Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Oleander

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

Puzzled as to why a pillow peddler is pushing poison to the president to pacify a pandemic? Please press play.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, talk is about books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's busted out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow! Hello everybody and welcome to Sobhones and Aerophs. For the mouth. Wow. Hello everybody and welcome to Sobhones, a merit of smooth misguided medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. You know Sydney. Oh.

In these two. Your voice changing there? I'm just thinking a little stretched, being a little low. You know, kind of reflecting a little bit. And these times, something that has helped me a lot is routine. I have sugar day on Saturday, the day I sugar. I'm cleaning the day after that.

It's my most favorite day of the week. There's trash day. It's very depressing the day that Justin comes in and starts singing. It's the most wonderful day of the week to me and our children because what he's referencing is that it's the day we all have to clean, and he's the only one in our family who enjoys cleaning. Yeah, and by we're all, we're all have to clean.

What Sydney means is I will clean as they, Sydney keeps the children from killing themselves. But anyway, you know, here's another routine that I've become very accustomed to. Some new dumb COVID thing is promoted by somebody. And then we have to Sally Forth on our steeds of education and science and set right while it went wrong in the words of Dr. Stan Beckett There was this one time one one time ago where we were on a vacation and the place where we were staying had lined the entire property with these bushes of holy and her and

I remember that we had a conversation about, oh, they should kinda like warn you because we've got little kids and kids just eat stuff, you know, they just pop things in their mouths. And Olyander is poisonous, famously poisonous, I would say. It's like, it's a good like mystery novel or criminal detective, yeah, it has that kind of feel to it, right? So Olyander is famously poisonous, and you know, they should kind of warn you, like, by the way, we have decided to line this entire

property with... Beautiful poison. Beautiful poisonous bushes, in case you have children. And so, that is the... I thought about that, like, who? Okay, and so when I started seeing Olyander in the news, I thought, well, this is weird. Surely people know this is poison. Like, I mean, it's flower, it's plant, it's lovely, but it's poison. Like, people know that, right? And then I thought we already did an episode about bleach and how you shouldn't drink it. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Yeah. I guess. It's just the way of things is right now,

is everybody, it's human. I think that to look for an answer that isn't the hard one. I mean, I think as a species, we are built to find easy answers. It's what separates us from the apes we humans love to hack stuff. They do too. I know they have primitive tools and thumbs. Hey, listen, I would not, currently, especially speaking for the US, I can't speak for the rest

of the world, but for the US, I would not put our species up against any other In any context right now Like in terms of like who's doing it better. Yeah That's true. I guess that's fair. I'm trying to think of a counter example You know So do you want to know why Oliander has been in the news? Drafts aren't great, but I guess I don't hurt anybody. Drafts? It's just like look wild and they sound terrible and yeah, I don't.

Drafts. Drafts. I thought you said drafts. Drafts. Like the draft. Sorry. I'm going to say no, I don't know what? Drafts.

We've all been drafted into the war against misinformation about Hobbit. There we go. Let's go with that. Drafts, is there something wrong with the way I say giraffes? Well, you just said it, you said it all together, drafts. Drafts? Like, like, there's a G with like a little apostrophe there.

That's for people that know well. If you're well acquainted with the drafts. You call them by their nickname drafts. It would look like G-rafts. That's the way I've said it. I don't know what to do. Anyway, do you remember when... That's how you made me self-conscious about the way I say draft? Yes.

Well, you really threw me there, bud. You remember when Trump had the press conference with the My Pillow Guy? It wasn't too long ago. It was like... I don't know. Do you remember in the Bible when it says the pillow king shall leave the turn up to the truth about the plague? For everybody who complains about how we get to end of current events and political stuff on the show, there's a big history component to this, I promise. But I have to set up why we're talking about it and it involves Trump and the My Pillow

Guy. That is just, that is the truth. Those are the hard facts. And no, what I like is that it's a species or at least a society. We've all decided we're not going to learn the my pillow guys name. He's just going to be the my pillow guy. I'm sure you haven't written down, but I have his name in there, but I have never seen him refer to us anything other than, you know, the my pillow guy.

