Dr. Oz promotion of quackery

In My Humble Opinion
1

Yesterday I was flipping through the channels, and seen where he had numerologist expert Glynis McCant on. Dr. Oz said he first learned about numerology by meeting wise men in India. He said he didn’t learn anything about it in medical school (duh).

Anyway, she basically gets his and others birthdates, adds up the numbers individually, and then did some other math with it to arrive at a final number, and proceeds on to what all of that means, but really it is just a cold reading that magicians also use. Her cite shows you how to do the numbers here. The drivel that came out of her mouth was fast paced (John Edward style), but yet credulous Dr. Oz never bats an eye, and acting as her pitchman and stooge, after a number of readings, asked members of the audience if this described them to which a large number of hands were raised. When I’ve seen other quacks on, he sometimes might say something along the lines, of, “well, I’m not sure if I believe or not, but many do, and I think it’s something that should be looked into further.” With the numerologist, I don’t recall him even doing that.

I know after others have appeared on his show, their sites say something along the lines, that due to the overwhelming response after the Dr. Oz show, they are not able to take any new patients until x number of months. Or if they have a product they were promoting, they comment on the overwhelming success of their sales after his show.

Quackwatch has quite a few articles on Dr. Oz. Wow, he even promotes magical pajamas that are called Goodnighties, and tries to put science behind it, and since he uses them in his household, you should too. Read from all of the wonderful testimonials on his site. Or go to Quackwatch and hear what they have to say about it.

What Montel Williams did for Sylvia Brown, Dr. Oz is doing for even a larger number of quacks. It often has medical doctors on with questionable business practices and are making claims it has no business doing. His wife is a certified Reiki Master and energy-healing specialist which might help explain his acceptance of woo. He’s had psychics on that talk to the dead, and I doubt there is a pseudo-science he wouldn’t promote. And hey, Oprah frequently promoted him on her show, and if she refers to him as America’s doctor, what more do you want? Maybe Oz will book Kevin Trudeau on a future program.

What a racket!

2

Follow the money. Woo is big business.

3

Surfing I saw that too and while his show already struck me as being extremely light on quality, this should have been embarassing even for him. What a joke.

4

[commercial] Next episode on Dr. Oz, he shares more of his household’s wonderful bedroom secrets. Learn how edible panties with enriched vitamins from Racket XYZ will get your day off to a much better start than other brands. Also notice the particular aroma these panties have before and after use that others just can’t duplicate. Don’t forget to visit Dr. Oz’s site, and leave a testimonial of how this product has changed your life for the better. His wife has, and she’s never felt more feminine clean. [/commercial]

5

While he is/was a fairly well respected physician, as a talk show host he’s pretty much useless for medical information. He jumped the shark a long time ago, pretty much right after his show started and he found that woo is the way to get ratings.

6

I’m thinking–hoping!–that it’s “was”, Telemark. That shit oughta get you laughed out of any private practice, hospital, or freaking barber shop.

7

Well, he’s still a professor of Surgery at Columbia…

8

My wife was watching one day and his guest was a John Edwards-style woman that “talked to the dead”.

If he can promote that bullshit, he’ll promote anything. He should be ashamed of himself.

9

I wonder if he’s ever been confronted and called out on this quackery and fuckery. I’d love to hear what he has to say in his own defense, especially in light of the fact that he is/was a respected surgeon.

10

He’s had John Edward himself on, and said that he “changed his life”.

11

Everyone he puts on his show seems to change his life. I know it changes his bank account.

12

Don’t you know that university is proud to claim him. I wonder what kind of students they are attracting with him there. I wouldn’t last long in one of his classes.

He spits out the drivel so fast, it’s impossible for your brain to stay caught up.

Well, quoting myself in the OP:

Looks like that is out the window, the Kevin Trudeau show says Dr. Oz is a fraud. Pot meet kettle

13

That seems to be common in these circles. I just read a book about “electric” (really magnetic) gadgets peddled over 100 years ago – belts, pendants, shoes – with magnets. The sales talk claimed they cured just about any ailment or disease known to man, with no proof, of course.

Their competitors, who made the same claims for their useless products, would say, “Don’t buy Doctor X’s useless products! He’s a fraud, a charlatan and they don’t work! Buy ours – guaranteed to work or your money back!”

14

it is a feel good show.

15

Yup. Dr. Oz needs to stick to his doctoring and leave disseminating useful medical information to someone else (because he sure as hell ain’t doing it).

It doesn’t make me feel good to know that he’s giving bad medical information to people who are too (gullible? lazy? stupid? trusting?) to go look it up on the internet and decide for themselves if it is useful information for them.

16

There is a certain mindset that believes everything they are told, and are offended if you question their beliefs. This is why religion has been given such a pass for so long; it is considered impolite to question.

Carl Sagan talked about this belief system in The Demon Haunted World. He repeated a conversation with a NY cab driver (possibly a composite conversation) who was delighted at having a “scientist” in his cab, and bombarded Sagan with questions. But they were all of the type like “Why are aliens are visiting us?” and “The Bermuda Triangle, what’s up with that?”.

Sagan also noted that at paranormal conventions there were often many speakers an product booths, all making ridiculous claims, many of them contradictory, which seemed to bother no one. They supported each other, and the only common bond was often “if you don’t listen to us, it’s because you have been duped by the establishment!”

I’ve heard there are “Truther” conventions in a similar vein. No two speakers agree on how the towers came down, or even if they ever existed; their common bond is the “fantasy” story of the official reports and mainstream media. They don’t see the overall picture of how ridiculous ANY of their positions are and they accept them all.

So if you think that reiki works, it’s likely you will be as uncritical about homeopathy and reflexology as well. And many woo practitioners will use everything to cure some disease, including conventional therapy (that’s “Integrative Medicine”). It makes it impossible to tell which one did the trick, if any, but it also allows them to pick the one they want to give credit to without being contradicted. So you used shark cartilage, laetrile, bicarbonate of soda, vitamin O and chemotherapy, and got better? Must have been the bicarb.

17

I have a friend who is planning to follow some lose-24-pounds-in-24-days diet she saw on Dr. Oz. It involves a couple of different supplements. When I suggested that losing 24 pounds in 24 days was not healthy, she was a bit defensive and her response was basically “what could it hurt? If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.” To which I responded that if it does or doesn’t work, it could hurt her. She was not open to discussing it further. It’s another in a series of decisions she’s made that make me question her intelligence and critical thinking skills. Sigh.

18

I was thinking about how quickly I’d get kicked out earlier, and how much fun it would be if I had unlimited resources and time to take up a medical eduction with the sole purpose of getting into his class. “Professor Oz, before we begin this procedure, I was hoping you could let us know the proper placement of the crystal to balance the patient’s aura? Also, for this procedure, would you recommend a Powerband​:trade_mark: or a copper magnetic bracelet?” :stuck_out_tongue:

The troubling thing, as I’ve learned from listening to QuackCast, is that this sort of drivel isn’t properly ostracized by the medical community…

19

There was a good article about him in the New Yorker sometime in the past year. Takeaway was that he is a brilliant surgeon/academic, and his peers are baffled and concerned as to his TV persona.

20

He owes his career to Oprah, who owes her career to dim bulbs. She’s been the most dangerous person in America for a long time, peddling this abjectly harmful nonsense to her audience. I don’t know if he really believes in psychics, but he damn sure really believes in the $4 million per year that he gets for peddling this garbage on one of Oprah’s shows.