There were some very useful and interesting episodes of the Dr. Oz Show. Then something happened.
“Eat broccoli and exercise.”
Recommended Videos
Those were the words that first acquainted me with Dr. Mehmet Oz sometime in 2004 when I caught a segment of the Oprah Winfrey Show.
He was introduced as a cardiac surgeon and gave sensible advice about the links between lifestyle and health. Although I must say that a subsequent segment in which Dr. Oz, using appropriate props, described how the state of colonic health can be determined by the shape of one’s poop seemed more like “meditainment” than medicine.
I would later learn that not only was he highly regarded by colleagues as an outstanding surgeon, but Oz had also forged a career as a researcher and had even patented a device to aid the ailing heart of patients waiting for a transplant. However, as the years passed, I discovered that Dr. Oz’s sage advice was prone to infiltration by misinformation.
My first disenchantment with him surfaced in 2005, when he was interviewed as an expert on the ABC program Prime Time Live in an episode about Brazilian “healer” Joao Teixeira, known by the name “John of God.”
Desperately ill people from around the world flocked to John — a farmer with no medical education — who claimed to have the ability to summon spiritual physicians to carry out “invisible surgery.”
However, patients could also choose to have “visible surgery” that involved John inserting surgical scissors up their nose using an old carnival trick. Claims from patients about their disease vanishing abounded.
Oz had been invited to comment because a decade earlier he had launched the Cardiac Complementary Care centre at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital to study such “alternative” healing methods as reflexology, aromatherapy, prayer and therapeutic touch. Also invited was James Randi, who had a stellar reputation for investigating such claims and had found them lacking evidence.
Reaching the pituitary in this fashion is impossible, Randi had explained. Although Oz did not actually claim that John had supernatural powers, he did accept that some sort of healing had occurred, commenting: “Crawfish regrow their nerves, right? Maybe there are things that we could harvest in our psyche that allows us to do it as well.”
No, I don’t think we can regrow nerves with willpower.
John was a charlatan capitalizing on people’s desperation and, as we later learned, he was also a sexual predator eventually sentenced to 118 years in prison. While the producers gave coverage to Oz’s naive comments about John’s capers, Randi’s extensive interview was cut to 20 seconds.
After having witnessed ABC’s John of God fiasco, I paid more attention to Oz, especially after his 2009 anointment by Oprah as “America’s Doctor,” which spawned his own daily show.
The Dr. Oz Show became one of the most popular daytime programs, regularly watched by 4 million people. There were some very useful and interesting episodes in which Oz, using giant models, taught viewers about the intricacies of the heart and lungs and explained how clogged arteries can cause a heart attack. He punctuated this by displaying a mound of human fat harvested via liposuction and described its role in causing the plaque that builds up in arteries. All very good stuff.
Then something happened.
There was ebullient praise of green coffee bean extract and raspberry ketone for weight loss: “This little bean has scientists saying they have found a magic weight-loss cure for every body type, and, when turned into a supplement, this miracle pill can burn fat fast,” Oz intoned. Apparently, it wasn’t that magical, as soon it was forgotten, only to be replaced by raspberry ketone as the “No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat.” There is no scientific evidence for either.
But “miracles” continued fast and furious on the Dr. Oz Show.
Red onion, endives and sea bass were said to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer, colloidal silver to counter symptoms of the common cold, a mixture of strawberries and baking soda to whiten teeth, selenium supplements to prevent cancer, a bar of lavender soap under the sheets to relieve restless leg syndrome, and 200 orgasms a year to extend life expectancy by six years.
All of these lack evidence, but at least the latter two are unlikely to be harmful.
Then there were the interviews. Super misinformant Joseph Mercola was given an unopposed voice, former yoga instructor Jeffrey Smith, with zero expertise, was allowed to pontificate on the supposed dangers of genetically modified foods, and psychics talked to the dead with Oz apparently unaware of cold reading and the various tricks used by self-proclaimed mediums.
After psychic John Edward demonstrated his abilities, Oz proclaimed: “There’s something here. It’s bizarre. I don’t know what exactly is happening. But it’s definitely something.” It was something all right, but not the message from the dead that Oz believed it to be.
However, it wasn’t these crumbs of nonsense — nor his Tooth Fairy-ish promotion of reiki, the supposed transfer of energy from one person to another by hand manipulation — that finalized my disenchantment.
It was his promotion of Dr. Oz’s Homeopathic Starter Kit. Homeopathy, which claims to cure disease with non-existent molecules, is the most absurd of alternative therapies.
Why am I now dredging up Oz’s checkered history?
Because U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has nominated him to run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, endowing him with the power to influence drug price negotiations, medication coverage decisions and the Affordable Care Act. He will be working under Robert Kennedy Jr., who may become secretary of health and human services, a role for which he is unqualified and mentally unfit.
Not being a psychic, I can’t predict what kind of job Oz will do, but anyone with such an impressive history as a cardiac surgeon has to have pretty good mental machinery. I hope it hasn’t become too clogged up with his subsequent dallying with folly on the Dr. Oz Show, which required him to be more of an entertainer at the expense of sacrificing critical thinking.
Such thinking will be critical to counter the foolishness of his boss.