'The Dr. Oz Show' advisory board had people with no medical training who promoted fake treatments

[aubiefifty 18,248]

4-5 minutes

---

 

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz greets supporters after the primary race resulted in an automatic re-count due to close results on May 17, 2022 in Newtown, Pennsylvania.Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

 

• Dr. Mehmet Oz had a "medical advisory board" to support claims he made on "The Dr. Oz Show."

• The 43-member board included people with no medical training who promoted extreme and debunked treatments.

• Claims they supported included drinking onion juice for the flu and subscription meal plans for curing cancer.

Republican candidate for US Senate representing Pennsylvania and former talk show host Mehmet Oz relied on a medical advisory board to support claims he made on "The Dr. Oz Show."

Among practicing oncologists and certified psychologists, the board included people who had no formal medical training and promoted debunked treatments.

Dr. Ben Abella, an emergency physician in Philadelphia, told Insider the 43-member board projected an "aura of legitimacy" on Oz and his show, which ran for 13 seasons and was canceled last December after Oz decided to run for office.

Abella helped organize an event called "Real Doctors Against Oz" in support of Oz's political opponent, Democratic candidate for US Senate John Fetterman.

Abella said Oz used the show and his advisory board in ways that preyed upon viewers' desire to be healthy and instead supplied them with "misleading" home remedies and treatments. Treatments that at best, he said, were unhelpful and, at worst, dangerous.

Among the board members listed for the show was a self-described "medicine hunter" who promotes the "ritual use of hallucinogens" to achieve wellness and an acupuncturist who sells herbal remedies to fight COVID-19 and an energy therapy called "Infinichi" to treat ailments from upset stomach to fibromyalgia.

"The Medical Advisory Board sounds very authentic and rigorous, but not so many people are going to take the time to peel back the layers of the onion and say, 'Well, where are these people?'" Abella told Insider. "'What are their credentials? What did they do?' And perhaps even peel back further and say, 'What are their financial conflicts with maybe some of these products?'"

Some of the alternative treatments promoted by the advisory board, like acupuncture or petroleum jelly in the nostrils, may not necessarily directly cause harm, Abella told Insider.

Others, he said rely on flimsy or non-peer-reviewed science that may distract or prevent a patient from seeking legitimate medical treatment because they're doing something they believe is effective.

Oz is running for a Senate seat representing Pennsylvania against Democratic candidate John Fetterman. The Oz campaign has faced controversies over whether he actually lives in the state and Asplundh Tree Experts' (his wife's family business, in which Oz is a shareholder) massive fine for hiring undocumented workers despite his anti-immigration stance.

In April, a group of ten physicians at Columbia University, where Oz was a lecturer on campus, wrote a letter to university officials indicating they were "dismayed" that the celebrity physician was on the school's faculty.

CNN reported they accused Oz of "manifesting an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain" and that he demonstrates in his show "either outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgments about what constitutes appropriate medical treatments, or both."

Columbia University Medical Center cut ties with the Senate candidate in May.

"Every revelation that emerges about Mehmet Oz shows voters who he really is: a self-serving fraud who got rich as a TV scam artist," David Bergstein, a democratic senatorial campaign committee spokesman, told Insider. "He's shown over and over again he doesn't care about anyone but himself, and that's exactly why Pennsylvanians will reject him in November."

The Oz campaign did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

 

will the republicans ever get back to normal?

[AUDub 11,861]

One day, Oprah will pay for her crimes. 

[SaltyTiger 8,575]

Columbia Business School did support Trump University. According to Trump.

[aubiefifty 18,248]

3 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

Columbia Business School did support Trump University. According to Trump.

salty we need to hang out some.then i can be sweet and you can be salty and we will be the darlings of AUFAM. be prepared for a ton of jealous folks tho.............

[jj3jordan 2,171]

11 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

4-5 minutes

---

 

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz greets supporters after the primary race resulted in an automatic re-count due to close results on May 17, 2022 in Newtown, Pennsylvania.Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

 

• Dr. Mehmet Oz had a "medical advisory board" to support claims he made on "The Dr. Oz Show."

