He told CNN he took part in a July meeting with President Trump to discuss oleandrin as a potential treatment for coronavirus. But such early enthusiasm for the compound, made using a toxic shrub, is not only strange, but disturbing, three infectious disease specialists told CNN Monday. "This is really just nonsense and a distraction," Dr. Jonathan Reiner, CNN medical analyst and a professor of medicine at George Washington University, told CNN's Anderson Cooper. Oleandrin, made from the flowering oleander plant, is a compound similar to the digoxin that comes from flowers known as foxgloves. "You can find online a preprint, non-peer-reviewed paper that seems to suggest that in vitro, in other words in test tubes, that there is some antiviral activity for this compound," Reiner said.

Source: CNN August 18, 2020 02:26 UTC