The cardiothoracic surgeon and famous US woo merchant, Dr. Mehmet Oz, is probably known to most readers. I have previously mentioned him several times, for instance, here and here. His institution, Columbia University in New York City, has had many (I’d say too many) years of patience with his relentless promotion of outright and often dangerous quackery. Now it has been reported that the university has finally cut ties with Dr. Oz:
“It took Columbia far too long to remove Oz from its otherwise distinguished medical faculty,” Henry Miller, MD, of the Pacific Research Institute in California, told MedPage Today via email. Miller stressed that “the ‘Oz controversy’ was never about free speech. It was about an unethical grifter whose claims and pronouncements were not supported by science and were injurious to consumers — in the interest of financial benefit to Oz himself. That constitutes professional misconduct.”
The university’s Irving Medical Center quietly ended its relationship with Oz at the end of April, according to The Daily Beast. He had been removed from several pages of the medical center’s website in mid-January. In 2018, Oz’s title had been changed to professor emeritus and special lecturer, according to reports. A spokesperson for Columbia University confirmed the 2018 change in an email to MedPage Today.
In 2015, Miller and colleagues sent a letter to Lee Goldman, MD, MPH, dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at the university, calling for Oz’s expulsion. Oz had “repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine” and “manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain,” according to Miller’s group…
In 2014, Oz was called to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance during a hearing on false advertising in the diet and weight-loss industry. Senators grilled Oz regarding statements he made on “The Dr. Oz Show” that promoted green coffee bean extract as a “miracle pill” for weight loss.
But long before that hearing, tensions had built between Oz and the medical community because of his penchant for spouting dubious medical claims on his TV show and in the media. For example, in a 2011 segment, ABC News‘ chief health and medical editor Richard Besser, MD, called out a purported “study” of arsenic in apple juice that Oz conducted for an episode of his show.
Besser charged that Oz’s science was shoddy because he reported total arsenic rather than the breakdown between organic and inorganic arsenic — only the latter of which is known to be toxic. Even the FDA sent the show a letter before the segment aired saying it would be “irresponsible and misleading” to report the results.
Oz again broke with medical science during the pandemic when he touted hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19, even as evidence mounted that it had no effect on disease course.
Oz is currently running for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania as a Republican candidate. Former President Trump endorsed Oz, touting Oz’s medical and academic credentials in a statement, according to NPR: “He even said that I was in extraordinary health, which made me like him even more (although he also said I should lose a couple of pounds!).”
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I have to admit that I find these reports somewhat puzzling. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I don’t think Oz deserves to be dismissed. In fact, he had already richly deserved it many years ago. What I find, however, odd is that giving someone the title ’emeritus professor’ can hardly be called ‘cutting ties’ with him. In some ways, it is even the opposite (I should know because I currently have this status).
When I looked up Oz, Columbia listed him as:
Oz, Mehmet C. (MD)
Special Lecturer in the Department of Surgery
Phone: 212.305.4434 · Fax: 212.342.3520
Location: MHB, Rm. 435-62
Similarly, the website of the Irving Medical Center is full of entries about Oz. Confusion is therefore more than justified, I think.
What is needed, I feel, is a clear statement from Columbia University about its relationship with Dr. Oz. Are they still proud of his considerable fame/notoriety, or did they in fact have the integrity to cut ties with one of the most self-aggrandizing woo merchants of all times?
4 Responses to Columbia University cut ties with Dr. Mehmet Oz … or did they?
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Apparently Oz was listed as a professor emeritus and special lecturer on Columbia’s faculty page in 2018, but not now.
Other professors emeritus are listed as such on their faculty page.
So apparently he was stripped of that, at some point.
interesting!
Why would they keep him on books, he sold himself out for highest bidder. Columbia is a prestigious school and he makes them look bad. He was actually a good doctor, endorsements paid better apparently. He is highly educated from the best US schools that are almost impossible to get into.
He is also a Republican, my team, ashamed he is representing us. Ironic, hardcore Democratic made him who he is, Oprah Winfrey. I would never vote for him.
Oz is the last person on the ever growing list of politicians that a republican ought to be ashamed of. But hey! at least you picked one to be ashamed of!
You are one of the good ones, jim.
😆