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Group of Doctors Call on Columbia Univ. to Oust Dr. Oz

Wayne

Senior Member
Messages
4,300
Location
Ashland, Oregon
My goodness, shame on Dr. Oz for opposing GMOs. :devil:

Group of Doctors Call on Columbia Univ. to Oust Dr. Oz

"We are surprised and dismayed that Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons would permit Dr. Mehmet Oz to occupy a faculty appointment, let alone a senior administrative position in the Department of Surgery.

"As described here and here, as well as in other publications, Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine, as well as baseless and relentless opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops. Worst of all, he has manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.

"Thus, Dr. Oz is guilty of either outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgements about what constitutes appropriate medical treatments, or both. Whatever the nature of his pathology, members of the public are being misled and endangered, which makes Dr. Oz's presence on the faculty of a prestigious medical institution unacceptable."
..................................................

I clicked on the second "here" link, and discovered this little gem:

"The episode, titled “The Non-Browning GMO Apple: Is It Safe?,” pushed the fallacy that there is some sort of “right to know” (via labeling) whether a food has been produced with the techniques of molecular genetic engineering (aka “genetic modification,” or GM)."
 
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ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
Whatever the nature of his pathology,
:jaw-drop::bang-head:
vil-arrachechvx.gif
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
as well as baseless and relentless opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops

Ah, the nub, methinks. Given Dr Miller's long, dare I say "relentless" campaign to persuade the world that GMOs are the best thing since sliced bread (and the best thing for making sliced bread), I think I see what got this campaign going.

There are plenty of reasons for criticizing Dr Oz, but at least the man asks questions. Some of his critics seem to fall into the "sometimes wrong, never uncertain" category.
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
I meant to add: Dr Henry I Miller, author of the letter, was a founding member of TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition), an anti-environmentalist PR group funded by Philip Morris (and other tobacco companies), Exxon, Dow and others of the usual suspects.

Among other things, TASSC worked hard to argue against second-hand smoke legislation. Strange position for a doctor, n'est-ce pas? I wonder if CBS news thought to ask him about that.
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
I meant to add: Dr Henry I Miller, author of the letter, was a founding member of TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition), an anti-environmentalist PR group funded by Philip Morris (and other tobacco companies), Exxon, Dow and others of the usual suspects.

Among other things, TASSC worked hard to argue against second-hand smoke legislation. Strange position for a doctor, n'est-ce pas? I wonder if CBS news thought to ask him about that.

So there you go... follow the money, as usual.
 

perchance dreamer

Senior Member
Messages
1,691
I know Oz is controversial, but a lot of things he advocates are common sense and well researched. I have a fondness for him because he wrote an article in our local paper about how the harm of drinking even unsweetened fruit juice. He talked about how it spikes insulin and can have a bad effect on blood pressure.

Reading Oz's article finally convinced my husband to stop drinking a large glass of orange juice everyday. Since he cut out the juice and started exercising, his blood pressure has come back to normal.
 

Wayne

Senior Member
Messages
4,300
Location
Ashland, Oregon
I have my issues with "Natural News" (which posted the following article online). But I appreciate them putting out a few facts on these guys.

Mainstream media FAIL: Sleazebag doctors attacking Doctor Oz have histories of criminal fraud and ties to Monsanto's "Discredit Bureau"

Natural News has learned that the recent media attack on Oz was run by a "black ops" group operating as a character assassination team for the so-called "Monsanto Discredit Bureau."

But the mainstream media absolutely refuses to report that one of the doctors signing the attack letter is a convicted felon and did prison time for defrauding the government for medical fees.
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
I know Oz is controversial, but a lot of things he advocates are common sense and well researched. I have a fondness for him because he wrote an article in our local paper about how the harm of drinking even unsweetened fruit juice. He talked about how it spikes insulin and can have a bad effect on blood pressure.

Overall, I like Dr Oz too. And I agree, most of his info is common sense. He challenges the powers of the mainstream corporations and doesn't hesitate to talk about the dangers of GMOs and Round-Up and thiemerosol in vaccines. He even did a segment on the toxins (fire retardant) in furniture.

I started a major letter writing campaign on this forum back in 2009 to request Dr Oz to do a segment on the XMRV discovery that came out back then. Donnica Moore, who I worked with to help her write the talking points, was on that show. Oz very empathetic towards people with ME/CFS. He was the *only* popular tv personality willing to talk about our illness. Oprah never was. Neither was 60 Minutes. I think he deserves a lot of credit for that.

 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
I have my issues with "Natural News" (which posted the following article online). But I appreciate them putting out a few facts on these guys.

Mainstream media FAIL: Sleazebag doctors attacking Doctor Oz have histories of criminal fraud and ties to Monsanto's "Discredit Bureau"

Natural News has learned that the recent media attack on Oz was run by a "black ops" group operating as a character assassination team for the so-called "Monsanto Discredit Bureau."

But the mainstream media absolutely refuses to report that one of the doctors signing the attack letter is a convicted felon and did prison time for defrauding the government for medical fees.

It's like the stuff of a bad Hollywood conspiracy movie, isn't it, but the more you look the more you see this sort of downright evil stuff going on. Corporations like Monsanto toy with governments.

More depressingly, mass news media have now completely abandoned any pretence of giving a damn. As the Natural news article points out, so far no major news organisation seems to have noticed that the people attacking Doctor Oz are compromised up the wazoo. It took me about 2 minutes on Friday to establish some of Dr. Miller's more problematic ties and positions. You start looking at the histories of some of the other doctors who signed that letter and any half-competent journalist should be smelling a) a rat, and b) a great story. So why is Natural News the only one covering that story?

