The embattled Dr. Mehmet Oz continues his struggle against all medical odds. Yeah, he’s a real doctor, a surgeon who performs real surgery on real people (sometimes inviting a Reiki master to assist). He may not be a practicing surgeon for too long, although his show will go on. Late last week, I talked about how several of Oz’s Columbia University colleagues called for his resignation from the surgery department. Oz refused. He told his tv audience that these 10 doctors were attacking his “freedom of speech,” and he vowed, “we will not be silenced.” Oz insisted that the “miracle cures” he touts were making America a better place. Never mind that he shills products that are supported by bogus studies, or even that the U.S. Senate called him out for his lack of accountability.
A new poll from the SERMO social network of doctors reveals that many physicians would like Dr. Oz to stop embarrassing the profession. Over 1,500 out of 2,029 doctors polled want Oz to resign from Columbia and (in most cases) have his medical license revoked. I expect that number to grow. Oh, and John Oliver ripped Oz’s freedom of speech defense:
“No. You are scientifically wrong about that as you are about so many things. Let’s be clear: The First Amendment protects Americans against government censorship, and that’s it. It does not guarantee you to simultaneously hold a faculty position at a prestigious private university and make misleading claims on a TV show. It absolutely protects you to say whatever you like on it, just as it protects my right to say what I think about you on mine, which is this: You are the worst person in scrubs who has ever been on television–and I’m including Katherine Heigl in that. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be worse than Katherine Heigl? You are also the admittedly handsome ringmaster of a middling mid-afternoon snake-oil dispensary and it says something that even when you do a show with seven fake models of human feces, the biggest piece of sh*t on the stage has his name in the title … Isn’t freedom of speech great?”
[YouTube]
Preach it, Oliver. Although … poor Katherine Heigl. She’s simply an ungrateful actress on a major downswing. She never asked to be compared to snake-oil salesman dressed as a frantic cheerleader in scrubs. In all seriousness, Oliver is completely correct, just as when he called Oz out a year ago for his scammy approach to product endorsement.
Oz isn’t completely without support. David Lynch weighed in on the Oz problem from his Twitter account. Who asked David Lynch? No one, but he’s really into alternative medicine and has a foundation that advocates the use of transcendental meditation for medical purposes. Lynch tweeted his Oz support.
Dear Twitter Friends, in my opinion @DrOz is a great person and a great doctor and I support him 100%.
— David Lynch (@DAVID_LYNCH) April 28, 2015
Lynch’s tweet was met with this amazing followup.
Hey David, you can delete tweets you know.
— Twin Peaks (@TwinPeaksArchve) April 28, 2015
Photos courtesy of WENN
He looks like SUCH a preening jackass in those pictures. He may still perform over 100 surgeries a year, but that’s in addition to his shooting schedule for the show and all his VERY well-paid public appearances. He almost always looks exhausted in photos. I would not want someone that tired operating on me or a loved one.
I always picture him badgering Daphne to lose the baby weight.
Daphne is very likeable! The Chew is great.
I believe we should try to see thing objectively: Dr. Oz is skilled and able to do both – show and surgery – and that is great.
Therefore, we can comment on his biased and hidden promotion of certain products – yes we can; but how can we comment on his doctor abilities? How can we judge his job success rate? Is he having a higher than normal % of deaths due to poor surgery? Than, WHAT are we talking about? Do we consider him a “less quality” doctor just because he can do more in his life?
I too was upset when quality of his show decreased, as a result I do not watch it anymore. The show should be the one suffering consequences, and it already does. If not, than let’s punish all the people behind bad ads (for unhealthy products, margarine, processed meat, etc) because those are also affecting our health IF we do not check the facts ourselves.
And judging just by how ppl look in a picture it’s just mean. We all have bad pics, does that makes us also bad people?
Have a nice day!
This is not about whether or not Dr. Oz is a good surgeon. This is about his using, and abusing his good name as a top surgeon to endorse snake oil in order to pad his wallet. This is about ethics, and yes there are ethics in medicine in this country.
He misleads people, who trust him due to his status. He needs to change the way he chooses to endorse products, which have no basis in science and do not work. If he refuses to change this he deserves to lose his medical license, because that is why people trust him. My own mother thinks everything he says is “backed by science,” and trusts him because “he’s a doctor” it’s not right.
“First, do no harm.”
Completely agree with Whitkeyjack. Plus, to add in, I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but as a surgeon if you are not constantly operating you can and do lose your skills. Surgeons will tell you that if they go on vacation for a couple of weeks or just aren’t operating, they can tell when they do that first case back. If he really is doing 100 cases a year, that isn’t a lot – that’s less than 2 cases a week for a cardiac surgeon. Most CT surgeons do that in a DAY (it’s easy to do two CABG or valve repairs in a day). Same with surgeons in other fields. I know I’m biased – I don’t like the guy and think he does a disservice to the medical field – but there is truth to that.
If I or a loved one needed a CT surgeon, I’m going to one who is constantly operating, not one that is parading around on TV.
Good. So many doctors need a reality check, including corrupt Dr Oz
Dr. Oz, should resign. He promotes every new weight loss book that comes out, every new diet. Every supplement and ‘vitamin’. Everything is good and everything works even though one book contradicts the other. He’ll have an expert one day that says the sky is blue, he’ll agree and then have an expert the next day saying the sky is green and he’ll agree. He should have his license taken away.
I don’t know if he is corrupt. I just believe he feels there are alternate ways to treat disease and we have not discovered them all yet. If a treatment can not harm you, how do you know it may not help you.
people want absolutes and one size fits all and quick solutions.
But I also don’t watch his show
The issue is that he’s selling these treatments as so-called “miracle cures”. No studies have been done to show whether or not they harm / help, but according to Oz all of your troubles can be solved if you just drink Tea X and take Herb Y. And for a doctor (an MD), it’s walking a very fine line.
I have watched his show a few times and he doesn’t even tell people that they should consult their own doctors before starting any new regimen, he just shills. I would flip out if my own doctor started acting like that.
I think this argument would be more valid if the companies he shills for didn’t pay him huge amounts to say what he does
I haven’t watched him either but I hear what you’re saying about how we haven’t discovered all the ways we can treat diseases yet. But it sounds like the people who do want quick fixes are exactly who he’s targeting with his show and his endorsements. He should realize that by promoting quick fixes without any caveats about balancing conventional and alternative medicine (aka integrative medicine) and a healthy lifestyle he is being highly irresponsible and in fact dangerous. I can see why he’s a laughingstock in the medical community.
But that’s not what he does. He doesn’t just put alternative options out there – like “hey, this exists and some people say it helps them, so here it is.” He’s using terms like “miracle cure” and “revolutionary” without those terms actually meaning anything. Sanjay Gupta on CNN is “alternative medicine” friendly and will cover it, but he always does so in a measured way that makes it clear that he’s not personally endorsing it, he’s just showing the viewers another option. And he will allow critics to come on as well. Oz isn’t that way – he’s using flashy graphics and bombastic language to try to work people up, and that’s not cool. You can be a booster of alternative medicine without being Dr. Oz, which is the point.
He’s been paid millions of dollars directly from companies to have their supplemental shillers on his show. If that’s not corruption I don’t know what is.
Some people will do anything for money like Dr Oz
His supporters are making this out to be “speak truth to power and get silenced” situation, like he’s a hero who is being picked on for his alternative beliefs. This is SO not the case. The British study said HALF of his shows are b*llsh*t. He told Congress he waxes poetic about quack cures that don’t work because he likes to use “flowery language.” This guy has a massive ego and no soul.
BTW he hates eating and says it is “joyless.” He puts everything in a blender and drinks his meals. Then he puts out someone’s recipes!
Hypocrite, liar, egomaniac, frantic old auntie on speed.
I admire him for doing a very nice job of simply explaining some complicated topics in health and disease and helping people to understand more about their bodies.
