Dr. Oz, famous through his TV show promoting all types of quackery, recently testified before a US Senate subcommittee hearing on protecting consumers from false and deceptive advertising of weight loss products. This event turned out to be less than flattering for Dr Oz. One journalist commented that he “might as well be a cowardly lion — sent home with his tail between his legs after being accused at a congressional hearing of lying on his show about weight-loss claims.”
“I don’t get why you need to say this stuff, because you know it’s not true,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, who led the commerce subcommittee hearing. “The scientific community is almost monolithically against you in terms of the efficacy of the products you called ‘miracles,’ ” the Democratic senator from Missouri told Oz. “It’s a major problem when people are spending more and more money and they’re gaining more and more weight,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar.“Either you don’t talk about these things at all, or you’re going to have to be more specific because right now . . . this is not working.”
A source close to Dr Oz said he was perplexed: “We were invited down to Washington to testify at a hearing about scams and instead it became all about how much we hate your show.” Oz himself testified that he “heard the message…I do personally believe in the items that I talk about.”
“I intensively study them. I have given my family these products. . . . If you can lose a pound a week more than you would have lost by using them, it jump-starts you and gets you going. I think it makes sense.” “I’m surprised you’re defending this,” McCaskill replied. “It’s something that gives people false hope. I don’t see why you need to go there.”
Another journalist commented that the Senators repeatedly placed him on the defense over his weight loss products: “I know you know how much power you have. I know you know that. You are very powerful and [with] power comes a great deal of responsibility,” Senator Claire McCaskill , who led the Senate’s consumer protection hearing titled “Protecting Consumers from False and Deceptive Advertising of Weight-Loss Products…You are being made an example of today because of the power you have in this space…We didn’t call this hearing to beat up on you but we did call this hearing to talk about a real crisis in consumer protection. You can either be part of the police here or you can be part of the problem.”
Oz insisted he was no huckster but admitted the products promoted on his show don’t always have “the scientific muster” to present their benefits as “fact…I actually do personally believe in the items that I talk about in the show. I passionately studied them. I recognize that oftentimes they don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact but nevertheless I would give my audience the advice I give my family all the time. And I have given my family these products,” he said.
Dr Oz also said that some alternative treatments, such as prayer, cannot be tested scientifically. “I don’t think this ought to be a referendum on the use of alternative medical therapies. Because if that’s the case, listen, I’ve been criticized for having folks coming on my show talking about the power of prayer,” he said. “I can’t prove that prayer helps people survive an illness.”
No, Dr Oz! I know you are mistaken! I have done the research – both on alternative slimming aids and on spiritual healing. The results quite clearly show that these methods are not more effective than a placebo.
15 Responses to The embarrassing Dr Oz
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Dr Oz, of the “trust me I’m a doctor” school of argument, is nothing if not disingenuous. If he doesn’t know the difference between a testimonial and empirical evidence then he should be barred from practicing medicine in any form.
He talks about having people on his show who talk about the power of prayer then suggests he has no “proof” they are wrong. This is simply not credible. He knows that neither he nor his invited guests have an iota of evidence to support the claims they make. It would be equally valid to claim that, sitting at the centre of our galaxy is 30cm tall blue teddy bear dressed in a Jack Wills shirt and Levi jeans. After all, no-one has produced any evidence to the contrary.
If Dr Oz sincerely believes he is being honest when he says he believes in all the stuff he promotes, then he’s one seriously deluded individual who should never be allowed anywhere near a hospital or doctor’s surgery – and certainly banned from promoting medical stuff to the public via any medium.
Dr Oz’s concept of honesty is inconsistent with reality.
inconsistent with medical ethics too, i’d say.
Rumor has it that he obtains the services of a Reiki practitioner in the OR doing energy adjusting hand waving over the open wound !!?
Dr. Mehmet Öz is evidently ‘not in complete harmony with the normal’.
(Winston Churchill coined this phrase in reference to T.E. Lawrence)
Certainly a character I would avoid if I needed a CABG or a new valve.
They know how to respond:
http://www.naturalnews.com/045619_Senator_McCaskill_campaign_contributions_pharma_money.html
Ah yes, Natural News. You can always rely on Mike Adams (Health Danger) to produce an irrelevant, nonsensical response. Who needs enemies when the Health Danger is rooting for you.
