Dr. Mehmet Oz has been a day-time talk show staple since Oprah introduced him to America in 2004, with multiple appearances on her show. Then it seemed like Oz, who got his own show in 2009, became the go-to lifestyle doctor for morning shows, radio, books, and magazines—where he has peddled snake oil and bogus products, promoted vaccine deniers, and accrued a vast fortune. He’s using that fame and fortune to parlay into a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, where he has never lived until he decided to try to get this job that can help him grow his fortune.
Oz’s quackery came under close scrutiny in a Washington Post story this week, though it’s never been a big secret. But, because Oz, “a cardiothoracic surgeon, is putting his medical background and his popular TV show at the center of his campaign pitch,” his history of pitching “potentially dangerous products and fringe viewpoints” needs to become an issue in this campaign. So Democrats, including the Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, are making it one. So is John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate who is an actual Pennsylvanian.
“He calls himself a doctor. But Doctor Oz sold out his patients. On his TV show, Oz promoted reckless and dangerous medical advice,” the narrator says in the PAC’s one-minute radio ad obtained by The Hill. The narrator continues to say Oz “made millions of dollars pushing fake miracle cures like this,” then the ad cuts to clips of Oz’s huckster pitches: “This miracle pill can burn fat fast” and “I’ve got the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat.”
Help keep this guy far away from the Senate, and help John Fetterman boost the Democrats’ Senate majority.
Fetterman’s ad is more fun, but probably will have less reach than the multimillion-dollar ad buy from the PAC.
Oz’s most-recent quackery, pre-campaign, was pushing hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug that Trump and the far right embraced, to treat COVID-19. Oz backed his claim based on a French doctor’s research as published on YouTube. Oz owns shares in at least two of the pharmaceutical companies that produce the drug. What a coincidence, huh?
Over the years, he’s hocked a litany of “miracle” treatments that range from useless to dangerous. Like raspberry ketones—“the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat” (it supplanted green coffee extract as “the magic weight-loss cure for every body type”), or putting a bar of lavender soap under your sheet to prevent leg cramps, or making personal health decisions on your astrological sign.
The Post details how Oz hosted a doctor who pushed the use of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone often used to treat infertility, as a weight-loss regimen in conjunction with a dangerous 500-calorie a day diet. Oz did tell his viewers in that segment that they should consult a doctor before embarking on a diet of fewer than 1,200 calories. A bunch of studies had been done on HCG prior to Oz’s show, disproving its weight loss benefits. And after that show aired, the FDA sent letters to seven different companies warning they were making unfounded weight-loss claims. The FDA said it sent those letters after “it had received reports of blood clots in the lungs, cardiac arrest and death among people who injected themselves with HCG.” But Oz had the doctor promoting HCG on the show again.
In 2012, Oz promoted selenium supplements, calling them the “holy grail of cancer prevention.” (That’s after his 2011 claims that a diet of “endive, red onion, and sea bass” would reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by as much as 75%.) Selenium is a naturally occurring mineral found in some foods, and the subject of several medical reviews, none of which found cancer-fighting benefits. The National Institutes of Health, however, does warn that “extremely high intakes of selenium can cause severe problems, including difficulty breathing, tremors, kidney failure, heart attacks, and heart failure.”
Oz might have missed the “do no harm” part of his medical training, and certainly wasn’t adhering to it when it came to the dogs he was using for research projects.
He’s a quack, a dangerous one, who sure seems to have put celebrity and wealth and power above his Hippocratic oath. If—as a licensed medical doctor—he’s that willing to play fast and loose with people’s lives, he sure wouldn’t take an oath to the Constitution seriously as a senator.
This guy has to be kept far away from that seat.
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Oz’s quackery came under close scrutiny in a Washington Post story this week, though it’s never been a big secret. But, because Oz, “a cardiothoracic surgeon, is putting his medical background and his popular TV show at the center of his campaign pitch,” his history of pitching “potentially dangerous products and fringe viewpoints” needs to become an issue in this campaign. So Democrats, including the Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, are making it one. So is John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate who is an actual Pennsylvanian.
“He calls himself a doctor. But Doctor Oz sold out his patients. On his TV show, Oz promoted reckless and dangerous medical advice,” the narrator says in the PAC’s one-minute radio ad obtained by The Hill. The narrator continues to say Oz “made millions of dollars pushing fake miracle cures like this,” then the ad cuts to clips of Oz’s huckster pitches: “This miracle pill can burn fat fast” and “I’ve got the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat.”
Help keep this guy far away from the Senate, and help John Fetterman boost the Democrats’ Senate majority.
Fetterman’s ad is more fun, but probably will have less reach than the multimillion-dollar ad buy from the PAC.
Oz’s most-recent quackery, pre-campaign, was pushing hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug that Trump and the far right embraced, to treat COVID-19. Oz backed his claim based on a French doctor’s research as published on YouTube. Oz owns shares in at least two of the pharmaceutical companies that produce the drug. What a coincidence, huh?
Over the years, he’s hocked a litany of “miracle” treatments that range from useless to dangerous. Like raspberry ketones—“the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat” (it supplanted green coffee extract as “the magic weight-loss cure for every body type”), or putting a bar of lavender soap under your sheet to prevent leg cramps, or making personal health decisions on your astrological sign.
The Post details how Oz hosted a doctor who pushed the use of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone often used to treat infertility, as a weight-loss regimen in conjunction with a dangerous 500-calorie a day diet. Oz did tell his viewers in that segment that they should consult a doctor before embarking on a diet of fewer than 1,200 calories. A bunch of studies had been done on HCG prior to Oz’s show, disproving its weight loss benefits. And after that show aired, the FDA sent letters to seven different companies warning they were making unfounded weight-loss claims. The FDA said it sent those letters after “it had received reports of blood clots in the lungs, cardiac arrest and death among people who injected themselves with HCG.” But Oz had the doctor promoting HCG on the show again.
In 2012, Oz promoted selenium supplements, calling them the “holy grail of cancer prevention.” (That’s after his 2011 claims that a diet of “endive, red onion, and sea bass” would reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by as much as 75%.) Selenium is a naturally occurring mineral found in some foods, and the subject of several medical reviews, none of which found cancer-fighting benefits. The National Institutes of Health, however, does warn that “extremely high intakes of selenium can cause severe problems, including difficulty breathing, tremors, kidney failure, heart attacks, and heart failure.”
Oz might have missed the “do no harm” part of his medical training, and certainly wasn’t adhering to it when it came to the dogs he was using for research projects.
He’s a quack, a dangerous one, who sure seems to have put celebrity and wealth and power above his Hippocratic oath. If—as a licensed medical doctor—he’s that willing to play fast and loose with people’s lives, he sure wouldn’t take an oath to the Constitution seriously as a senator.
This guy has to be kept far away from that seat.
RELATED STORIES
Mehmet Oz desperately releases doctor's note that instantly blows up in his face
Dr. Oz: Abortion is murder from the time of conception, except for when it's not