To the alarm of some government health officials, President Trump has expressed enthusiasm for the Food and Drug Administration to permit an extract from the oleander plant to be marketed as a dietary supplement or, alternatively, approved as a drug to cure COVID-19, despite lack of proof that it works.
Driving the news: The experimental botanical extract, oleandrin, was promoted to Trump during an Oval Office meeting in July. It’s embraced by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell, a big Trump backer, who recently took a financial stake in the company that develops the product.
– Lindell told Axios that in the meeting, Trump “basically said: …’The FDA should be approving it.'”
– The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Why it matters: A senior administration official familiar with the internal conversations told Axios, “The involvement of the Secretary of HUD and MyPillow.com in pushing a dubious product at the highest levels should give Americans no comfort at night about their health and safety during a raging pandemic.”
The big picture: It’s part of a pattern in which entrepreneurs, often without rigorous vetting, push unproven products to Trump — knowing their sales pitches might catch his eye. Trump will then urge FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to “look at” or speed up approval.
– In March, Trump personally lobbied Hahn to authorize hydroxychloroquine’s emergency use to treat COVID-19.
– The FDA obliged. But in June, after a large trial, the agency revoked that authorization and warned of the “risk of heart rhythm problems” in COVID-19 patients treated with the drug.
Behind the scenes: Senior administration officials familiar with the internal conversations around oleandrin have raised concerns about the way this botanical extract — pushed by Andrew Whitney of Phoenix Biotechnology — is being promoted at the highest levels of the Trump administration.
– There is no public data showing oleandrin has ever been tested in animals or humans for its efficacy against COVID-19, but the extract has shown some evidence of inhibiting the virus in a non-peer reviewed laboratory study.
– In an interview on Saturday, Whitney told Axios that oleandrin has been tested on humans for its efficacy against COVID-19 but said the study has not been published yet. He also said the lab study is in the process of being peer reviewed.
HUD Secretary Carson has enthusiastically promoted oleandrin to Trump administration officials and to the president himself.
– MyPillow CEO Lindell, who is a major advertiser on Fox News and a personal friend of Carson and Trump, helped Whitney get an Oval Office meeting with the president in July to discuss oleandrin as a potential COVID-19 cure. (The Washington Post first reported this meeting.)
– Lindell said that he, Carson, at least one lawyer and, briefly, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, joined Trump and Whitney for the meeting. Notably absent was Hahn, the head of the agency that studies and approves medical treatments.
– Asked why the HUD secretary was promoting an unproven botanical extract to cure COVID-19, a Carson spokesperson emailed the following statement to Axios: “Secretary Carson is a member of the Coronavirus Task Force, he has been directly involved with the Administration’s response to this disease from the very beginning.”
– “The Task Force is looking at a plethora of therapeutics to fight COVID-19,” the statement also said. “To suggest that Secretary Carson, who is a world-renowned expert in the medical field, shouldn’t be involved is not only absurd but unhelpful in our collective fight to eradicate the pandemic.”
– A senior official familiar with Carson’s involvement noted that while Carson is a world-renowned expert in pediatric neurosurgery, he is not a world-renowned expert on antiviral drugs or infectious diseases.
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- Discussion
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President Trump eyes new unproven virus "cure" promoted by Ben Carson and the CEO of MyPillow https://t.co/As17B1EaKd
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) August 17, 2020
Boy, I remember when people were excoriating me for not admiring the selflessness of the My Pillow guy https://t.co/oCDIvSVUQc
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 17, 2020
I love that he got his hand slapped on injecting the lysol so he goes right back to the table for a big second helping of let’s-try-poison https://t.co/sjZzKaldbB
— kilgore trout, new tone haver (@KT_So_It_Goes) August 17, 2020
How long before eating poisonous oleander becomes a sign of fealty to Trump?
— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) August 17, 2020
Now that we're "looking strongly" at eating poisonous flowers, my reminder that we're facing a death cult:https://t.co/MgoSzoA5ie
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 17, 2020
This is typical of Trump’s “leadership” during this pandemic — lies, misleading statements, contradiction of experts in infectious diseases and promoting “cures” that are likely ineffective and could in fact be more deadly than the virus itself.
People need to realize that Trump doesn’t care about them. He’s a narcissist and narcissists only care about themselves.
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