Whatever else you may think of him, Doctor Oz ploughs his own furrow and isn't afraid to speak out against the great tide of 'established opinion', so much of which is now bought and paid for. We need more people like him.
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
Really disappointed to see that John Oliver’s show again picked this up last night and again went after Dr Oz, demonstrably unfairly at times, while dismissing the question of his critics’ agenda with these words “.. [Dr Oz] arguing that industry ties were behind their criticism, which might be true*, but none of that answers the substance of the accusations that he’s a quack”. * my italics

So, Last Week Tonight is not remotely interested in the BioTech, tobacco company and Pharmaceutical ties of Dr Oz’ attackers. Oliver also reeled out that ‘fact’ that “a major medical journal claimed that evidence supported less than half the recommendations on his show”. No, it didn't. A non peer-reviewed paper in the media studies section of the BMJ, which relied on the researchers’ judgment of what constituted a recommendation and on what constituted good evidence for or against one, did indeed come up with that figure, as well as the figure that 39% of recommendations were neither supported nor contradicted. Given that a lot of Dr Oz’ subject matter is supplements, diet, super-foods etc, you’re probably not going to find clinical trial evidence to support most of that.

In fact, the study in the BMJ (http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7346) was pretty exemplary in its level of self-awareness and self-criticism. The researchers clearly acknowledge that they changed their methodology mid-process (PACE trial, take note) and are very honest in their conclusions about the limitations of what can be deduced from any of this. They also acknowledged the subjectivity of much of their methodology.

The Last Week Tonight piece, of course, didn’t bother with any of that, just as it didn’t bother with the fraud conviction of one of the doctors going after Dr Oz (to my knowledge, not a convicted felon), let alone the unarguable fact of many of those doctors' ties to industry (no "might be true" about it).

When Last Week Tonight first appeared last year, I loved it. I thought it was an important, possibly radical new direction for television satire — more serious than The Daily Show and less mainstream in its concerns. But I’m getting increasingly disillusioned with it, especially since the self-serving, wasted Edward Snowden interview and now this continued display of one-eyed prejudice when it comes to science. Seems that John Oliver has complete, unshakeable faith in science, just as long as it fits his agenda. And I’m starting to realise that his agenda is every bit as orthodox and blinkered as the traditional one from which he would like to differentiate himself. Makes me miss ’Stephen Colbert’ all the more.
 

MjC

Messages
1
Dr. Oz should definitely not get fired or be silenced. But so shouldn't those people who point out his misinformation and quackery. Or the disinformation of Monsanto, orthodox medicine, etc.

But I think the Dr. Oz case is an example where the overall picture is missed by most everyone.

Surely, Dr. Oz has conflict of interests yet he claims to not have a conflict of interest while he is available for sponsoring partnerships whether from the orthodox medical business or the alternative medical business - meaning he gets paid by these sponsors to have their products advertised on his show and all of it increases his fame, viewer-ship, and thus his income and that of his enterprise. Oz panders to both alternative and conventional medicine - anything that brings him and his enterprise more fame and money.

Surely, there is proof that Dr. Oz (and his team) does NOT closely consider the merits of the products he advertises is available:

Dr. Oz had claimed that the diet product garcinia cambogia is the "Holy Grail" of weight loss and that it is also beneficial for diabetics but the product is probably contributing to diabetes - Do Statins & Garcinia Cambogia Side Effects Boost Diabetes? In the recent Today show, Oz said about diet pills that's "a flawed area with lots of fraud, both in the research and in products" but these facts have been known in the medical literature for many years way BEFORE Dr. Oz promote diet supplements as "miracles" and what not... so he and his so-called excellent research team should have known that, pointed it out, or avoided that area from the start (read the article cited above). It's proof that no one should trust Dr. Oz and his lucrative enterprise. But... because he's a misleading showman, deceptively leveraging of his medical credentials as a sales and promotional tool, the general gullible public falls for this "trustworthy" person just about every single time...

Surely, the lame excuses Dr. Oz provided for his misconduct (eg, his show isn't a medical show he said a day before the Today show got taped - he corrected it at the Today show probably realizing that many people might not be so dumb to see how deeply deceptive that statement was) are about as shallow, conniving, and deceptive as his usual way of advertising miracle products. His fans generally make excuses for him like he makes excuses for his irresponsible behavior.

However, the biggest truth is that in both alternative medicine and conventional medicine (and other huge corporate industries), etc quackery, scams, and a lack of integrity are commonplace (which both industries tend to hide from the public) because they're both mainly self-serving businesses. But because it is so polarized each side consistently fails to acknowledge and recognize its own weaknesses, mistakes, and misconducts - thus they both tend to fail to recognize this 'big picture' situation.
 

Wayne

Senior Member
Messages
4,300
Location
Ashland, Oregon
But because it is so polarized each side consistently fails to acknowledge and recognize its own weaknesses, mistakes, and misconducts - thus they both tend to fail to recognize this 'big picture' situation.

@MjC -- Interesting, and somewhat perplexing first post. If you don't mind divulging, I'm curious what brought you to the PR forum. Do you have ME/CFS? -- Though not without his flaws, I myself think Dr. Oz is basically a decent guy. Can't say that about a lot of other spokespersons in the many industries that significantly impact our health on a daily basis.