To begin with, Oz is hosting Mercola as a “controversial supplement expert”. Mercola is no expert - he’s a quackery promoter full of bad advice.
The way Oz presents subjects on his website is to have Mercola’s advice posted, followed by Oz’s views. Readers are given the impression there’s a “controversy” where no such thing exists according to an overwhelming consensus of medical experts.
For instance, Mercola thinks use of tanning beds is just fine if they feature “safe” UVB rays. Oz’s stated opinion differs in a mild way, when what he should be doing is highlighting the stupidity of Mercola’s beliefs.
“UVB, the chief cause of skin reddening and sunburn, tends to damage the skin’s more superficial epidermal layers. It plays a key role in the development of skin cancer and a contributory role in tanning and photoaging.”
Note also that Mercola thinks tanning beds are protective against melanoma, when just the opposite is true. This is a guy who Oz is happy to give a forum and respectability to.
I’m kind of surprised to see Blank Slate getting so involved in this discussion. From earlier:
Gee, Blank Slate, shouldn’t you be focusing on the real world instead of posting to this thread?
I agree, Jackmannii, the proper response to this stuff from the scientific community should be at best seriously debunking it and at worst just ignoring it altogether.
This is pretty much how I feel too. I have never really watched her show, but she’s clearly smart and I do admire how she’s built an empire. But I do wish she would apply critical thinking to things she promotes.
I tried to find what he talked about on Oprah’s show. It seems he appeared 55 times, but from what I can find it doesn’t seem like he promoted woo on her show, other than promoting resveratrol supplements which could be argued to be woo. It’s possible I missed something though and he did promote crazy woo on her show, and just it’s hard to find that in Google since most results are more recent ones regarding his own show. So it definitely is possible that everything he said on her show was perfectly reasonable health advice.
However, it is her production company that produces his show, and she’s listed as an executive producer in IMDB. If she wanted to, she could tell him to knock it off with the crazy woo stuff, or tell him to add a lot more disclaimers and opposing viewpoints, or just completely shut down his show. I will never be in her position, and I will never have my own production company, but if I gave a show to a smart, well-respected doctor who gave reasonable advice, and then he started promoting woo, I would definitely get him to stop it. Both because I don’t want to promote disinformation, and because I don’t want to be associated with anyone else promoting disinformation.
I don’t know how much Oprah trusts or believes in Dr. Oz. Maybe she just is lacking in skepticism and critical thinking and doesn’t think anything he promotes is woo, which is possible. Or maybe he gives enough good information around with the bad information that she doesn’t detect the woo. Or maybe she doesn’t care about true information, and only cares about the high ratings.
What do you mean, after he flipped out? Was there some specific incident you are referring to? Or just do you mean after he started talking less about exercise and stress reduction and more about miracle cures?
I can’t find exactly what happened on his show, if Mercola directly said something like don’t do chemotherapy, do these other things instead, and Dr. Oz nodded.
But that Oz has him on the show gives the guy a platform. Oz has had him on multiple times, and is basically endorsing him as someone you should at least hear out. I’m pro-free speech but not all speech is worthy of being listened to, and Mercola should not be listened to.
On the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliver talked about climate change, and that on many news shows, there will be one scientist (usually Bill Nye) talking about how climate change is real, and one more person on talking about how climate change isn’t real. But that’s doing a disservice, since it makes it look like it’s 50/50 on whether climate change is real, when actually 97% of scientists agree that climate change is real. He then illustrated what a real debate should look like, by having three climate change deniers at a desk, and then Bill Nye and 96 other scientists surrounding the desk talking about why climate change is real.
Having Mercola or other peddlers of woo on his show is doing the same thing. It makes it look like what they have to say is important and should be heard, when it isn’t. It would be possible to have Mercola and others on the show with the purpose of showing the audience why they’re wrong and what things you should do that’s backed up by actual evidence, but I that doesn’t appear to be Oz’s thing.
While trying to find more things about what Oz has said and hasn’t, I found this New Yorker article. (My apologies if someone has posted it already upthread and I missed it). It’s long but very interesting, and I’d recommend reading it. Here are some relevant excerpts:
Oz is obviously very smart and accomplished. But his approach to evidence based medicine is troubling.
I have to agree with you and I’m not even a fan of Oprah. For some reason, she is a lightning rod for attention. I think her fans mistake her confidence and success as a sign of benevolent omnipotence. And folks who hate her fundamentally can’t stand that she uses her charismatic personality to make piles and piles of money. It’s as though she is somehow obligated to only apply her fame and wealth towards the betterment of society, and is not allowed to misstep or screw up or prioritize entertainment over moral righteousness. That would be fine if that standard was applied to others like her, but it’s not. She is human, so is bound to get something wrong from time to time.
She also has all the opportunity to use that platform to admit she’s fucked up and do something to correct it. Her failure to do so is disappointing at best. Why doesn’t she do a series of shows on why the fuck people like McCarthy and Mercola are completely and utterly wrong?
Yeah, but all this assumes that there’s something inherently evil about woo and that a layman like Oprah is responsible for eradicating woo. I don’t project that mission onto her. Oprah isn’t an MD and I don’t blame her not regulating the medical content on Oz’s show. If you can’t trust a guy with his credentials to stay on the beam professionally, then it wouldn’t make sense for her to give him his own show.
