Axios reports:
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.
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.
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.”
Trump could listen to the scientists or to the mypillow guy so of course he listened to the mypillow guy. https://t.co/roHbdz1mNc
— Molly Jong-Fast? (@MollyJongFast) August 17, 2020
First Trump promotes hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, which can prolong the heart’s QT interval causing sudden cardiac death. Now Ben Carson and the MyPillow guy promote oleandrin, which poisons the heart’s Na⁺/K⁺ pump. Just because they have no heart they want to destroy ours.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) August 17, 2020