It's a shame because if you remember, I think the reason he was a, gosh, it feels like a million years ago and also five minutes ago, all the same time. But I think the reason for that press conference was that he was making masks. He was using his facilities to make masks, which was a great thing. We need masks. That's fantastic. And it's a shame that my pillow guy will not be remembered for that at least primarily. We could also recognize that that was a great thing to do.

But in addition, Michael Lindell, this is his name in case you're curious. I'm gonna stick with my bill, okay. He is friends with Ben Carson. You know, he only ever has one pillow on the shelves and then people come in to buy it and he's like, well, that's my pillow. I'm just gonna let it, yeah, for the right price.

We're not gonna buy it and he puts another one up here. Never gonna get to the point. Okay, so he's friends with Ben Carson, you know who that is. And another guy named Andrew Whitney. And the important thing is that Whitney had called Lindell, who is my pillow guy, back on Easter Sunday and said, hey, good news., back on Easter Sunday and said,

hey, good news. All the churches are filled with people. Isn't it beautiful? My company has the cure for COVID-19, but I need some FaceTime with the president to tell them about it. So and while in Dell, well, according to Whitney, he's one of the country's greatest businessmen. So, last month, Whitney got an Oval Office meeting with the president of the United States and Ben Carson, Secretary of the HUD, and also a neurosurgeon, which is why they say he's there because he's a doctor.

Not a lot of those around anymore at the White House. Lindell was there, my pillow guy, and I guess the chief of staff was there for a little bit, to pitch his product, which is like, as someone who watches Shark Tank is already the weirdest thing. Yeah. which is like, as someone who watches Shark Tank is already the weirdest thing. Like, he walks into the Oval Office and there's Trump and the My Pillow Guy and Ben Carson and I guess the chief staff ducked his head in and he was like, sharks.

Or I don't know what we call them. Bad people. Thank you for having me here today, bad people. I would like to tell you about my cure for COVID. And Trump was reportedly interested, and I don't know exactly what he said, but he said the FDA would need to approve it. And that has been like, I've seen that line interpreted two ways, either like Trump saying, well, I mean, the FDA would need to approve it.

So we'll see. And the FDA needs to approve this. So I don't know the inflection I wasn't there. Maybe there's a tape. Anyway, it certainly has not gotten the air time that hydroxychloroquine did. So he wasn't that enthusiastic about it. Carson was excited about it.

And Lindell was so excited that he put his money where his mouth is and invested in this company that has made a miracle cure for COVID. This is such a relief. I don't know why I'm just not hearing about this. I know. So let's talk about what this miracle cure is. Why the media and the left and big pharma don't want you to know about it. And we'll go back through the history of oleander.

Oleander, I don't know much about it, but I'm assuming it's safe and effective. So it's been known as a poison for a very long time. Effective then maybe. The scientific name for it, Nirem oleander's flame, Nirem relates to the water because that's usually the plant that's found in a water. But the word oleander, and there's some debate as to like the etymology of this word, what it comes from. But there's one idea that it comes from the Greek words for I kill and man because I kill

man. I kill man because it can kill people. It's good. It can kill things. It's good. It can kill things because it's a poison. While it is largely native to the Mediterranean area, a few other areas of the planet, you can find it a lot of different places today because it's very pretty

and throughout history, humans will find a plant in one place that would make a nice ornamental and then take it somewhere where maybe it shouldn't be and then bone it into stuff. And shouldn't be and then bone and stuff. And then plant it there. So you'll find it a lot of different places.

We have seen it in the American southeast, like beachy parts of the country. But it's lots of different places. It's very pretty. I agree. It's very pretty. It comes in a couple of different colors. You can see why people would want to use it as like hedges and things.

