We are surprised and dismayed that Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons would permit Dr. Mehmet Oz to occupy a faculty appointment, let alone a senior administrative position in the Department of Surgery.
(CBS News, April 16, 2015)
I was not surprised last week when a group of prominent doctors called on Columbia University to fire Dr. Mehmet Oz. This opening quote is from the letter they sent to Dr. Lee Goldman, Columbia’s Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine. Most notably, they cite Oz’s mercenary “disdain for science and evidence-based medicine” as he peddles quack treatments and cures to hook TV viewers.
Nor was I surprised yesterday when Oz betrayed what an incorrigible quack he is by using his show to defend his quackery. For, instead of citing any scientific basis for the health benefits he touts, he presented himself as a victim of professional bullies trying to stifle his constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Except that, just last summer, Senator Claire McCaskill indicted Oz in similar fashion. Significantly, the occasion was a congressional hearing on protecting consumers from snake oil salesmen making false and misleading claims about weight-loss products.
Here is what was, perhaps, their most telling and damning exchange:
McCaskill: I don’t get why you need to say this stuff because you know it’s not true… When you have this amazing megaphone, why would you cheapen your show?… The scientific community is almost monolithically against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products you called ‘miracles’.
Oz: My job, I feel on the show, is to be a cheerleader for the audience. And when they don’t think they have hope, when they don’t think they can make it happen, I want to look everywhere including alternative healing traditions for any evidence that might be supported to them (sic).
(C-SPAN3, June 17, 2014)
Now I ask you: Do you think anyone would be tuning in to his show if it were called The Mr. Oz Cheerleading Show for Fat People…? No, the reason he’s getting away with this brazen form of exploitation is that he holds himself out as a doctor on his Dr. Oz Show – with all the duties and expectations doing so entails. This, notwithstanding the disclaiming wizardry his name implies….
Frankly, Columbia should have fired Oz based solely on his congressional testimony. For Oz can say nothing to bring its Faculties of Health Science and Medicine into greater disrepute than the gibberish he muttered during this hearing.
More to the point, Oz is clearly violating his Hippocratic Oath; to say nothing of ruining his professional reputation. And claiming that he passionately believes in the products he peddles only adds insult to the harm he’s causing.
But let me hasten to clarify that McCaskill’s righteous indignation had nothing to do with Oz’s commendable advocacy for better labeling of genetically modified organisms in food (aka GMO foods), which I fully support.
That said, I just happened to preempt the denunciations of his fellow doctors and McCaskill by denouncing Oz in “Dr. Oz in Fat Suit?! Why Not in Blackface, Doctor? February 5, 2014.
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I expected better of Dr. Oz. Not least because he knows or should know that skinny people pretending to be fat for a few hours is probably even more insulting to fat people than skinny people hurling fat jokes at them. And the psychosocial harm done by having no less a person than this highly reputable doctor ape them like this is immeasurable…
What’s more, if he were truly interested in fat people’s real-life experiences, and not just in his TV ratings, Oz would’ve outfitted one of them with hidden cameras to garner authentic reactions from the public. Again, just imagine the public condemnation if he had donned blackface ‘to experience first-hand what it’s really like’ for Black people to be stopped and frisked on the streets or racially profiled in high-end stores.
Accordingly, I accuse Dr. Oz of violating his Hippocratic Oath with his fat-suit gimmick. Especially because one does not have to be a wizard to know that he was thinking far more about his TV ratings than about any patient’s health.
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Meanwhile, you’d think Oz would have learned from the hit Dr. Phil took 10 years ago. Back then, disaffected fans sued him for misleading and defrauding them with his “Shape Up!” diet program – complete with the same kinds of useless weight-loss products Oz is peddling today. Dr. Phil ended up paying $10 million to settle all claims. And, to his credit, he never asserted any free-speech right to peddle his products.
Indeed, it speaks volumes that neither censure by the Senate nor excommunication by his colleagues has chastened Oz. In point of fact, he has become so enamored of his growing fame (and fortune), he probably thinks mere jealousy is motivating other doctors to ruin him.
This is why, just as it was with Dr. Phil, it will take a lawsuit by disaffected fans to get Oz to stop peddling weight-loss products that take more weight off their pocketbooks than their bodies.
In the meantime, here’s to more doctors coming out of the woodwork to accuse him of “disdain for science and evidence-based medicine” – as a group of his fellow members of the Columbia faculty did just yesterday. For this will likely have the same impact on his career as so many women coming out of the woodwork to accuse Bill Cosby of rape is having on his.
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