It's the question of absorption that's the issue there.
I wonder if they gave him an anti-bacterial.
You can't do real science with the fog of lack of information cloaking the battlefield.
In these types of stories, this lack of information is used to sow indecision and doubt.
As I pointed out earlier, there was a contention that Valentine was taking vitamin I prophylactically.
That appears to be untrue. Just more fog.