I don't like flowers, but yeah. It's a lovely plant. It was known from the early Greeks and Roman writers as a poison to beasts, but some thought that even though it might kill some animals, it might have some applications for humans, we've always thought that right? Something that does something might do something good. Maybe if it does something bad, it has a powerful, like it has a powerful enough essence or whatever to do something good. It does make the poison kind of thing. Yes, it was said to be used in small

amounts to induce hallucinations for like the Oracle of Delphi like prestices and that kind of idea. Like if you took a little nibble of an oleander leaf, it wouldn't kill you, but it would make you hallucinate and then you could have visions. But that's, there's a, and there's a lot of debate, and I don't want to get hung up on this, but like the words for oleander and actually wrote a dendron and the bay laurel, they all kind of get, like, confused in different writings. And sometimes it's hard to know which plant exactly the writers were talking about. But only Andrew, we know, was known to be, like, we knew in ancient times that it was poisonous. Plenty, our friend Plenty the Elder, we haven't gotten to talk about it.

Yeah, why? Welcome back to show Plenty the Elder, we haven't gotten to talk about it. Yeah, why? Welcome back to Show Plenty the Elder. He noted that it did indeed kill animals that ate it, but he thought that it was mostly harmless to men, could be poisonous, but usually harmless, and a good remedy for snake bites. It's not, by the way, but that was how he recommended it in a medical sense. It was part of a recipe, by the way, not alone, but part of a recipe to use for snake bites. Now, it's interesting because he says, well, it kills animals, but we can use for snake bites.

But then later, he does talk about this story, and this is attributed to Plenty, that he wrote the story of an army that was tricked into eating, uh, Oliander poison, uh, because there were some, there was some honey from bees that had pollinated, that had visited Oliander flowers, and they laid this honey out for this invading army. The other guy's dead, whoever the other team was. And the army ate the other team in the war. The army ate this honey, and then they all died from the poisoned honey from Olander.

There's another story about the idea of Olander honey being poisonous from King Mithredate, who intentionally poisoned somebody this way. It's funny, this is actually impossible. There's no way either they didn't understand this about oleander and it's all made up or it was a different plant that they're talking about,

not oleander, because oleander flowers have no nectar. Mm, this could not happen. Take that and cyclopedia said is on the case. And you know, it's interesting. Instances of poisoning from oleander are actually pretty rare throughout history. I should say accidental poisoning from oleander are pretty rare for a very good reason.

It apparently the plant tastes very bad. I cannot verify this because I will not eat oleander. Because it is. Poison. But apparently it is so bitter that whether it's be a human or another animal, when you take a bite, you are not inclined to take another. And so there have been cases of accidental oleander poisoning,

but they're pretty rare. So these writers who are trying to talk about oleander poisoning, they probably didn't have a lot to draw from. Supposedly, and I didn't know this, I guess Cleopatra tested a lot of different poisons out on other people. Oh. Yes. But, well, before she chose which one she would use on herself, should she need to.

And supposedly this was among the poisons that she made other people try to see what the reactions, what the results would be. She was looking for something that wouldn't be too gross or ugly. Great, fantastic. Oliander did not pass the test. And as we move through history, you see that Oliander falls into the category with a lot of other like, when we think of common herbal medications as like a lot of different areas of the world, people where grew, where people could find it, they would use it as a remedy

for a variety of different things. You'll find folk remedies that are for skin conditions, wound healing or eczema, that kind of thing. And it's like a topical paste that includes oleander. It's rarely used on its own. It's usually part of something, which I think reflects that people knew it was poisonous. So they were trying to like,

maybe if we put a little bit of it in there, it'll make it, and it's this vague idea of like the potency of plants, right? This is potent, so we'll put a little bit of it in there, and maybe it'll make this other stuff do stuff better. It's all very scientific. So you'll find inhaling the smoke from burning the leaves was a popular way of taking it