There must be a variation os Scopie’s Law that says referencing Mike Adams or Natural News in support of a medical argument gets you laughed out of the room.
Notwithstanding that Adams is a potential danger to anyone seeking medical advice, he is also a danger to the reputation of normal but harmless buffoons.
should be called UNNATURAL IGNORANCE?
i don’t believe in everything that dr. oz presents on his show. for example, psychics. but i believe he is sincere & in most of the things that he advocates. but even so, what ticks me off is that some govt agency like the fda, or associations like the ama, american cancer society, try to dictate who i can go see for health problems like cancer, etc. or what therapy i can seek out. they will attempt to suppress or harass alternative therapies/therapists out of business. a good example is dr burzynski who came up w/a successful treatment for cancer. he was harassed for decades. another example is dr barry james marshall who discovered that bacteria caused most peptic ulcers & a treatment that cured it. he was ridiculed & ignored. the standard treatment cost over $1000 dollars/year w/no cure. his treatment cost only about $300 to cure it. drug companies stood to loose a lot of money. he was finally proven right. i know that there r real quacks out there. but time & time again, the fda, ama, aca, etc have proven themselves to not b trusted in determining who is or is not a real quack. u people have a right to believe what u want & to go to ur conventional doctors. conventional doctors do have their place. but my body is mine & not yours or the medical establishment’s. remember that. if i want to go see a “quack” for some medical condition, whether it’s cancer or back pain, etc. that should b my choice & not yours. in other words, it’s none of ur damn business. leave me & the alternative therapists that i want to see alone. i will b the 1 who decides whether an alternative therapy is helping me or not. NOT U! btw, if dr oz embarrasses u, may i suggest counseling?
you can suggest anything you want!
mike said:
That’s a good start. I have no doubt some of his advice is sound. he is a medical doctor after all.
Good.
What difference does being sincere make? No doubt he can be sincere about promoting sheer nonsense. Physics, for example.
Yeah. How dare regulators try to do their job to protect the public from charlatans and those who use marketing rather than good evidence to con the public into buying their useless and possibly dangerous products.
Oh! Do you know something no one else does? Where has he published full details of his successes so it can be replicated and used elsewhere to save so many more lives?
Well, he kept breaking the rules and potentially endangering and taking advantage of vulnerable people, so what do you think the FDA should have done?
So, what’s any of that (even if correct) got to do with anything?
Oh yes. At least we can agree on that. Homeopaths, reflexologists, naturopathists, chiropractors…
The FDA does not determine the quack status of anyone: they, like the MHRA in the UK, have been given the task of regulating medicines and medical devices so that the public are protected. If someone is breaking the rules, then they should be dealt with, don’t you agree?
Phew! I thought you were going to start telling me what I could and couldn’t do…
Glad to hear it. Generally, their place is providing evidence-based treatments wouldn’t you agree?
himslefhimslef
Did anyone say it wasn’t?
Yes sir!
It is. No one is stopping you. No one is preventing you making foolish and potentially dangerous decisions that might kill you.
Correct. But no one has said it was.
Ah. This is where we might part company. let’s get to the nub of the issue: do you believe it Ok for someone to make whatever claims he/she likes, or should there be some limit on them to protect the vulnerable and unaware?
By that time, of course, it may be too late…
Thanks for your medical diagnosis…are you a doctor?
I think Oz does very well at embarrassing himself without any help.
Spot on Mike … Wise souls know … The more they know … the more the have yet to learn …
Western medicine is learning SLOWLY. how “infected” it is sourced by greed …
@Soul
Perhaps you can answer some of my questions to mike since he’s not yet replied?
Alternative medicine seems to learn even SLOWER than western. Its infected by doogoodery even when the evidence points to different reasons for the outcome. The fear of upsetting someones feelings seems to outweigh the need to understand the true mechanisms at work.
The good intentions of the person does not make the interventions any less dangerous/deluded.
“THE OPPOSITE OF GOOD IS NOT EVIL BUT GOOD INTENTIONS” (BERT BRECHT)