People are quoting the BMJ study without understanding its content. And FYI, I can find scientific literature to contradict most statements made by doctors as the research literature results are so incredibly mixed and contradictory due to variation/flaws in research design and differences in study subject populations.
BMJ study: ” When researchers analyzed 80 “randomly selected” recommendations from “The Dr. Oz Show,” they judged that 26 of them, or 33 percent, were supported by evidence they deemed “believable.” They found just nine recommendations that were contradicted by convincing scientific literature. Looked at this way, Dr. Oz is proved wrong only 11 percent of the time — not ideal but hardly “egregious.” The BMJ authors also didn’t list the statements they examined and the evidence for or against, so it’s hard to know how serious these errors might have been.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/opinion/sunday/dr-oz-is-no-wizard-but-no-quack-either.html
Belle Epoch – that is one of the reasons why I have never liked Dr. Oz! The fact that he doesn’t enjoy eating! He has said before that he never strays from his very bland diet, no treats, no occasional indulgences, nothing. I have a pretty healthy diet, but I cannot imagine not going to my favourite French patisserie on the weekend to have a treat (something I look forward to all week). Or a glass of wine with a juicy steak.
I will say though, my mother-in-law tried a recipe by some guy who was featured on Dr. Oz a few years ago, and it was really good! A curry cauliflower type soup. I make it fairly often now. He could be doing so much to promote healthy AND delicious food like that curry soup, and yet he doesn’t. Obesity is a huge problem in North America and he’d rather shill “miracle fat cures” than promote tasty nutritious meals.
Sam, your post is exactly how I feel about him.
He’s a salesman, and that’s not what a doctor should be.
So many corrupt doctors waiting to check in and he had all luck. Discovered by Oprah, praised as personal guru, was the point of his life. He embraced celebrity status and down the line endorsed a lot of nothing ando got to comfortable for his own good. I can understand if he used his degree to explore promise of alternative medicine but he went wild. Making all kind of clams without any research. It is time for him to live.
Why hasn’t he been fired? Even if he has a contract, I would think he has violated an ethics clause somewhere. He’s a disgrace.
That’s what I was wondering about too! With all of his crap he must have violated an ethics clause at some point … I really am surprised that he is still a real doctor and allowed to treat real patients
I wonder how much he is really practicing to be honest with you. I’ve known surgeons that work for TV channels or do guest spots on TV shows, and they are the ones that tend to work the least in the department. I highly doubt he’s working every day doing heart surgery like the best of them are.
And personally, I think there’s got to be some fishy reason that Columbia is keeping him on, and I hate to think but it’s probably monetary. Because at this point it can’t be for the publicity, Oz gets more negative than he does positive.
Apparently he is a cardiovascular surgeon and still does hundreds of surgeries a year, which is a fair amount. Now my experience with the medical profession, and that is purely as a patient with an autoimmune disease and a caretaker to several family members is that a lot of doctors are very myopic. They only see their one area, and don’t work well with the big picture. Now the problem may be that Dr. Oz is a great cardiovascular surgeon, and theoretically knows how to help prevent heart disease, but he shills these products that are questionable at best. Still he is hired as a cardiovascular surgeon, and a professor who teaches cardiovascular surgery and he may be good at that. This could be Columbia’s dilemma. Does his extra curricular shilling negate his surgeon skills? I know a lot on here think so, but I can see the problem they face.
Wasn’t he Chief of CV surgery at some point? Can’t remember. In any case, it takes 8 freaking years to train a CV surgeon then they gain further expertise post-training. We would be doing the world a disservice by putting him out of commission as a surgeon.
A New Yorker article on him years ago made him seem like a very special, talented person who also doesn’t need much sleep. He is a machine. If I need heart surgery, that’s the kind of doc I want doing it, not some normal guy with normal physical needs that most of us have.
moomoo – “If I need heart surgery, that’s the kind of doc I want doing it, not some normal guy with normal physical needs that most of us have.” But Dr. Oz is a normal guy who normal physical needs just like the rest of us. Just because he tries to make himself seem like a superhuman doesn’t mean he is. Given how important sleep is, I’d be wary of him claiming he doesn’t need much sleep (which is bull, because everyone needs sleep – he’s probably just at the point where his body is used to not having enough sleep). And as others have pointed out above, he looks haggard most of the time. Maybe he should be getting those hours of sleep a night he is purposely missing out on.
littlestar– Some folks do very well with less sleep. At least one human gene mutation has been identified which results in people doing well on 2-4h sleep per night. Another mutation was recently identified which lets people do well on 6 hours a night (estimated to affect ~3% of the population).
I knew a neuroscience researcher who said he only needed 2h sleep/night and wasn’t tired. I doubted him until I learned his 10 year old son had the same sleep pattern. Shortly thereafter the first mutation I mentioned was identified. I definitely lack both of these mutations as I need 8 hours of sleep and would also love a daily nap.
In addition, using learned and practiced surgical skills (or any skill) relies on areas of the brain that act together automatically and don’t depend on conscious thought. So as long as the surgeon isn’t falling asleep on his/her feet, s/he can do an excellent job because they’re free to think about surprising or uniquely challenging features of with the rest of their brain. A new surgeon has not yet fully developed these brain use patterns but should develop them over time with practice.
Just as some folks are more athletically predisposed by their genetic makeup, others are able to do well with less sleep. I agree he looks haggard, but he’s also getting older. It may be that he needs more sleep than he gets, but still less than the general population.
I still think it is dangerous to think one doctor is better than another just because he acts like he’s “superhuman” and doesn’t need sleep. A doctor is still human, and all of them have the same biological drives and needs like the rest of us, despite what he/she might claim. So for “If I need heart surgery, that’s the kind of doc I want doing it, not some normal guy with normal physical needs that most of us have.” A “machine” for a doctor is still going to have to take a crap just like every other “normal” doctor out there.
As a surgeon, I can tell you that 100 surgeries a year isn’t much. That’s less than 2 a week. Cardiac surgeons are usually much busier than that. The average surgical INTERN should do more than 100 surgeries a year (granted, they are not all cardiac surgeries, but still). It’s not about getting trained atleast 8 years to be a cardiac surgeon, it is also about using the skills you have – any surgeon will tell you that a few weeks without operation makes you rusty. If he’s not operating a lot, it doesn’t matter how good he was, he’s not going to be as good as someone at these huge centers (U Penn for example) that operate every day.
@Kiki04 Thanks for that valuable insight. I would rather have my procedure done by someone who does a lot of them to maximize my chance of a good outcome.
@littlestar Agree that even machine-seeming humans still have regular human needs and I don’t begrudge them that. I’d just rather have a doc who can function well on less sleep (since that’s what most doctors seem to get). Some folks just have more mental energy than others. Doctors who need lots of sleep rarely pursue surgical careers. There are other specialties that offer a reasonable sleep schedule, at least after training.
Just a big plus to what GNAT said on everything. Oz has always made my skin crawl.
Ugh. It’s about time!
I’ve followed him from the Oprah days. Mostly because patients come in talking about his latest miracle nonsense.
I can’t speak to ethics not knowing the full situation. It could be a double life. That on his show he takes money to promote a trend and “plays” a role for the cameras and entertainment.
On the other end he is an accomplished surgeon and did earn his spot at that table.
It might be a question of where the lines blur. His acting becoming so great it’s taken over his legitimate credibility as a Doctor.
That he cries freedom of speech shows just how low his understanding has become. Oliver covered that perfectly.
His stuff on his show though? He takes the format of eating clean and getting exercise and isolates certain aspects in a way there’s a heavy profit to be made. Like The latest “superfood”, “exercise”, or “vitamin blend”. He’s a Shailene Woodley with a Medical Degree.
Shenanigans!
Lol, TOTAL shenanigans!
Whoa, I don’t know much about this guy or his show other than My mom likes it and thinks he’s some sort of health prophet. Then again she’s the type of person who will turn to diet pills instead of changing her habits, so probably his target market.