for different conditions. It's been used for, in addition to skin conditions, ringworm, herpes, asthma, epilepsy, malaria, as a way to induce a spontaneous abortion as a way to make you throw up. It's been famously used as a cancer cure in some cultures. And then the other thing is as a heart tonic, as a way to just like, when we think about the idea of tonics, it's like things that will just improve

the function of something. Peppet of pull of it. It's yes, so it has been also used by a lot of different cultures as a heart tonic. And when it comes to the heart tonic part of it, there's an interesting grain of truth in here that I think we should talk about because, you know, I, and I know we get, we get a lot of criticism on the show for saying like, if it, if it hasn't been proven and it's not like evidence-based,

then you shouldn't use it. You should use medicine that has been studied, and tested, and proven to be safe, and effective at the same time. And I think it's important to notice when sometimes through like history, when we have tried herbal things, we have noticed an effect that is true. And the heart-tonic effect probably has

some truth to it as we'll get into. Now, the plant is incredibly toxic, and that's why you can't just take one anecdotal example of the plant helping someone as evidence that we should give it to everybody. That's why it's important that we rigorously study these things. It's great to look for ideas that way, but that's all they are. They're just ideas still. From these different attempts to derive benefit from it, we have learned a lot about all the ways it can harm us. Okay, good.

Whether you ingest it, apply it topically, inhale it. It can harm you or kill you in all of these forms. It's absorbed through the skin, it can kill you even if you're just putting it on a wart, which is one thing it was used for. It contains several toxic compounds that can harm you, but the chief toxin is probably oleandren. Olyandren is the main substance that is dangerous. And this is the substance that the my pillow guy is taking every day and encouraging his

family members and friends to do as well. And is the miracle cure for COVID that Andrew Whitney pitched in the Oval Office last month to the president of our country. So I want to talk about, so I want to talk about, first of all, like I said, there's some heart stuff that is actually kind of interesting. I do want to talk about that and I want to talk about the research into Oli Andron, but before we do that. Let's go to the building department.

I welcome the relief. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my God for the mouth. All right, Sidney, wow me. I'm ready for your presentation on the benefits of oleandran. So first of all, it's important to know that among the toxic effects from oleandran that we have observed from, and I'll get into this some accidental, but a lot of intentional poisonings throughout history.

Like this guy, like the mypilogon. Every day. The toxic effects of these substances can be something just like a gastrointestinal symptom like nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain. Obviously, if you apply it topically, you can have some irritation of the skin. But the severe things we worry about are electrolyte disturbances. So, you know, people take it lightly and we've talked about this on the show before. Like, oh no, like, oh, no,

you have some cramps, your potassium's low, you need a banana, that kind of idea, which, by the way, banana is probably not your best bet there, but anyway, I digress. The idea of a severe electrolyte disturbance is actually a huge deal. If you're a potassium and sodium and those things are off, seriously off, I mean, you can die. So an electrolyte disturbance doesn't sound like a big deal. It is. It medically can be a huge deal.

Cardiac arrhythmias and then death. Now the cardiac arrhythmia is the point that I want to focus on because electrolyte disturbances are one way that you can have a cardiac arrhythmia. It can make your heart beat abnormally and you can die. Oliander specifically is considered a cardiac glycoside. These are compounds, these are usually organic, they are organic compounds that increase what we call cardiac output, which is like the pumping power of the heart. That sounds good. It does, right? And that's why I said, there's a grain of truth in here that I'm gonna get to.

