Dr. Oz: Scam Artist

By Danceswithfat @danceswithfat

You may have heard that the US Senate called Dr. Oz to Capital Hill for a spanking, because he has made it a habit to sell snake oil under the guise of being a medical professional.

“Thanks to brand new scientific research, I can tell you about a revolutionary fat buster, It’s called Garcinia cambogia.” ‎he said in front of a huge screen with the words “No Exercise. No Diet. No Effort” written on it.

The chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance, Sen. Claire McCaskill, said  “The scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products you called ‘miracles’, I don’t get why you need to say this stuff when you know it’s not true..”

Dr. Oz responded “My job, I feel, on the show is to be a cheerleader for the audience, and when they don’t think they have hope, when they don’t think they can make it happen, I want to look, and I do look everywhere, including in alternative healing traditions, for any evidence that might be supportive to them.”

Kind of makes me wonder what else he’s willing to lie about so that he can put being a cheerleader for what people want over being a competent medical professional promoting evidence-based medicine. Also, let’s be clear that he’s not willing to look everywhere, even if it’s literally right in front of his face.

A few years ago Dr. Glenn Gaesser successfully campaigned to get on Dr. Oz’s show to talk about how wrong Dr. Oz is about weight and health.  I did a video discussing the fact that Dr. Oz, who makes millions of dollars selling weight loss in one form or another, was “flabbergasted” to find out that there is research that disagrees with his medical opinion  cheerleading.

If he was really going to “look everywhere” he would look into the studies that find that habits are a much better predictor of future health than body size (knowing of course that health isn’t an obligation, a barometer of worthiness, guaranteed regardless habits, or entirely within our control.)  But where’s the profit in that?   He is a scam artist and he can’t be trusted -the sooner everyone realizes this the sooner he goes off the air and we can replace him with a show that has more integrity, like Real World Bachelor Jackass Millionaires (with 10 points to readers who get the song reference.)

Oh Mehmet, can I call you Mehmet?,  you’re an embarrassment to your profession and a danger to your listeners, how about you just shut it down and go on home now.

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