I think that’s exactly why his show is still on the air. There are so many people out there who take his word and will swallow anything he says (often literally…green coffee beans, raspberry ketones, and so on) even though there’s no scientific proof to back up all of his shilling.
My mother-in-law is one of his devotees. She’s even been to a taping of his show. I think the vast majority of Americans are going to revere and trust him merely because he’s a doctor on TV, and will pay no attention to the scandals. That’s why Columbia will keep him regardless.
I blame Oprah. If it wasn’t for her initial commodification, things would not have reached this point. It seems that everyone that is commodified by Oprah likes the taste of fame and money way too much and their ethics lapse to incorporate other charlatans.
Yes Oz is a legit surgeon, but he has made compromises to include non-scientific rubbish in his shows that are at odds with what his profession demands. Should he be de-registered as a doctor? No. Should he resign? Not sure. Perhaps.
I blame the scumbag Dr. Oz for the scumbaggery of Dr. Oz.
Ditto. Neither Oprah nor anyone else is to blame for anything Oz says or does.
He would not have taken off if Oprah hadn’t plastered him on her show.
Oprah is still not responsible for Dr. Oz shilling these diet pills. I don’t care that she plastered him on her show because when she did he actually gave credible advice with weight loss and general well being.
Anything he has ever promoted I researched at length and decided it was not worth my time. Anyone that has half a brain cell left knows that weight loss is not found in a pill. Weight loss is accomplished by eating clean, exercising, getting the right amount of sleep, staying hyrdrated, etc. Pills, surgery, lipo suction etc are quick fixes. It’s 2015, there is a wealth of information out there and anyone that watches Dr. Oz’s show has a responsibility to themselves to do the research. I’m sorry but believing there is a miracle cure in a pill or tea is just nonsense. I don’t care who is saying it, I am not going to sit there and take it at face value.
There is enough criticism about Dr. Oz out there that people need to start taking responsibility for themselves.
Agree! I could never stand Oz or Dr. Phil… I know Oprah is revered by many but I never liked her show, her magazine (seriously, you need to be on the cover every time? Talk about ego) or the people she makes into media stars.
And I do believe that by making unsubstantiated claims on TV dr Oz is definitely acting in an unethical way. First, do no harm… But if you shill weight loss pills that very often can make you ill (increased blood pressure is only one of the frequent side effects) then you should have your licence revoked.
Dr. Phil is pretty much a talk show who sometimes has a doctor come visit for advice, not a show with a guy endorsing “miracle cure” products
Dr. Drew and this guy are dangerous. They both should not be giving advice on anything, especially people they have never met. It is all about money.
Add Dr. Shill to the list, too.
Don’t forget Dr Phil!
“Doctor” Phil effectively lost his license for grooming a teenage female patient for sex…while he was engaged to his current brainless moron wife Robin. And then Winfrey has the balls to claim that she is the Messiah of the welfare and dignity of womankind, and a huge proponent of sexual abuse prevention. Yeah. Right.
@We Are All Made of Stars- Dr. Phil did not lose his license. He was reprimanded for having a dual relationship with a patient. He hired a former patient to work with him and probable cause existed with regard to a possible failure to provide proper separation between termination of therapy and the initiation of employment. Where does it say that he was grooming a teenager for sex?
@Tammy
“Doctor” Phil was treating a teenaged girl as a therapist. He then hired the girl to work in his office. She eventually went to the licensing board with complaints of his sexual misconduct towards her in what she claims was a sexual and sexually harassive relationship between employer and employee. He was with his wife Robin at the time. He was found guilty of sexually and otherwise inappropriate conduct and placed on a yearlong probationary and monitoring period in order to have his license reinstated. At the end of said period, he ended his practice and set himself up in the field of jury selection.
What I was intending to say, although somewhat poorly worded, was that he knocked himself out of an honorable profession due to his sexual misconduct of a very young woman. I mean, who was going to send their loved one to this guy after this? And are you not creeped out by the idea of a guy treating a teen that he was obviously sexually attracted to? What the heck was going on there? He clearly chose to hire her because he had designs on this individual, who was at a vulnerable enough point in their life to seek out professional help. I stand by my original assertion that he brought about his own end in the field. Gross.
I agree. Both are egomaniacs.
Dr. Drew made some really unethical decisions on Celebrity Rehab. He has no integrity and is all about attention, not helping people.
Celebrity Rehab should have never made it on the air. That in itself, in my opinion, was gross medical negligence.
Yeah. One of those decisions includes doing a show called “Celebrity Rehab” in the first place.
Does anyone remember the time they were rehabilitating sex addicts and the men and women were just allowed to lounge around with each other and (I think it was) one of the Baldwin brothers whipped it out in front of one of the women? I always say the only thing you need to know about Drew Kapinsky is that his mommy was an actress and his daddy was a doctor and that he is his parents’ son.
Jen2, I completely agree about Dr. Oz and Dr. Drew. Interestingly, the other day on CNN, they had Dr. Drew singing praises about Dr. Oz but, it was one crappy TV doctor standing up for another TV doctor.
When I look at Dr. Oz I think of that line, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”
The fact that Dr. Oz is promoting these miracle cures disgusts me because there are so many people out there buying these pills in hopes of losing weight.
I just find it is a conflict of interest for a TV doctor to be shilling for these miracle weight loss pills and then wanting to be taken seriously as a medical professional.
He is a paid endorser for these fad diet remedies. The only reason his word carries any weight is that he is an actual doctor. It is ALL about MONEY and therefore, Dr. Oz’s recommendations should be regarded as BS.
Of course there have been long term historic remedies, with varying degrees of success, some coming from a strong placebo effect. But this man is absolutely not advocating for complimentary medicine on his show. If you read any literature by legit naturopaths, you will not hear the words. “Miracle Cure” uttered. The steps recommended by naturopathy are generally long term alterations in lifestyle, diet, exercise and so on. Anyone who claims to have the answer to all of your ills in a non-regulated, untested supplement, is a greedy snake oil salesman and should be called that.
^^^Nailed it, @Kiddo. I am all for herbal/alternative health practices being studied. I myself take supplements and have never felt better. However, I think Oz lost it a long time ago, and now it’s about money and ego. If he really cared about his audience, he would participate in long-term studies, etc. He’s just a jerk who profits on the latest fad cures.
And that’s the thing too – supplements can be fantastic if you’re sure they’re not interfering with other medicine. I had to lecture my father in law about being more careful with the stuff he’s taking because a lot of things CAN interact with his blood pressure meds, and stuff like that.
At one point he was obsessed with “chaga tea” which is made from gross looking stuff that grows on birch trees. It can however increase bleeding risks, and hypoglycemia, and there’s not been clinical studies done on human consumption, so it could cause other problems as well. I had to really push it to him that he can’t suggest other people take this, and he should really check with his Dr or pharmacist before picking up supplements of any kind, just to make sure it doesn’t negatively impact other meds.
I love finding natural remedies for things – they can be great alternatives or used as supplemental care – but I’m always wary of how they could negatively impact me.
And if legit people in the alternative therapy even approach calling something a “miracle” it’s usually something super simple like magnesium supplementation or getting some midday sun exposure for vitamin D. It’s never the latest new extract of Magicfruit or some such hitherto unknown thing.
BTW, taking magnesium has helped me enormously, some rather worrisome conditions have all but been eliminated. I’d not call it a miracle so much as balancing the minerals in my diet and correcting a deficiency. All the conditions it’s fixed are known (with science!) mag deficiency signs.
Western doctors will also treat for deficiencies. I think both have their place and that both should be researched, but this man is doing neither any favors.
I’ve had pretty poor experiences with doctors so I tend to be mistrustful of the medical profession in general. At least in my experience, they are very quick to prescribe drugs instead of looking into other remedies.
I’m not defending Dr. Oz at all, BTW.
@Wren: Would you be willing to share what magnesium type (citrate, glycinate, oxide, aspartate) are you using and what dose / dosing frequency? Asking for educational/anecdotal purposes regarding your experience only, not medical advice!