• The 43-member board included people with no medical training who promoted extreme and debunked treatments.

• Claims they supported included drinking onion juice for the flu and subscription meal plans for curing cancer.

Republican candidate for US Senate representing Pennsylvania and former talk show host Mehmet Oz relied on a medical advisory board to support claims he made on "The Dr. Oz Show."

Among practicing oncologists and certified psychologists, the board included people who had no formal medical training and promoted debunked treatments.

Dr. Ben Abella, an emergency physician in Philadelphia, told Insider the 43-member board projected an "aura of legitimacy" on Oz and his show, which ran for 13 seasons and was canceled last December after Oz decided to run for office.

Abella helped organize an event called "Real Doctors Against Oz" in support of Oz's political opponent, Democratic candidate for US Senate John Fetterman.

Abella said Oz used the show and his advisory board in ways that preyed upon viewers' desire to be healthy and instead supplied them with "misleading" home remedies and treatments. Treatments that at best, he said, were unhelpful and, at worst, dangerous.

Among the board members listed for the show was a self-described "medicine hunter" who promotes the "ritual use of hallucinogens" to achieve wellness and an acupuncturist who sells herbal remedies to fight COVID-19 and an energy therapy called "Infinichi" to treat ailments from upset stomach to fibromyalgia.

"The Medical Advisory Board sounds very authentic and rigorous, but not so many people are going to take the time to peel back the layers of the onion and say, 'Well, where are these people?'" Abella told Insider. "'What are their credentials? What did they do?' And perhaps even peel back further and say, 'What are their financial conflicts with maybe some of these products?'"

Some of the alternative treatments promoted by the advisory board, like acupuncture or petroleum jelly in the nostrils, may not necessarily directly cause harm, Abella told Insider.

Others, he said rely on flimsy or non-peer-reviewed science that may distract or prevent a patient from seeking legitimate medical treatment because they're doing something they believe is effective.

Oz is running for a Senate seat representing Pennsylvania against Democratic candidate John Fetterman. The Oz campaign has faced controversies over whether he actually lives in the state and Asplundh Tree Experts' (his wife's family business, in which Oz is a shareholder) massive fine for hiring undocumented workers despite his anti-immigration stance.

In April, a group of ten physicians at Columbia University, where Oz was a lecturer on campus, wrote a letter to university officials indicating they were "dismayed" that the celebrity physician was on the school's faculty.

CNN reported they accused Oz of "manifesting an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain" and that he demonstrates in his show "either outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgments about what constitutes appropriate medical treatments, or both."

Columbia University Medical Center cut ties with the Senate candidate in May.

"Every revelation that emerges about Mehmet Oz shows voters who he really is: a self-serving fraud who got rich as a TV scam artist," David Bergstein, a democratic senatorial campaign committee spokesman, told Insider. "He's shown over and over again he doesn't care about anyone but himself, and that's exactly why Pennsylvanians will reject him in November."

The Oz campaign did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

 

will the republicans ever get back to normal?

Amazing what happens to people when they get an R by their name.

[AUDub 11,861]

44 minutes ago, jj3jordan said:

Amazing what happens to people when they get an R by their name.

Hey I thought he was a lunatic before it was cool. 

[DKW 86 7,907]

15 hours ago, AUDub said:

Hey I thought he was a lunatic before it was cool. 

In this nation, we have a whole list of crazy-ass people that think just because you can get in front of a tv camera that that fact somehow makes you credible.

Not one ******* day did I ever believe anything trump said going all the way back to 1987. I never thought of Dr Oz as anything but a 21st Century Snake-oil Salesman. Many in this nation are so braindead that they see being on camera as Holy Writ into Credibility. It is not nor ever has been...

[AUDub 11,861]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

In this nation, we have a whole list of crazy-ass people that think just because you can get in front of a tv camera that that fact somehow makes you credible.

