Dr. Oz is a heart surgeon who will manage the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Donald Trump’s administration. While all the Cabinet choices have grabbed people’s attention for horrifying reasons, he’s also a concerning choice.
Between hosting The Dr. Oz Show starting in 2009 to losing the Pennsylvania senate run in 2022, Dr. Oz has never been out of the headlines. Now that he’s going to be part of Trump’s presidency, it’s time to find out more about why he’s problematic.
Why is Dr. Oz so controversial?
The answer to this question is a long one, so let’s take some deep breaths and get into it. First of all, Dr. Oz’s beliefs about healthy living are problematic. For one thing, he has questioned vaccines, from having “experts” on The Dr. Oz Show who are against them, to saying autism and vaccines are connected (a long-time claim that isn’t true but continues). So, RFK Jr., who is a critic of vaccines, and Dr. Oz will work together well, right?
Dr. Oz’s spread of misinformation continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, most notably in two horrifying instances. The first was when he told Sean Hannity that “schools are a very appetizing opportunity” and “may only cost us 2-3% in terms of total mortality.” People were stunned, and it’s hard to know why a father (and, well, any human being) would make that statement. He also said during a 2020 Fox News segment that hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine could stop COVID-19. That worked out well…
Dr. Oz also talked about many products on his show (like green bean coffee and raspberry ketones) that he says will help people lose weight… but that’s not the case. It got so bad that, in 2014, senators even asked Dr. Oz what he was doing. According to CNN, the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance, Claire McCaskill, said, “I don’t get why you need to say this stuff when you know it’s not true.”
There was also Dr. Oz’s time at Columbia University. In 2015, according to Vox, doctors wanted Dr. Oz to leave Columbia because of his “outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgements.” Then, several years earlier, in 2003, people were absolutely devastated to learn about the alleged mistreatment of dogs. Catherine Dell’Orto told People that Dr. Oz was the “principal investigator” of so-called research in labs. She said fellows and Ph.D students were experimenting on the dogs, and she didn’t witness Dr. Oz doing that. However, as People pointed out, a study’s principal investigator has to ensure that nothing dangerous is happening. Dell’Orto says dogs were being hurt and they passed away or were euthanized. Ads mentioned this horrific “research” when he ran for Senate in 2022.
Dr. Steven J. Dell wrote a 2015 journal piece called “What’s Wrong With Dr. Oz?” and wrote what is the heart of the issue: “Sometimes Mehmet will entertain wacky ideas — particularly if they are wacky and have entertainment value.” That sentence could describe Trump and pretty much everyone he is appointing to his Cabinet… although most would say it’s not entertaining. As Dell wrote in his piece, when psychic John Edwards was on The Dr. Oz Show, Dr. Oz said, “I’ve learned in my career that there are times when science just hasn’t caught up with things.”
Speaking to a psychic is fine, and there’s nothing wrong with getting in touch with your spiritual side. But people are concerned because Dr. Oz has continually suggested that things are healthy when they’re harmful. Whether someone is performing heart surgery, teaching the next generation of doctors, chatting about health on TV, or running something as important as Medicare and Medicaid, does anyone want to hear that person question science?