As Tim the Toolman Taylor says, more power. I, I, I, I, I, I, that thing. It's, well, and it's important to recognize the complexity of these things when you're trying to explain like why something does or doesn't work. It's like you have to give areas where like, okay, I can understand why you would think that here are all the other things around it though to complete to paint the whole picture if you just say That's fake. It's poison. It doesn't work move on you get all these internet conspiracy

theories about well, but maybe big pharma doesn't want us to know and I have nothing to do with big pharma But I will tell you it is poison, and it's not gonna make you better. But here's why. So the way this works is there's a pump on the surface of your heart cells, there's lots, but the one we're talking about, there's lots of different things on the surface

of your heart cells, but the one we're talking about, it causes this pump is blocked by cardiac glycosides like oleandron. This causes sodium to build up inside the cells, which there are other mechanisms I won't get into, causes calcium to build up in the cells, which leads to a stronger contraction when stimulated. So when your heart contracts, which means it squeezes, it beats it pumps, it's stronger because of the effect of oleandran.

The heart pump's stronger, but it beats slower, which is a good thing. That's like an efficient pump, right? Less in the same, in a lower number of beats, you get more power. So it's an efficient thing. And the blood pressure isn't messed up by all this, which is why these medications could be really useful in something like atrial fibrillation, in which the heart is beating abnormally, it's beating too fast is usually the problem.

It's beating fast and not efficiently, it's not squeezing with each, it's just kind of like a fibrillating, so it's like quivering, right? So you can see why a medication like this would be useful in a condition like that. It slows the heart down, makes it beat efficiently, makes it beat regularly, improves the pumping power, doesn't mess up your blood pressure because your blood pressure can get messed up by

some other meds that do this, it doesn't. So you can see why all that would be helpful. And this is probably why this idea of it as a heart tonic has been perpetuated throughout different parts of the world. So this is really is a case of the, I mentioned it casually earlier, but it really is a case of the dose makes the poison like there's a narrow sliver in which if you take it, it will help you but not kill you. Exactly. And that is exactly the point that you need to make next before you go to your

garden or whatever and get some only under. These drugs have an incredibly narrow therapeutic index, which means if you take too little, well, it doesn't do anything, and if you take too much, you could die. And so you have to regulate the dosing and exactly what you're getting very carefully. The one that we actually know and use is called the joxin. Did joxin? You just looked at me and said the joxin in such a way that I was gonna be like, ah, the joxin, you don't say.

That popular medication that I'm very familiar with, I've never felt like morbid disappointment to you than when I just delivered you an utterly blank stare. Listen, I know there is somebody out there who went, oh, or knew where I was going with this and went, yes, when I said it. So thank you, I know you're out there. This is just for you.

You're not married to them. No. So did Jocson is a medicine we use? I prescribed, many was us prescribed it as used. It works. It's real. It's been studied. We know the appropriate dosing range.

We know what can happen if we give too much. We know which patients it's appropriate for. And we know the risks and the benefits of it, because it's been thoroughly evaluated as a drug. It is derived from a plant, digitales, or fox glove. So it's a real useful medicine and it's a cardiac glycoside and you still have to dose it and monitor it carefully. You don't want to just use it willingly.

So please don't go... E fox glove. Yeah, don't go eat fox love. But the problem with oleander is that the toxic effects of the plant outweigh its usefulness as a cardiac glycoside. So it's not like dejuoxin or even, you know, digitalis. We were able to find a way to synthesize the natural properties of this plant fox glove to create a medicine that is real and useful and helps human hearts. We have not done that with oleander and certainly not with the substance oleandran. Nobody has done any of those

studies. Nobody has done that work. And part of it is it probably would we would not be able to find that narrow index that I talked about. That would be almost impossible to find without also causing a lot of toxic side effects. So I mean, would you, if you have de-jocsin, which you could take that would work for you, or we say now you could take this other medicine, oleandran, which if you accidentally take one hour

or two early might kill you you or you can take it and it will work and it won't kill you. But also, you're going to have nausea, vomiting and diarrhea and abdominal pain the whole time you take it. And we're going to have to check your electrolytes every week with blood tests. I mean, you know, it's not a good medicine. So you can see why in folk medicine, this may have, oh look, this might have done something, but there's tons of risks to it. And there's a reason we don't recommend people just go eat fox