Not one ******* day did I ever believe anything trump said going all the way back to 1987. I never thought of Dr Oz as anything but a 21st Century Snake-oil Salesman. Many in this nation are so braindead that they see being on camera as Holy Writ into Credibility. It is not nor ever has been...

To be fair he was a skilled cardiothoracic surgeon. But 2 things can be true, you can be both a good doctor and a huckster. That's why Oprah dug him up. He had an air of authority.

Really this whole campaign is hilarious. There couldn't be a more perfect mismatch than John Fetterman. It's like watching a one armed man try to box prime Mike Tyson. 

Edited August 21, 2022 by AUDub

[AUDub 11,861]

This is a fun editorial:

https://newrepublic.com/article/167457/humiliation-mehmet-oz-fetterman-pennsylvania

Quote

Dr. Oz should be better at this. Sure, there was always something oleaginous about the daytime television doctor turned politician’s approach to medicine, in which “magical” pills were touted as miracle cures to problems like obesity and bad skin. But Oz was a daytime television fixture in large part because he had a penchant for selling quick fixes to complex, sometimes intractable problems. Worried about your weight? Just take this pill and watch the pounds fall away. He was a huckster, but he was also telegenic and seemingly down-to-earth. In an era that elevated another TV conman to the highest political heights—and in a political moment in which Republicans have seemed heading toward a wave election—why couldn’t Mehmet Oz be Pennsylvania’s next senator?

In the months since Oz won Donald Trump’s endorsement—which propelled him to victory in a competitive primary—very little has gone according to plan. In late July, Politico reported that “the National Republican Senatorial Committee raised concerns about Oz’s lackluster polling and fundraising on at least three separate occasions in recent weeks,” with one source noting that his high unfavorable numbers were “really freaking everybody out.” From April to the start of July, his Democratic opponent, Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, raised nearly nine times more money than Oz managed—and half of the $3.8 million Oz brought in was money he loaned his own campaign.

But the biggest problem with Oz’s candidacy is that he is an utter phony with a comical inability to conceal this fact from the public view. And this is surprising since hiding his obvious insincerity has hitherto been an important part of his skill set. Yes, Oz is an actual medical doctor—a cardiothoracic surgeon, at that. But his TV persona has always had a loose relationship with actual medicine. He has pushed quack pills and salves for years and been called out for it repeatedly; pressed by NBC News about criticisms he’s received he pointed out that his namesake television show was “not a medical show” and observed that in its logo the word “Dr.” was much smaller than “Oz.”

Oz was undoubtedly good on TV, but outside the warm embrace of daytime teevee cameras, he becomes wooden and stiff off-the-cuff. Fabulously wealthy—he owns 10 houses, even if he claims to only own two—he has a distinct Lucille Bluth vibe; ordinary things seem to confuse him. Another problem Oz faced in the battle to seem like a normal human in the Pennsylvania Senate race was the small matter of him not being from Pennsylvania. Oz had been—and by many accounts still very much is—a resident of New Jersey, a state despised by many Pennsylvanians.

It’s possible that things would be going better if Oz had a different opponent—another greasy TV host, perhaps, or better yet a conventional corporate Democrat. Instead, he’s facing Fetterman, a burly York County native with a penchant for wearing shorts in the winter. Authenticity is a fraught quality to assess in political campaigns, where almost everything is artifice, but Fetterman makes it easier to divine than most candidates for the U.S. Senate. He certainly has the knack for out-muscling Oz in the authenticity fight, and he clearly loves rubbing his hapless opponent’s nose in it. The contrast could not be more striking. The last two months—during which Fetterman has largely been off the trail recovering from a stroke—have not played out like a traditional political campaign. Rather, they’ve been an escalating series of ritual humiliations.