Most folks are deficient in magnesium as few of us eat enough vegetables. And we need to eat them every day. Serum magnesium testing does not reflect total body levels, so even if a blood test is normal one cannot be assured that they are mag-sufficient.
Magnesium glycinate, 400mg is what I take. For awhile I was taking one pill morning and night, but now I just do one in the morning unless I’m under stress or overindulge. Heavy alcohol intake leeches magnesium like crazy, and cortisol (stress hormone) production also depletes your body’s magnesium. It’s hard to take too much magnesium as your body quickly flushes out unneeded amounts, and as long as you’re getting calcium (i.e. if you drink milk you’re fine) you won’t throw off the mineral balance.
The sad thing is even if you eat a lot of veggies you may still be low in magnesium as the general mineral content and quality of our soils has plummeted with the advent of high nitrogen fertilizer.
complementary, not complimentary, and duh.
Yes, Yes and Yes!
I know I’d love to have a part-time surgeon working on my damaged heart.(snark)
He’s a disgrace because he cheapens the medical profession with his antics. Surgeons/ physicians’ whole ethos is based on scientific reasearch and study. His position at Columbia is based on scientific research and study. He cheapens everything he should be upholding as a doctor. He’s more of a celebrity than an actual surgeon. He’ll be doing infomercials next (if he isn’t already). Ugh!
I don’t know, the guy is one of the greatest recognized cardiovascular surgeons in the country and heads the medical department of an ivy league university. If I had a heart problem, I think I would want the best guy for the job to do the surgery. I wouldn’t really give two figs if they believed in aliens, were a little bit racist, or prayed to their guardian angel for assistance before each and every surgery. I would just want the person who was the most likely to do an excellent job and get me out of there alive. That, I think, is real logic.
THIS. If you don’t use your surgical skills even for a couple of weeks, you become rusty. Its the truth, I work with enough surgeons to know that. This is the last guy I would want working on my heart, let alone trying to shill me some magic bean about weight loss.
I hope he’s fired from Columbia.
Thanks Kiki. I, too, have worked with many Cardio-Thoracic Surgeons and none would ever consider what Dr. Oz is doing as ethical or even coming close to maintaining his skills or ethics as a surgeon/ doctor. As for his “reputation” as a “great C-V surgeon, why is it that I’ve only heard about him from TV? He’s no Michael Debakey. Shame on him and his need for attention and a nice fat wallet. I hope Columbia gets rid of him. He’s nothing but a charlatan.
In his (and every other CV surgeon’s) defense, no one is Michael Debakey. What a legend.
I can’t stand Dr. Drew but Dr. Oz has given me some good health tips over the years. His lifestyle advice about diet and exercise have been beneficial and he’s the only one out there giving me any motivation to help myself. I do think he should not shill specific products that have not been tested. Still, I’ll take him over Springer and Povich any day.
I see both sides. But I agree it’s better many Americans are caring an exercise and health. I rember when springer and pouch were the hot tickets. I hope he helps get some people moving and doesn’t harm anyone !
No. The problem is that some will not have the ability to distinguish what is good advice versus snake oil miracle cures, who don’t want to change the channel, because this advice is coming from an MD.
Agreed. The harmful part is not that he’s shilling this stuff, but that he’s standing behind his MD to do so. If he wants to go on tv as “some guy named Mehmet” (god I love John Oliver) and plug this BS, I don’t have a problem. But when you stand there as a doctor saying this is a “miracle cure” without anything to back it up but your MD, that’s the problem. And it cheapens everyone else in the medical profession who uses their degree for good when it comes to patient care.
YOU are giving yourself the motivation! Not Dr Oz.
I don’t dismiss everything that he says. I support a holistic approach like combining Eastern and Western medicine. Alternative med can be beneficial to mainstream med as a supplementary. A lot of doctors practice that. Alt med however should not take the place of mainstream and should not be more expensive.
I had really bad elbow pain and he had a show about it…it changed my life! I followed the tips (like sleeping with your arms straight…which was weird and hard at first) and it really really helped me. I feel so grateful for that…so I feel the need to defend him a little. He also says at the end of his shows that any online endorsements you see are scams because he has never licensed his image or endorsed a product.
That said, his obsessin with poo is nasty. And the reiki thing? Good grief
Some of the women that I work with, love, love, love this crackpot! They buy every weight loss “miracle” that comes out of this guys mouth! When I decided to trim down a few pounds, and was eating a lot of salads and lean protein, and exercising, these women would actually be giving me advice from “wizard of Oz”…”Dr. Oz says, all you have to do is take a green coffee pill and you can eat anything and still lose weight” All kinds of dumb things…needless to say, the only thing they lost was money, no weight…
Next time one of those women try to give you some of his advice, tell them to eat more raspberry ketones: replace one unhealthy snack with fat-free greek yogurt, throw in a handful of raspberries, voila! More raspberry ketones in their diets! Oh, and, tell them to add in some exercise, like you did, which has produced the results they desire. SMH. Once I stopped listening to everyone’s advice and changed my unhealthy habits, I dropped 40 lbs. Miracle!
I’d never heard of raspberry ketones, so I just looked up some facts on wiki. Raspberry ketones apparently let mice stay slim on a high-fat diet, at a dose of 20g/kg.
Assume human dieter is 70kg (155 pounds for the Americans). So required dose would be 1,400g of raspberry ketones. But wait … how much pure ketone do you get in a raspberry? 1-4mg/kg. Call it 3mg/kg. Which is 1g per 333.33kg. You would need 466,666 kilograms of raspberries to get the dose to 20g/kg. 467 metric tons.
We are going to need more yoghurt.
@Izzy….yup, once I decided to do it the right way, (eating healty and exercise), I lost 30 pounds…these women, try all this stupid stuff, never lose a pound…because, they would rather, swallow a pill and still eat cookies and doritos, and hope they will miraculously turn into Giselle Bunchen! lol And, this quack, Dr. Oz tells them they can accomplish healthy, weight loss this way! Some of these women actually dvr his show, so they won’t miss the “new” diet info….they think he is a genius, when he is no more than a snake oil salesman!
LOL, Lucrezia, better start eating! That’s a LOT of raspberries and yogurt!
Berries and yogurt is one of the best things ever to eat! Although I’ll admit I use full fat Greek yogurt lol. A blueberry, banana, hemp heart, and yogurt smoothie is how I start my day every morning .
I love John Oliver ,funny guy.
I have noticed that when ever a “expert” whether it is Dr. Oz, Cesar Milan, interior decorator etc become popular enough that they get their own show and become a celebrity. They tend to lose something, it is like they sell out to corporate interests. Whenever some of these people start endorsing items or develop a line of cookware, dog bowls etc I get turned off. Instead of a expert in their field all I can see is a commercial for whatever they have on the market.
Paula Dean for instance?
Step down Dr Oz. Would you want someone who only performs about one surgery a week operating on your heart? Think about it.
He’s a hack. People follow him like he is the messaiah. He’s similar to a TV evangelist in that way. What is he doing In those photos? What a weirdo.
I’ve only watched his show a handful of times and I’m not defending irresponsible endorsements and the like, but I have to say that there is a point at which I must diverge from the Oz Takedown hysteria. Whence comes everyone else’s responsibility to do their own due diligence and research the claims they learn about on TV? As long as I can remember, the media has casually promoted all kinds of supposedly scientific facts, usually newly gained from one recently performed study.
My father always had a good laugh about one from back in the day where you would live to be 95 if you ate a lot of yogurt. Why? Because apparently monks in Asia ate tons of yogurt and lived to very old ages. Let’s just say that I desired to take this claim at face value and incorporate it into my life. Aren’t there some serious questions I need to be asking here? How much yogurt do I have to eat, and does it change based on personal factors? Does Yoplait work, or do I need organic yak yogurt produced in mountainous regions of Nepal? How long does it take to achieve X results? And so forth. I think Oz has become something of an easy target for people who wanted a quick fix and didn’t want to ask the tough questions, or really any questions at all. Wake up, folks. It’s your fault too.
agree 100000 % Great comment Stars
I agree.
But the studies that come out aren’t properly vetted by the 11:00 news because those people aren’t scientists and they want a 5 second soundbite, without analyzing data. If you go to the source of a study or read a peer review, you might glean more than the results, with caveats, limitations and the source of study funding. But Oz is an MD, and as such, there is never a time to call anything a “miracle cure” when you are given a position of medical authority. As much as I despise direct pharmaceutical marketing to patients on TV, even they are never allowed to call any of the products a “miracle cure”.
I’m making a bit of a larger point here, which is that the media has always promoted very new evidence in a sometimes breathless and usually half-assed kind of a way. Look up the criticisms of scientists about the way science is presented in the American press. The gist of it is that they rarely get their facts right, and even if they do, the material is handled in a way that creates a certain level of deception because it’s being handled by people who simply don’t know what the heck they are doing. I also have no sympathy for “news people” as they are entrusted with the job of parsing information for correctness and objectivity and have research staff and reporters who are supposed to do just that for a living. No, he should not refer to anything short of miraculous by such a term, but the public should not be lining up like his choir of angels ready to believe everything he has to say without demanding anything from themselves on the topic either.
Yes, but the public is a gullible bunch, and his rhetoric directly undermines the profession in general, which is why other physicians are taking a stand. He is a representative of his profession by using his credentials to promote specific cures that he is directly profiting from, with no substantiation.
If one positive thing comes out of this perhaps it will be that as consumers, we learn to be more judicious and do our own research on the products we use, because there will be more Dr. Oz’s down the line.
Kitten
If only that were true or likely. You’ve also answered the likelyhood of more doing their own research with your comment below.
Many just don’t have the time or desire to research. Or to make those changes to their habits and system. They want to be told what to do by someone who they’re told is accomplished.
As a side point to doctors and blind trust…
I can tell a patient upon discharge exactly what the doctor has written down and they won’t believe it. A doctor will come in and say the same thing and suddenly it’s gospel. It’s all about who’s the delivery system. Blind trust.
Yes, and many are also just lazy and sorry, that’s on them.
I’m one who puts little trust in doctors (or anyone for that matter) when it comes to my health and my body so perhaps that’s why I’m not as empathetic as others here. I always get at least a second (sometimes a third) opinion. Doctors are not Gods, they are fallible human beings that often have their own agendas, blind spots, and preconceived notions about how to diagnose and treat an illness.
TBH, I feel the same way about people who approach politics or anything, really, in that way: getting info from one source instead of doing due diligence.
So yes Oz is a creep and a scam artist, but people are sheep.
Kitten
True. Listen to your body. Educate yourself. Still, always be open to what people say because you are just as able to make mistakes as anyone else.
That’s whe best way to approach your health.
1 thing that has me grinding my teeth in exam rooms is being told what they learned from a tv doctor that technically may be right, but doesn’t apply to them at all. They might be educated and aware, but can’t have all the information (like test results) that change the diagnosis entirely.
You prepare yourself with as much info as possible and don’t put complete faith in any 1 person isn’t a bad thing. When they think they know it all from a few hours on google isn’t great and very annoying.
Exactly, and this is the larger issue we’re dealing with, and that people seem to gloss over.
Dr. Oz gets supported by an extremely gullible pubic who put entirely too much trust in the “MD” label, and I’m not talking about just Dr. Oz, I’m talking about doctors in general.
Combine that with people who are looking for a “miracle!” or a “quick fix” and it’s a snake oil salesman’s dream.
Perfectly stated!
1000 seems low. I myself can name about 50 doctors that I know think he’s a chump that needs to be fired.
I think the worse one in all of this is Columbia – they’re hanging on for some reason, likely monetary, because there is no way having someone like Mr. Oz on their staff is helping them otherwise. They need to get some integrity and fire his butt..
It’s the medical doctors who are the frauds. They are nothing but drug pushers for the pharmaceutical companies. Oz does a service by showcasing complimentary therapies. He sways endorsed traditional approaches too. John Olivet should sit down and go back to the UK. No wonder he didn’t succeed John Stewart. Now he’s just trying to make and me for himself.
I totally agree with you. The pharmaceutical companies are evil and the Doctors are on their payrolls. Dr. Oz gives good advice.
Tell that to Steve Jobs, who could have survived had he not relied on taking aspirin only, for his very treatable cancer through western medicine.
Anyone who has the audacity to spew “miracle cure” needs to be called out, especially if they are using their position and credentials of medicine to do it, and most especially while making a profit on it for those efforts.
Steve Jobs had a rather severe case of obsessive compulsive disorder and was known to have extreme rituals concerning the purity of certain foods and food consumption. He is described by many who knew him as being both unrelentingly obsessive and as having an eating disorder. It is no small coincidence that he chose a course of treatment centered around food intake and nutrition- treatments that allowed him to succumb to and engage in his obsessive compulsive rituals. It is highly unfortunate that he chose to not treat a form of cancer with a highly effective form of conventional treatment. He was not relying on aspirin but rather a strict regimen of foods and herbs believed to treat his condition.
Yes, and he could have been treated, regardless of his emotional issues, which no one else could possible be experiencing who also watch these shows? You have taken the train off the track, but within your message, you have admitted that conventional medicine isn’t fraudulent.
@Kiddo that is wrong. Steve Jobs had pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer has a death rate around 90% within five years. The fact that Steve Jobs lived eight years with the disease is a miracle and a testament to some amazing western doctors and medicine. He went for some alternative medical treatment toward the end, when the medical community really doesn’t have a lot for you. Your post is just blatantly false.
I agree with all. Dr. Oz should stop shilling snake oil. Yes the pharmaceutical companies have too big of a stake with western medicine, but more than with the doctors it is with the insurance companies. The problems with the pharmaceuticals aside from the money involved is that they think one size fits all, and it just doesn’t. Great a drug works for 90%, but what happens if you are the 10%. Also, my biggest problem is no one knows exactly how all these drugs interact with each other, because no one is testing that precisely. As we become a country where everyone is medicated so strongly you have to wonder if this will be a bigger issue. Not saying we shouldn’t have these life saving drugs, just a bit more cautious about the whole thing.
noway, there are different types of pancreatic cancer.
“While a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is often tantamount to a swiftly executed death sentence, a biopsy revealed that Jobs had a rare – and treatable – form of the disease. If the tumor were surgically removed, Jobs’ prognosis would be promising: The vast majority of those who underwent the operation survived at least ten years. ”
http://archive.fortune.com/2008/03/02/news/companies/elkind_jobs.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008030510
“Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who passed away today at the age of 56, had a rare form of pancreatic cancer called pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer, which produces islet cell or neuroendocrine tumors.
This form is usually less aggressive than pancreatic exocrine cancer and patients can live longer, with the average survival rate more than three years. Some people with the neuroendocrine form can live as long as 20 years.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/06/news/la-heb-steve-jobs-died-pancreatic-cancer-20111005
I never said he would have been “cured”. His delay in seeking treatment probably cut his life span down. I was in NO WAY shilling for BigPharm. But the OP called western medicine fraudulent , and that is not accurate either, there are limitations in knowledge. I am not against alternative or complimentary medicine. I am against someone who unequivocally shills about miracle cures that they are profiting from, whether it be a big corporation or some start-up promoted by a “TV doctor”.
This might be an incredibly dumb question to ask, as I don’t watch Dr. Oz every single day, but does he actually tell people not to get treated by a professional if you have cancer?
I’ve watched his show from time to time only, and I know he has a tendency to speak in hyperbole but I didn’t get the sense that he was saying there was only one way to treat something — from what I could tell from my limited viewing is that he’d offer up some suggestions, but more as a kind of complement to traditional medicine, not the replacement of it. But then again I watch Dr. Oz in the same way I read Prevention magazine or How to Cut Out Belly Fat. I’ll notice the suggestions, but then use my own common sense (assuming I’m not dying of something like cancer or heart disease. For that stuff, I’ll go to a GP, and listen to what he says).
As for Steve Jobs, I think many people prevailed on him to get treated by traditional methods, but he seems to have a very obstinate personality, and I think he is an unusual case of someone insisting on doing things the way he insists. I don’t see him listening to anything Dr. Oz (or someone similar who was ever on Oprah’s show and decided to be on tv) has to say, but already having an obstinately formed opinion he developed on his own and sticking to it (isn’t that how he got fired from his own company his first go-round at Apple?). I don’t know if he had some kind of disorder or what, but he was exceedingly stubborn, and if he believed in alternative medicine to to that degree, I believe that opinion was pre-formed in his youth and he stuck to it against other advice. Someone in his position would have had tons of people advocating for traditional medicine to him (probably even his wife) including regular traditional doctors that he saw in addition to his alternative practitioners, but his personality was such that he insisted on doing things his own way until he changed his mind and decided the other way might help.
perplexed, Oz has uttered the term “miracle cure”. My point wasn’t to call out Jobs, but to mention that people can be influenced by belief. And if people take confidence in Oz because of his MD and background in western medicine, and he shills products as miracles, THAT IS VERY PROBLEMATIC.
I have noticed the term “miracle cure” in relation to weight loss products and that’s what I would consider hyperbolic, but I never got the sense he’d tell people to refuse traditional cancer treatment if they had cancer.
He had someone on who discussed how to treat depression through non-pharmaceutical means, but I remember the guy stressing that these techniques work for someone who is going through minor to moderate depression, not severe depression. And I see those same techniques discussed in the regular media by way of studies done by scientists, so I never got the sense that Dr. Oz was promoting anything radically weird or even what a psychologist wouldn’t suggest or anything different from what I see from those science magazines like Psychology Today or whatever science newspaper I’ve subscribed to on Twitter. He speaks in inflated language, and I’ve wondered why he doesn’t cut back on that, but most of what he discusses seems similar to what comes through in other science media avenues talking about science and nutrition.
perplexed, this is my last comment. If you are willing to have a lapse in ethics because you stand to profit, and oh well, it’s only weight loss products, where does that eventually end? And where is the miracle? Where does the M.D. start and end, and where does the marketer begin and end?
I just want to know if he’s made the claim to refuse cancer treatment if you have cancer. I know this is your last post, but if anybody else could answer this for me, this would be very helpful. That’s the main thing I would like to know because it blows my mind if he has claimed that. That’s what I’m most shocked about. And if somebody could let me know whether he’s said that, then I’ll immediately stop watching any episodes.
The other stuff I can parse out when it comes to doctors – for example, if someone gets paid to do a certain study by a company. I would check that out with respect to any medical professional (Dr. Oz, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a doctor I know in real life who is not famous but might get kickbacks for prescribing a certain medication, whether a research trial was sponsored by a particular grant paid by company to get the result they want from the doctors, etc.) I think most medical professionals and companies profit in some way from what they sponsor — he sponsors one thing and profits, the doctors who wrote the letter against him sponsor another thing and profit. That doesn’t make it right – but I would use caution with both sides and go to the doctor I actually know in real life for assistance and guidance.
LAST Absolute last. I never claimed he said anything about cancer. The OP claimed that western medicine was fraudulent, and I gave an example where neglecting to seek western medicine in favor of alternatives can have a negative impact on one’s life .
You can like Oz and watch him, I really don’t care. I’m against anyone promoting something highly questionable MERELY for the sake of their own benefit and their own profit, especially if they are not allowing an airing of a counterpoint.
Having a TV info-mercial is not ethical, using your MD as qualifications for that info-mercial, making outrageous claims, is not ethical. People should be in charge of their own health and do research, but that doesn’t entitle someone to make false claims about miracle cures, even if we are only talking about toenail fungus.
Perplexed
Reading over Kiddos comments i’m at a loss at why you keep asking if Oz promoted not seeking further medical consult if you have cancer or think you do.
He often does give the disclaimer to follow up with your medical practitioner, but that is a given by the end of the show or simply in text format before the credits.
I question if he’d mention it at all if it wasn’t a legal liability.
Even worse! That he mentions how things are “miracle cures” is amazing! “miracle” and “cure”describing trendy new diets or foods that have never been tested to extremes in various studies heavily documented should not be used. It’s all in his wording how he gets around it. It’s always another’s claim. Not him personally endorsing as a doctor.
End point Perplexed
Oz should be watched as entertainment ONLY! The show even states this in the credits. They cannot diagnose or treat any medical condition and admit so. Sadly, not many read that. They just want to quick fix. And Oz is a doctor, but on that show he’s a man playing an entertaining role who receives money to talk about certain things. This has been proven and he’s come under fire for it before.
And regarding Jobs. He should have done more to control his type of cancer early on. And he did say he regretted that. Personally, he’s terrible imo. Not only did he not attack it aggressively, but once he realised his mistake he went to a black market form of donor. Taking what could have gone to someone who needed it for himself because he paid personally out of pocket.
I simply wanted to know the answer because the implication in some of the above posts about Steve Jobs seemed to be that Dr. Oz had gone that far (or at least that was the implication I drew). I asked to know how far Dr. Oz might take his advice on alternative cures.
In other words, I asked for my own knowledge. And Kiddo answered. And I was fine with the answer Kiddo gave. I didn’t draw out or probe any further or find anything problematic in Kiddo’s answer, and haven’t answered back except now when you asked why I asked. I suppose I wanted to know the extent of Dr. Oz’s fraudulence, and on what matters he might be fraudulent (other than weight loss, which is an issue I pay less attention to on his show because of the number of doctors that tout different weight loss remedies or diets for whatever gain — i.e the Dr. Atkins diet. The diet stuff I don’t take seriously from any doctor unless they promote the usual theme of exercise and eat properly with the stuff about calories burned vs. calories consumed).
Spoken like someone who’s thankfully never had the need for lifesaving medical treatment. Maybe you’ve had or known of some bad doctors — or maybe you’re just repeating some propaganda you’ve heard in passing — but that’s a gross generalization that just doesn’t hold water. No doctor of mine, my husband’s or my kids is in big pharma’s pocket. I can tell by their thoughtful, intelligent recommendations that may or may not include meds depending on the issue. And those pharmaceuticals you think are so evil? I have them to thank for keeping my son alive, because even the best doctors and best alternative options could not have done it alone.
@Kiddo. You really need to educate yourself on Pancreatic cancer and survival rates. To call it “a very treatable cancer” is just ignorant. It’s one of the deadliest and most aggressive forms of cancer. Like noway said, the fact that Steve Jobs lived eight years is a nod to any treatment, western/alternative that he received.
The particular type of pancreatic cancer is more treatable than others and it has a slower growth rate, look up articles from science journals and NIH.
I’m sorry my link was too long, but this is all getting beside the point anyway.
So apologies to moderators.
I mentioned above that I just looked up raspberry ketones on wiki. You’d have to consume literally tons of raspberries to get an effect. So what’s in the pills? Synthetic ketones. “In acetone and sodium hydroxide, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde can form the α,β-unsaturated ketone. This then goes through catalytic hydrogenation to produce raspberry ketone.”
In plain English … it’s an industrial process using chemicals. Acetone you might know – it’s the main ingredient in most nail polish remover. Sodium hydroxide is caustic soda. 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde is a phenol derivative … phenol manufactured from petroleum.
Sounds healthy to me!
He should resign and his show needs to be cancelled. He promotes junk on his show that could be dangerous.
I truly believe it is bad form for him to go on television to plead his case instead of handling it in private with dignity.
This remind me of cult leaders who go before their flock to tell them society is against them the leader is being persecuted.
Oz just needs to cut the crap. If he wants to regain any kind of dignity he should ditch the snake oil and heavily promote the benefits of exercise and eating healthy. That’s all. No magic pills. No special fruits grown on a mountain in China every five years that will help you loose two pounds a week. Just stop.