Oprah is a business woman. Her main concern is making her sure her businesses make money. She isn’t a hospital administrator or a medical practice owner. She’s not going to be sued if some idiot out there takes Dr. Oz’s advice and ends up dying. If Oz says something stupid, the only way she’s going to know or be concerned about it is if esteemed medical professionals publically speak out against his wackery. Since that dissension could cost him advertising dollars, Oprah ain’t gonna want that. Maybe then that is when she will put some pressure on Oz to reign in the woo.
Did you and a bunch of your like-minded friends appeal to her to do that? No seriously, I’m not joking. Did you threaten to boycott her advertisers? Send a petition to the network? Contact her and explain why you think it was wrong to have her on the show without a counterbalance?
Because if not, then being outraged over Oprah looks kind of weak and pointless. Sure, she could have done those things. But if she wasn’t pressured to do it because her detractors couldn’t be arsed, then whose fault was that?
Woo that gives people ammunition to not get vaccines, not get real and effective cancer treatment, or spend scarce money on useless treatments is evil.
It’s one thing not to create shows with purpose of debunking woo. But once you give woo a platform and have the harm that it causes pointed out to you then you do have the responsibility to expose that. She felt the need to do so with James Frey who caused no harm, why not these folks?
I’m not quite sure what you’re contradicting, all of your cites seem to support my perception of her show. If the only nit is the steepness of her ratings curve compared to Donahue’s while they were both in competition on air, then I concede that.
“…Winfrey continued Donahue’s pattern of exploring topics that were at the time considered taboo…”
I haven’t seen the episode featuring McCarthy, so without me knowing the extent that she promoted antivaccination, I can’t really act as though I know how egregious she was. Was her intent to have JM talk about her kid’s history with autism and why she believes what she does? Or was her aim to promote and sell a cause?
I do think its unreasonable to expect her to issue corrections or apologies merely for a belief espoused by her guest on her show. The line between inviting the expression of a certain viewpoint and being an advocate for a certain viewpoint might be blurry sometimes, but there is a difference. When talk show hosts interview authors on their latest books, for example, I don’t assume the host accepts the author’s theories. I also don’t expect the host to challenge the author’s ideas point by point. I expect the host to elicit from the author the what and the why behind their ideas, and that’s pretty much it.
I would only expect Oprah to have gone on an apology tour if Oprah herself made claims about vaccination that contradict good science and fact. That Frey fits this is why she came out against him. Oprah actually vouched for his authenticity, so of course she had to set the record straight when he came out as a fraud.
You might want to do a little reading about Oprah’s promotion of McCarthy before making ignorant comments about both of them. Oprah has a revoltingly cozy relationship with McCarthy and has never called her out on any of her bullshit.
Under the heading “Inspiration” Oprah’s fucking website even has this glowing blurb about that disease loving asshole:
Perhaps you should learn rhetoric and other debating tactics to make your points, rather than typography. Then not only would people be able to take you seriously if for some reason they wished to, but it’s just possible that, upon attempting to clarify what you write rather than obfuscate it with unnecessary “tools of emphasis”, you might actually come to understand that the vast majority of it is steaming bullshit.
It’s kind of stupid to accuse me of making ignorant comments about Oprah when I just admitted to never have watching the Oprah episode featuring McCarthy and at any rate, I haven’t made any ignorant comments about her in this thread either.
It’s obvious she has helped Jenny McCarthy have her voice heard and held her up as a Inspirational Person Worth Paying Attention To, and yeah I agree that’s bad.
Woo can be harmful. Oz had an episode on gay reparation therapy, and gay reparation therapy has harmed people. I’d argue that the fad diets and miracle weight loss things have harmed people, since people will try those since they are recommended by a doctor, and end up not ever losing weight, or lose weight and gain it back.
Oz does support vaccinations, which I was glad to hear (although his children weren’t vaccinated because of his wife’s beliefs.) But I think Oz’s attitude contributes to why people avoid vaccinations and why measles are spreading. Here’s another quote from the New Yorker article:
He seems to promote that there are secrets the medical establishment doesn’t want you to know, and that you might know better than your doctor, and that there are miracle cures. When in fact, your doctor does know more than you about medical stuff. Your opinion shouldn’t be dismissed, and you should be able to ask questions and feel comfortable and get a second or third opinion if needed. But you should also trust the medical establishment and scientific research more than just your gut feeling.
I definitely don’t hold Oprah responsible for eradicating woo. But I also don’t expect her to encourage its spread, which is what she did by allowing McCarthy on her show, and producing Oz’s show.
Gee, a few dry lines from the CDC to compete with Jenny McCarthy live. That’s “telling both sides”, sister!
Except on the issue of vaccination, it is not a matter of “one side says this, one side says the opposite, take your pick”. There are the rational, evidence-based professionals and parents and an overwhelming body of sound science which recognizes the great value and safety of vaccines, and there is the potty-mouthed stupidity of antivaxers like McCarthy. Oprah chose to give her a pulpit and to promote her talk show career.
Oprah has also pulled this “tell both sides” crap in relation to the HPV vaccine. Her website has “pros” and “cons” presented by an OB-GYN, whose “con” section cites VAERS (a raw database that anyone, health professionals, lawyers, or others with an ax to grind can contribute to). The “cons” also include the following gem:
“Fatal motor accidents and suicides have been linked to the vaccine.”
Yes, there are people dumb and/or calculating enough to proclaim that the HPV vaccine causes car crashes and suicides. But Oprah should know enough not to give credence to such flaming bullshit.
Besides, I’m pissed at her for taking attention away from Dr. Oz, whose pitting this is. :mad:
