It was a surprising choice among many surprising choices. This week, President-elect Donald Trump announced his pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: Dr. Mehmet Oz, known as “America’s Doctor” and known for his many questionable health claims. that perch over the years.
Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, Trump endorsed Oz In 2022 failed senate bid and in 2016 appeared on Trump’s Oz show. “surreal” physical on air instead of sharing their medical records with the public. Moreover, Melania Trump likes him.
Currently active his websitehe calls himself a global consultant and stakeholder for online supplement and health retail brand iHerb; his The Instagram page also provides a link to the iHerb store. This may not be the case for long.
“Under federal law, he would be prohibited from making decisions that could affect his financial interests,” said Kedric Payne, vice president, general counsel and chief ethics officer of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan government watchdog group. “So that means that as head of CMS, he would have to give up those interests if he were to make decisions related to it.”
In another important sense, the choice of Oz is also the President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An obvious puzzling choice for Richard Besser.
“This position has someone with deep experience in health insurance and health policy to manage traditionally very complex programs,” he said. CMS provides health care for more than 100 million Americans, including low-income people and people with disabilities. “Dr. Oz has a career as a surgeon and television doctor. His approach to television was one that really focused on the role it plays in human health — and the person in that role is required to make sure our government is meeting the needs of our entire country.
For that matter, many of these individual actions that Oz recommended on his TV show over the years were based on questionable scientific evidence, Besser said. In a BMJ Education since 2014for example, researchers looked at “The Dr.,” a syndicated daytime television show that aired from 2009 to 2022. They evaluated the health claims of 40 randomly selected episodes of The Oz Show. They found that about half of the recommendations on the show were not supported by scientific evidence.
Oz’s team did not respond to a request for comment. Trump’s transition team argued in favor of Oz’s qualifications. “He is an outstanding physician, heart surgeon, inventor and world-class communicator who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades,” said Caroline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance transition. “Dr. Oz has many accomplishments and will do great things in President Trump’s second administration to make America healthy again.”
Oz, who defended himself, argued In an exclusive interview with NBC News in 2015 said his TV program was “not a medical show”. He also denied any conflict of interest and said he did not sell any products “off the show.” He also said he would refrain from using words like “miracle” and even added that “there are segments I’ve done that I wish I could take back.”
But it is difficult to reverse an idea widely promoted on television. Here are eight health claims Oz has made over the years — with little or no scientific evidence to back them up.
Green coffee extract, the ‘magic weight loss cure’
In 2014 Oz went to Washington seeking help in fighting internet marketers who are using his name and image to sell weight loss products. Instead, senators suggested he was part of the problem, later grilling him on the many dietary supplements he promoted on his show.
“When you show a product at a show, it’s like, ‘Dr. The Oz Effect—dramatically boosts sales and encourages scammers to emerge overnight using false and misleading advertising to sell dubious products,” then-Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. Oz said At the meeting of the Senate.
Senators made several submissions examples Oz from his show, but most of the hearings focused on his claims about green coffee bean extract.
“You might think magic is persuasion, but in this little bean, scientists say they’ve found a magic weight-loss treatment for every body type. … This miracle pill can burn fat fast.” Oz said In the 2012 episode.
“I don’t understand why you have to say things like that when you know it’s not true” McCaskill said. “So why are you cheapening your show when you have this amazing megaphone and this amazing communication ability?”
Oz responded, “I actually personally believe what I’m talking about on the show; I am eager to learn them. I understand that they often lack the scientific will to present it as fact.
Later that year, a company selling green coffee extract was pitched by Oz Paid the Federal Trade Commission According to the FTC, the retailer was paid $3.5 million over a complaint that it “used the results of a flawed study to make unsubstantiated weight loss claims.” That same year, a pair of researchers retracted their study green coffee bean pills supposedly cause weight loss. “The sponsors of the study cannot guarantee the reliability of the data, so we, Joe Vinson and Bryan Burnham, retract the article,” he said. He was the first to report the withdrawal Retreat hour.
By October 2014 The Washington Post informed On the Oz website, “virtually every mention of green coffee bean extract has been removed”; the episode was also pulled from YouTube based on a “copyright claim” by way of explanation.
Supplements and the ‘holy grail of cancer protection’
Oz’s green coffee extract claims have made headlines, but it’s not the only weight loss supplement he’s touted on his show. He said once that raspberry ketone was “the #1 miracle in a bottle for burning your fat,” and in a 2013 episode he called Garcinia cambogia “the simple solution you’ve been looking for to get rid of body fat for good.” According to Vox.
writes for Science-based medicineDr. Harriet Hall acknowledged that Garcinia cambogia “may play a role in helping patients lose weight by aiding motivation and exerting placebo effects,” but the data at this point did not show a “clinically significant advantage” over the old diet and diet. practice.
A 2014 review by the BMJ found that most of Oz’s health advice addressed nutrition and diet advice. In a 2011 episode, he said that human chorionic gonadotropin, produced during pregnancy, can cause weight loss when combined with a diet restricted to 500 calories a day. (The research shows no evidence HCG is an effective weight loss tool.)
according to The Washington PostIn a 2012 episode, Oz noted the cancer-preventing benefits of selenium, a mineral found in soil among other things, it is responsible for protecting the body from damage caused by severe viral infection, According to the National Institutes of Health.
Selenium deficiency, which is very rare in the U.S., has been shown to increase the risk of developing certain types of cancer, such as colon, rectal, prostate, lung, bladder, skin, esophagus, and stomach, according to research. NIH; However, it is “unclear” whether selenium supplements reduce the risk of cancer. In addition, selenium supplements can interfere with other medications, and many of the minerals are associated with health risks. “Extremely high intakes of selenium can cause serious problems, including trouble breathing, tremors, kidney failure, heart attack, and heart failure,” the NIH said.
In a 2011 episode, Oz suggested to his audience that endives, red onions and sea bass are anti-cancer foods that can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by up to 75%.
Three years later Journal of Nutrition and Cancer A 2014 paper revisited these claims titled “Reality Check: There’s No Such Thing as a Miracle Meal.” While the authors, for example, have demonstrated that kaempferol—a flavonoid found in individuals—prevents cancer in laboratory studies, it’s unclear whether these findings translate to people who consume “usual dietary amounts” of chicory. They warned their peers to be “aware of public health messages drawn from individual research.”
Apple juice and arsenic
Oz suggested this in a 2011 episode apple juice contained dangerous levels of arsenicCiting New Jersey lab tests. The Food and Drug Administration conducted its own tests and found “no evidence of a public health risk from drinking these juices.”
The FDA further stated that Oz failed to specify whether he was referring to organic or inorganic arsenic—an important point because organic arsenic cannot cause harm, while inorganic arsenic can. can be potentially dangerous. In response, a spokesman for “The Dr. Oz Show.” then Tim Sullivan, This was reported by CBS News“We don’t think the show is irresponsible.”
Sullivan said, “We think the public has a right to know what’s in their food. The show’s position is that general arsenic needs to be brought down.”
A Studying Consumer Reports Some juice samples published a few months later found high levels of arsenic, the majority of the study being inorganic.
Lavender soap for restless leg syndrome
In a 2010 episode of Oz, “I know it sounds crazy, but people put it under their sheets.” According to Business Insider. “We think lavender is relaxing and can be beneficial in and of itself.”
A relatively innocuous claim, but nonetheless, the suggestion that putting lavender soap under your bed sheets can help relieve restless leg syndrome is a dubious one. Revealed by LiveScience’s sister site, Life’s Little Secrets.