glove when they have a fib. Right. Take to joxin. Well, some people, not everybody. So the most famous uses for oleander have unfortunately been as an intentional poison. In some parts of the world, particularly, I found some case reports of this in Sri Lanka. Oliander seeds were a widely used method of self-harm. And there are a lot of literary and cultural examples of the idea that Oliander is a poison that you could... I think there's a book about it and there are movies about it. I mean, it's a famous poison to use, but you would have to be very careful if you were trying to poison somebody with early end,

because as I said, it tastes so bitter that it's rarely the cause of accidental death. It has been, I don't wanna get in, there's some very sad case reports you could read about that, but like, it has been a cause of accidental poisoning, but- No, thank you. No, don't. No, but it is not common. So people have tried to find other uses for it. And cancer has been a big area of interest. I think just because everybody wants to do something

about cancer, and I understand that. I am empathetic to that idea. Like there's got to be something out there because you can feel very desperate if you or a loved one has had cancer. There's got to be something we're missing. I understand that perspective. There have been some studies done to try to look into, you know, there's some some traditional uses of oleander as a cancer cure and some cultures. Is there something to that? And while as we've talked about on the show just because something happens in a lab in a test tube, it doesn't mean it'll work in the human body. We have seen some like anti-tumor effects in labs. None of this has ever really been reproduced

outside of these labs. We've never been able to see that kind of effect in a human, and currently there is no cancer society that recommends any derivative of a Leander for any anti-cancer use whatsoever. So there's just no evidence for any of that. There has also been some work done looking at like the antiviral, possible antiviral effects of Olandron, specifically aimed at trying to treat HIV with oleandron. Again, the studies are pretty inconclusive. They're all in test tubes.

Nobody's duplicated them in humans. And I think this is when we start to get into this idea of like because we know this substance is so toxic to humans, if whatever you have to do in a lab to kill a virus or to stop a tumor, involves so much oleandron that if you put it in a lab to kill a virus or to stop a tumor, involves so much only Andron that if you put it in a human body, they would die. Yeah.

Yeah. That's not, I mean, that's not a very useful, you know, that's not a useful compound. Yeah. And I mean, that's, that's basically all that's been done in the, in this pursuit of only Andron. Why then COVID? What does all this have to do with COVID? Like probably has to do with money. If I had to take a wild guess, that would be my guess.

So, since the pandemic, Phoenix Bio-Technology, where this is where Andrew Whitney comes in, he works at Phoenix Bio-Technology and they have been funding studies and encouraging research into, well, we had tried this with a couple viruses, HTLV and HIV, and we know they... What's HTLV? Human T cell leukemia virus, which is much more rare than HIV, so a problem, but they had looked at that virus first, and then they were looking at HIV next. But anyway, since we have these other ideas and they also believe that it is a Phoenix biotechnology, they believe in its anti-cancer properties too.

They were already researching this prior to the pandemic. They thought, well, this will probably kill this new coronavirus as well. And so they started directing studies to try to prove that. Because that's, I mean, I think you have to, like, why would you do that? I mean, there's the, we could give them the benefit of the doubt and say, well, it's the altruism. This is an imminent threat to humans and we want to put all of our brains and money

and to try and to fix it. Sure. Sure. We could just give them the benefit of the doubt and say that. Let's go with that. So, the, I would say that already suspect is the fact that one of the authors of the study they've done is Robert Newman, who was listed as the president of the company until very recently when he was taken off of the website as president and now is just a like scientific advisor or something.

And they have addressed this and said, oh no, that was just because we wanted him to focus more on the science. So we took him out of some other positions. Newman. It's a little concerning. The study they've done is a pre-print that shows, again, only in vitro, meaning in a lab, in a test tube activity of the compound against the virus. And in this study, they try to show that it can block viral replication so they won't make as many viruses and it will kill the virus. They try a couple different doses and they claim success based on this. Now that I would say, part of the problem is that

what is the lethal dose of oleandran? This is a little hard to pin down because like I said, there haven't been a ton of cases of accidental oleandran, oleander poisoning. And so, and most of the time when people are doing it, they're just eating leaves. So like, I don't know how to measure, I mean, well, we could measure that, right?

About how much oleandran is in a leaf, but how many leaves did you eat or flower petals, the whole plant's toxic, by the way. So like, what did you eat out of it? Did you eat the seeds, the flowers, because they all have different concentrations of the toxic substances. But from

our best estimates based on people who have come in with oleander poisoning and have had blood levels drawn to see like how much oleanderin is in their system. By our best guesses from that in terms of like what is the lethal dose? How much could you take of this before you would die? The concentrations in this study far exceed that lethal dose. So they would already have to do a lot of modification because we're kind of getting back into bleached territory. Yeah. I mean, there are lots of things you can dump on a virus in a test tube to kill it.

But if you dump them in a human, you'll kill the human too. And so that doesn't work. And that is the studies don't show much beyond that idea at this point. I mean, that's just, they just haven't done it. Now Whitney swears that there is evidence that it works in humans. Okay.

He's not gonna show it to you. But he has it. It's there. It's been done. Okay. He's not going to show it to you. But he has it. It's there. It's been done. Okay. But based on this study that this preprint that they've done, he feels very strongly that we need to do big hospital trials. Trump needs to authorize us to start giving oleandron to people with COVID in hospitals immediately. And then we can just do the studies on the fly, basically. We'll just do them while we're treating the illness based on this one pre-print that we've done. So he will tell you that you, Samarit, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases has also looked into Oliander

and they said it was inconclusive, but he's not the only one who looked into it. And what he is claiming is that it is a cure for COVID-19. And this is all, he did this big interview with Axios. He stands by it 100%. It will cure COVID-19 in two days. And he says, now there are all sorts of lawyers who would tell me I can't say things like that

because you know you need to have years of studies and you need to have this, that, and the other, and so forth. But as an American with a right of free expression, I'm telling you I've seen it with my own eyes. Holy, that's a dump. And when he uses the word cure, he would like you to know that he means the symptoms

go away quickly in the vast majority of cases. Okay. So wow. That's among the dumbest things that we've ever heard telling this show. If that works on you, I don't know what to tell you that there are so many problems with what he just said. It is lute. It's lute of Chris. I almost feel redundant. I don't wanna point out the fact that like, no, actually we do have laws that dictate what you can and can't say. There's many, many, many examples of that. I can't, you know, fire on a kind of theater

and we have liable and slander laws and we have, you know, a secrecy. You know, you know, you've got this punishment for break confidentiality. There's, I mean. And when it comes to marketing, when you're for for for break confidentiality, there's I mean, and when it comes to marketing when you're marketing, especially something that is supposed to be a medical Medication or a medical device or something that has the intent to treat or cure There's lots of rules about what you can say and can't say

And for for good reason if you want to we do have freedom of speech and if you want to, we do have freedom of speech. And if you want to go stand outside your home and shout to the top of your lungs that Oli Andrin cures COVID, you're allowed to do that. No one's gonna arrest you. I mean, the neighbors might say, hey, could you keep it down? But you're allowed to do that.

But you can't sell a possibly toxic substance to other humans under that claim without any sort of proof. Is it a prescription medication? So here's, here's, like is it? Oh, man. Here's the rub. Okay.

What he is pushing for with all of this is to get it approved by the FDA for investigational use in the treatment of COVID-19, meaning that it would be a prescription drug, meaning big bucks, right? Like if it's not, can he just sell it now? Not, not yet. Okay. But he is pushing to allow Oliandran to be sold off the shelf as a dietary supplement, which means it would not be regulated by the FDA.

