address the “known cardiotoxicity of the chemical when consumed by an animal or a human.”
She worries that some may pick up the plant, hoping to cure COVID-19, and points out that it has caused accidental poisoning in the past.
“It is critical that the Food and Drug Administration and its commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, ensure that the public is protected from this poison,” Quave wrote.
Whitney told Axios the study is in the process of being peer reviewed and said there is more than one way to get oleandrin from consumers. He said he was investigating the process of seeking approval for it as a drug to treat COVID-19, but he was also pushing for FDA approval to sell it as a diet supplement, which he says could be completed.
Gabrielle Ake, Nicole Sganga and Michael Kaplan contributed to this report.
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