He and Dr. Mercola need to be dropped off in the middle of the Sahara desert together.
If nearly half of the professionals in your industry think you are a quack, ditto the senate and you’ve admitted (to the senate at least) that you ARE a quack, why does the public continue to support this?
They hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe, and “miracle cures” don’t demand any effort like serious weight loss does.
What I can’t believe, is all the people who buy the products he pushes, as if he was the medical authority on everything . I respect doctors more when they admit their knowledge is limited on a medical problem and refer you to a Doctor who has more knowledge. To me, he takes advantage of people who might be desperate for a cure for their medical issue or someone seeking the fountain of youth.
I dislike doctors. You can never talk to one without them being being condescending and then when they’re finally done looking past you or they’re computer they pass you an illegible note with a prescription for another pill. The doctors who are against Dr.Oz and doctors like Dr.OZ who favor non traditional methods should’ve asked themselves if they liked people before entering this profession.
Then you haven’t seen my doctor, a woman, who is wonderful. I can talk to her about anything, she’s not the least bit condescending, and doesn’t shove pills at me. In fact last time I saw her we went over what vitamins/supplements I should be taking for my age and she tweaked them a bit. Not all doctors are bad you know….and there are non-traditional methods which have absolutely no solid research backing them up, which Oz regularly touts, and that’s giving his fan base a false sense of security. It’s also making him filthy rich.
There’s a happy medium between utilizing standard medical treatments and PROVEN naturopathic and/or homeopathic treatments, however he’s swung wayyyy over to the side of hawking just about any miracle pill or tonic that has little or no effect other than convincing the person taking it that it actually works. I’ve no doubt he’s making gazillions from it.
I’ve gone to a naturopath in the past with good results. I also work as a Reiki therapist with cancer patients who are going through standard medical treatment while working with a naturopathic oncologist, and having regular Reiki treatments and meditation sessions to reduce stress.
But Dr. Oz’s greed is showing through as he regularly touts cures that have little or no solid research behind them and for that he should be taken to task by the medical community.
+!
“PROVEN naturopathic and/or homeopathic ”
Actually by definition none of them have been proven or they would be considered mainstream. In fact, alternative medicine fails horribly any time large reputable studies are conducted, but then again you said your a reiki therapist so that shows right there that facts have no place in your fantasy world
I also feel the same way about my primary care physician, she’s awesome. I was ill off and on for a few years and got progressively worse several months before my PCP diagnosed an endocrine tumor called a pheochromocytoma. She caught it and other things over the years.
Dr. Oz, just meh. And oi vey.
Is my TV the only one with a mute button? Channel surfing capabilities?
Cos if you don’t subscribe to what you’re seeing and hearing
and people stop listening to what you’re selling….
That’s not the issue. The issue is that he is holding himself in a medical position of authority, and undermining the profession in general, both of alternative and standard medicine. Would you feel the same if a commercial aired for a pharmaceutical drug that said it would “cure” obesity without being required to state that consideration of other medical conditions must be addressed, along with clearly stating side effects?
I have a problem with all drug commercials which means I also have a problem with Dr. Oz as he is a walking infomercial. I just think it is bad to shill a particular drug on tv, where a patient get limited information in 30 sec intervals. I wish they would stop that whole thing.
Yeah….ask your doctor about…. fill in the blank…to me, is tantamount to creating the scenario of doctors as drug dealers motivated by demand of patients. But AT LEAST, they are governed to the point that they have to mention side effects such as death, etc.
I don’t watch his show, but this has the smell of a witch hunt. US medicine has a very long history of trying to trivialize other approaches to health and politically smashing “competitors”, which is why other countries (such as in Europe) have a much more flexible view of treatments and we actually have less access to a wide variety of approaches here. If he’s a lousy surgeon, go after him for that because that’s his specialty and why he’s on staff. The other stuff? Not so much. He sounds overly enthusiastic and of course he’s peddling stuff (he’s on TV), but any problems with that can be handled by colleagues in more effective ways. Doctors cover up incompetence of other doctors too often, that’s more worrisome. I even suffered through an alcoholic orthodontist. My mother finally took me to her dentist because his last visit kept me in such pain (the braces were misplaced, more on the gums than on the teeth). Her dentist cut them off immediately and finally told my mother what was happening with the guy. He knew long before then but didn’t bother warning her.
I’ve been damaged many times by incompetent M.D.’s and I taught too many pre-meds – by and large the most narrow minded, blinders-on group of young people I’ve ever met. They were very hard to teach because they were stuck in whatever view they acquired by the age of 17 and no amount of logic could shake them (I was teaching physics…). The exceptions (maybe 5% to 10% max) were about the same proportion as the good doctors I’ve encountered. So excuse my skepticism about the motivations of the petition signers.
Medical school not only mis-teaches many things but also omits many things, and many MDs remain ignorant. If it wasn’t taught in med school, it doesn’t exist (and likewise, everything wrong taught in med school remains an article of faith). A friend went for her master’s in nutrition before med school, because she said she certainly wouldn’t learn anything about nutrition in med school itself. I’ve seen many doctors in my travels, and not a single one has ever asked me about my eating habits, my sleep patterns, or even if I have any allergies, or other very relevant things. Even the good ones don’t think to ask about such matters. Sometimes I try to work it into the very brief conversation, other times I don’t bother, just to see what they do. Just listen to people especially with chronic conditions – so often they’ve been misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated for years, even if they try to see several doctors looking for relief. Doctors are only consultants, and many are not very good ones except for very simple conditions. The medical dramas on TV are not realistic. The response of the average doctor to a puzzling situation is to ignore and avoid, not discuss extensively with colleagues and experiment with different approaches. Just learning how to say “I don’t know, I’ll see what I can find out” would work wonders.
As just one for-instance: When a well-meaning but naive soul called 911 because I was having a fever spike (a daily occurrence during an undiagnosed UTI that I thought was just the flu) — I was dragged to the ER and a financially disastrous hospital stay that was like being in the middle of a Marx Brothers movie. No one bothered to take a history ever, they just blindly pushed me into pointless expensive tests, not believing the $19 urinalysis that really diagnosed the problem. Nobody (doctor or nurse) gave me any straight information about the UTI and what to expect while recovering, what would be normal and what would not be normal. I ended up with several new problems due to damage they did to me while in the hospital through incompetence and carelessness, problems which took many months to resolve and some never did. They gave me an antibiotic that within a few days of exposure, had side effects worse than the disease. The prescribing doctor’s response when I reported this was to declare I was no longer his problem… I realized later that he mistakenly thought I was uninsured and just wanted to get rid of me. A competent doctor finally supervised treatment of my relapse, which was worse than the original, by finding a combination of other antibiotics I could tolerate and actually closely monitoring my progress. The first one was too lazy to do that, but he was well-established in the medical community. A friend just had to have a repeat operation because the expert (head of his own clinic, believed to be the best in his field in a large city, did several such operations per day) who did the first one had an unacknowledged oopsie moment that caused him painful episodes for many months afterward.
Anyway, this anti-Oz campaign sounds rather political and grandstanding although it’s at least a good opportunity to remind people that they have to act as their own health detectives. Just because a doctor recommends something doesn’t mean it will work for you. Clinical trials have murky results in most cases, so they are not a good measure of efficacy either. There are serious problems with representativeness of the trial subjects as well, because humans are extremely complex systems. Plus trials are so expensive, many effective treatments will never undergo trials because there is not enough profit to be made. Oz may go too far in his enthusiasm, but at least he is aware that there is more to medicine than shoving a prescription drug into a patient’s hands after a two-minute consult.
No one here has stated that physicians are gods in western medicine, or that pharmaceuticals are the answer to everything, but you don’t counter that with the extreme in the opposite direction.
“I’ve seen many doctors in my travels, and not a single one has ever asked me about my eating habits, my sleep patterns, or even if I have any allergies, or other very relevant things.”