Wow. If that is allowed, it could be on the shelves. I mean, as soon as they can stock them, it would be out there. I mean, tomorrow, not, probably, well, I don't know, maybe they've already made it. But yeah, it could, if that goes through, and I think that that's a very interesting thing to say, I have the cure for COVID-19, and I would like to do studies

to prove it, but if that doesn't work, I'll just sell it over the counter and call it a dietary supplement, which intrinsically is meant to not treat or cure anything. And you have to say that, because if you say that it treats and cures things, you can't sell it that way, then it does fall back to the FDA. So he's playing, but he's fine either way.

He just wants to sell this stuff to people. And make money. Do we know anything about his formulation in the sense that it itself would be dangerous? Like, do we know enough about what his, I don't know about the, I'm just thinking about the pacified, but like, is it, I'm wondering if it's like a homeopathic

kind of thing where it's got like one microgram of the stuff in there and the rest of it's sugar or what? I mean, I think when you're talking about like the stuff that he's drawing from to make his claims like in like folk medicine preparations, we're talking about like actual, holy and replant and so like real amounts of toxic substance. Now what he is doing, I have no idea. I don't know. I mean, in the lab, they were using real concentrations of oleandron

that could kill us, but whatever he is, like whatever the my pillow guy is taking, I don't, I mean, he's alive, so it's not killing him. I'm not his doctor, so I don't know what it is or isn't doing to him, but it is, my bigger concern is whatever they're gonna sell, first of all, I don't know, it might be toxic. I mean, the idea that just because something is sold

over the counter, it can't be toxic. I think we know it's flawed. There are lots of things that are sold over the counter that take in in the wrong dose, or even just take in in the wrong patient can be toxic. I doubt that whatever he is formulating, whatever their company is formulating, would be if you take it as prescribed or not as recommended, I should say.

You're probably not getting a toxic dose. I mean, I would have said, but I have no idea. I have no way of vetting that. And that's always the problem with these things. I get this question a lot from patients. Like, is this safe? I don't know. We didn't do all the stuff to say it was safe.

Yeah. It's not regulated by the FDA, so I have no idea. And you can throw all the criticisms you want at the FDA, but at least you know studies were done if something goes through the FDA. I don't know about this. So it's a substance that is known to be toxic, known to be fatal, known as a poison.

That is the only thing that we know about this stuff. We have seen it kill viruses and test tubes. Supposedly, again, if you believe their data, which all of this makes me question everything, I mean, I look forward to it being peer reviewed to see what other people think of this. But why would we think it works? Because Ben Carson, the My Pillow guy, and the guy with

a vested financial interest in it working say it works. That is our evidence that it works. My Pillow guy is also in that ladder category. Yes. He has come out and said that he invested money in this because he believes it is the cure. He believes it will save our lives. And so I mean, he's a true believer. I buy that from what he said.

Is he taking it prophylactically? Yes, he says he is taking it prophylactically so that he won't, and so far he claims he has not had COVID. And so it works. She's a peep. But I would not in any way. My big concern is that when you hear this, there are people who probably have

oleander growing somewhere near them. You might just go check a few petals in their mouth and go to town. I know that sounds like a stretch, but people... No, it ain't. People drank bleach. Yeah, it's not a stretch.

So I would please do not, there is no evidence that oleander can be used to treat or cure or prevent anything. There is no evidence of any of that. We have ample evidence that eating the plant oleander or taking oleander extract at oleandron or taking Oleander extract at Oleander can cause great harm and death. Please do not take Oleander in any form. Best case you're wasting your money, worst case you'll die. So please do not take Oleander. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast,

Sabons. We hope you'll share it with some people who maybe might, you probably know the person in your life who has most prone to eating poisonous flowers to cure COVID. So maybe share this episode with them. Thanks to the taxpayers for these. Their strong medicines is the intro and outro

of our program. And thanks to you for listening. We sure appreciate it. And we hope you have a great week. And we look forward to checking in with you again, but until then, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't, draw a hole in your head. Alright!