Fetterman has successfully, and hilariously, played up the fact that Oz is a carpetbagger with all kinds of eye-catching stunts: He’s flown a banner over the Jersey shore reading, “HEY DR. OZ, WELCOME HOME TO NJ! ♥ JOHN”; enlisted the help of Snooki and Bruce Springsteen guitarist Steven Van Zandt to roast the longtime Jersey resident; he’s even kick-started a campaign to get the doctor inducted into the Garden State’s Hall of Fame. Oz, repeatedly baited into responding in kind, constantly misses the mark. When Oz released a spooky black and white video accusing (a quite cool-looking) Fetterman of being a malevolent force in American politics, Fetterman made it his header image on Twitter.

Over the weekend, Oz once again humiliated himself, posting a video of himself shopping at “Wegners,” a grocery store that doesn’t exist. (He appears to have been in a Redner’s—and created a portmanteau with America’s finest grocery chain, Wegman’s.) In the video Oz is shown shopping for “crudités,” apparently in some attempt to draw attention to inflation—and the rising cost of said crudités—like a downcast version of Ina Garten. Aiming for the Barefoot Contessa’s trademark cinéma vérité, Oz awkwardly ambles down the produce aisle, half-heartedly picking up various vegetables. But rather than draw attention to prices, Oz instead makes it clear that he has no idea how grocery shopping works. The prices that he comes up with are wildly off the mark—for instance, he tells viewers that a head of broccoli costs $2, when that is the price per pound. Fetterman’s response to it all? “In PA we call this a … veggie tray.”

 

Dr. Oz’s social media posts and appearances have taken on the semblance of hostage videos—Fetterman is occupying acres of real estate in the celebrity doctor’s head. Try as they might to find a message that won’t result in Fetterman going viral with a savage riposte, they fail again and again. Fetterman’s overall message—that Dr. Oz is a fraud who doesn’t know anything about Pennsylvania or its voters—is reinforced every time. Authenticity campaigns rarely work, in large part because these battles often put one hyperpolished and micromanaged politician against another; but Fetterman is the perfect rival for Dr. Oz in this regard. He consistently field-dresses Oz, leaving him exposed.

Oz’s sad-sack travails have been such an acute failure so far that it can’t help but raise another question: Why is he doing this to begin with? His life was perfectly fine before he pretended to live in a state to run for Senate and care about political issues. His job as a quack doctor on TV made him a rich celebrity because the gatekeepers in that industry never really cared about applying scrutiny. Running for the Senate doesn’t afford you that advantage; as a consequence more people have caught on to the fact that the treatments he offers are ridiculous and he’s never faced much in the way of consequences for his quackery—instead, he’s been a rich celebrity. It’s really inexplicable that Oz decided the time was right to remake himself into a MAGA-adjacent foot soldier for Donald Trump’s reelection, especially when he clearly cares so little for politics and has no interest in policy. Oz descended from carefree heights of wealth and celebrity to trawl around Pennsylvania and get mocked and abused at every turn. Hope it was worth it!

 

[Didba 5,510]

Oz was one of the guys saying to nebulous hydrogen peroxide to kill Covid in your sinuses. He had old people killing themselves by slowly poisoning themselves . My poor gullible mother did it for a week before she mentioned it to me. 
 

after I sent her proper articles on it and advised her against it she ceased the practice but my nutty anti-vac aunt who turned my mom onto it has kept doing it. 
Sadly, my aunt has had Covid twice now and is sick with pneumonia. Still not vaxed. 

[DKW 86 7,907]

Oz and Ben Carson. Needed to stay in their fields. 

[TexasTiger 14,303]

19 hours ago, AUDub said:

This is a fun editorial:

https://newrepublic.com/article/167457/humiliation-mehmet-oz-fetterman-pennsylvania

 

First rate.

[TexasTiger 14,303]

17 hours ago, Didba said:

Oz was one of the guys saying to nebulous hydrogen peroxide to kill Covid in your sinuses. He had old people killing themselves by slowly poisoning themselves . My poor gullible mother did it for a week before she mentioned it to me. 
 

after I sent her proper articles on it and advised her against it she ceased the practice but my nutty anti-vac aunt who turned my mom onto it has kept doing it. 
Sadly, my aunt has had Covid twice now and is sick with pneumonia. Still not vaxed. 

There’s a special place in hell for these guys.