Funny but my doctor asks this — and much more about my lifestyle and concerns — every year I see her for an exam. And the university that she’s affiliated with has a program that combines the best of both conventional medicine and alternative approaches, one that continues to evolve. And never has she or any other doctor I’ve ever encountered tried to push a prescription at me after a two-minute consult.
You’ve clearly had some very bad experiences — doctors are after all human, prone to all the same failings as any other human — but I don’t think the entire medical profession should be dismissed as a result. I do think you inadvertently make a good point though, that as patients we need to be our own advocates and not just blindly follow what any one doc tells us if our gut instincts tell us otherwise. If something seems off, then a second, even a third, opinion is in order. A good physician would more than welcome another point of view.
I have a lot of biases against and problems with Western medicine, and I do wonder about the ones who immediately wave him off.
That said, Dr. Oz has gone from a doctor with a show to a mega star. His shows are sensationalist and contradictory. I know that things are always changing, new research is done, and what was true yesterday might not be true today. But much of what he presents now are get thin quick schemes, like raspberry ketones, and coffee bean supplements. That’s where the quackery accusations are warranted. He weasels out of accountability by saying that he never endorses products, BUT HE DOES. He might not name a specific brand, but once something is seen on his show, it’s going to be marketed “As seen on Dr. Oz!” That doesn’t happen when he says to take something like Vitamin B. By promoting quick fix products like that, whether he names them or not, he’s endorsing their use. He can’t help what other people print about him, but he has to be aware of his influence.
Contradictions. One minute he’s on the coconut oil paleo bandwagon, the next he’s writing about the dangers of saturated fats in his column. First he says eggs are okay and don’t cause a rise in cholesterol, then he says to limit yourself to one egg per week. He says one thing on his show, another in his column w/ Mike Roisin. Any doctor worth his salt will keep up with research and changing information, but he swings rapidly from one end of the pendulum to the other. That’s more concerning than anything that gets attributed to him, because this is directly under his control.
The tide is turning. I think a lot of today’s doctors keep themselves current and think outside of the med school box. Even my doctor, who started in the late sixties, and retired a few months ago, made it a priority to stay on top of things. We had a lot of conversations about the limitations of medicine. He didn’t mind that I researched things myself and came to him with ideas, although he did caution against cyberchondria. It’s too bad that you had such terrible experiences, but don’t be so quick to build an altar to Oz. He’s gotten in a little too far over his head.
You don’t watch the show but you still think it’s a witch hunt? Watch the show. These doctors haven’t singled Dr. Oz out for no reason. Google some of the products he’s endorsed. Oz is a shameful huckster in scrubs.
Get his show off the air. It’s just a waste of airtime, not that there’s much substance in most daytime talk shows. All he does is play (actual) games, and pander to women who lose their shit when they get to be his assistant. It’s like The Price is Right with stethoscopes. If he’s a good surgeon, he should stick to what he does best.
It’s about trust. How can someone who violated the public’s trust be trusted with a scalpel and people’s lives? Never mind Columbia. He lost his professional credibility and should lose his license to practice medicine.
Dr. Oz spent many long years learning his craft. He does his job well; as a result, it would not be ethical to revoke his medical license. His job as a surgeon is not what is in question; therefore, why should someone who is a darn good surgeon, with years of experience and a plethora of successes lose what he has worked so hard for? I have not watched his show; but my sister loves him. I have always told her to take these recommendations with a grain of salt, and not just run out and buy everything he recommends on his show. There is certainly an in increase in the preference of alternative medicine over traditional medicine. However, this does not mean that individuals should not do their research. I love going to GNC, mainly because I am a marathoner and is always looking for good supplements since I am vegan. The salespeople make many recommendations to me; however, it is up to me to do my own research and make an informative decision about what is best for me. Perhaps a simple disclaimer before every show could have prevented this from happening. Nonetheless, the doctors who signed that petition are no better than the greedy, wall street bankers; since, most of them are linked to monsanto and the tobacco industry. In the end, his viewers should not view Dr. Oz or anyone else for that matter as their savior. In the age of google, there is no reason why they cannot see for themselves what they are putting in their bodies.
I totally believe in alternative medicine. That being said why do people believe everything they see on TV. Listen but at least do some research before rushing for the latest fad. To me Phil, who I refuse to call doctor and his airhead shake her head up and down wife are more dangerous. They deal aimlessly and stupidly with dangerous and deadly addictions with no real knowledge. Dr Oz is a very good CV surgeon and maybe should just stick to that. Why would you want to get rid of a very good CV surgeon. My husband has heart disease and I know how important good heart surgeons are. Dr Oz abandon TV and go back to the OR where you truly are making a change to peoples lives.
That’s what I’m not getting either. Why don’t people research anything said by anyone (whether on tv or in real life?). I see his tv show as more of a magazine type show that talks about different kinds of medicine, but not a substitute for going to a doctor I know in real life, whether for a minor or major ailment.
Anyway, why don’t the doctors petition to get him off tv rather than petition to get him removed as a surgeon at Columbia? The former makes more sense, I think. It seems the surgeon part is what he’s actually good at (he showed himself on the show doing an aortic valve replacement, and the surgery appears to have been a success). He seems to have the hands and the mental equilibrium to do surgery. If it’s the tv stuff that’s problematic, then why don’t the other doctors strike there? Has anyone complained about him doing a crappy bypass?
Just to add: I don’t really think a petition to get him off tv would really work. I think whoever carries him will make their own decisions. But I think the framing of the argument might make more sense — remove him from tv because the public is going to believe methods that haven’t been tested adequately according to what the doctors feel are scientific. But the argument to remove him as a cardiothoracic surgeon from Columbia makes less sense to me if he has a high success rate of performing surgery.
If he does a good job as a surgeon, I assume he also does a good job teaching it and I see that as separate from what he does on tv. So it makes more sense to me for him to keep the surgeon’s job and get fired for the tv job (not that I think that will actually happen, but you know what I mean).
I haven’t watched his show in a very long time, but I always loved that he was open to looking at homeopathic and natural treatments for things that my general practitioner doctors would never consider. He recommended numerous natural supplements that I used to lose weight, too. So #teamOz
This reminds me too much of the doctor in my state who was verbally attacked by other doctors – and almost forced to give up his medical license – because he was giving patients with Lyme Disease extended antibiotic treatment and it was curing them. The doctors fighting him wanted the patients to get no more than 6 weeks of antibiotics and then suffer for the rest of their lives – no joke!
You should watch his show then – he’s touting all sorts of wacko stuff as mentioned above (raspberry ketones, quick weight loss stuff) that brings him in a sh*tload of money. Much of what he’s shilling has no proven record of doing what it’s supposed to do and precious little research other than focus groups of 20 or 30 people under controlled situations not made clear in their advertising. He’s not talking about curing Lyme Disease with a lengthy course of antibiotics, he’s pushing quackery like green coffee been extract quick weight loss supplements. If you read nothing else on these comments, please read this:
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/lies-fraud-conflicts-of-interest-and-bogus-science-the-real-dr-oz-effect/
Good article, Jaded. I’m normally pretty skeptical about “miracle cures” and the like, and even I got suckered into buying a bottle of the stuff. LOL Beware of things and people that are too good to be true, like the ‘Wizard of Oz’ (pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain)!
I have bought many items that dr. OZ recommended for many many things and nothing ever worked -everyday is a new product which is going to cost you and so far no matter what it was nothing worked….I do not want someone recommending things and dishing out the many dollars and nothing works…i stopped watching him….
I’m admittedly not always the healthiest eater, but I am a healthy person who exercises regularly and eats a diverse range of food and ethnic cuisine. These so-called miracle drugs, diets, and shows featuring rapid weight loss are just ways for corporations to shill their products and for snake oil salesmen celebrities to shill their books, products, and whatever corporation they work for. We will all age and die. The only things we can do to prolong our lives for as long as possible is to exercise regularly and eat a variety of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and grains that aren’t processed. There is no magic cure that will replace exercise and eating well.
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