Dr. Oz and Scandals?

Yesterday, Dr. Oz came up in conversation. I was too busy with “Dr.” Phil to give Dr. Oz much thought. Dr. Oz doesn’t come across as arrogant the way Dr. Phil does. He is actually quite likeable. But, he came upon his fame and fortune much the same way Phil did and now has his own show and is also on OWN. So I decided to do a little digging into Dr. Oz’s closet and see what the internet says is there…maybe a skeleton or two?

Well sure enough there is going to be something to complain about and here it is…Dr. Oz created his “Real Age” website which has 27 million people sign up to take a health quiz. What did Dr. Oz do with that information? According to some reports, it was sold to pharmaceutical companies to be used for direct emails and marketing. Nice. But there’s more, the pharmaceutical companies also target the participants of the quiz with emails about possible conditions they may or may not have and suggest drugs they can look into to treat it. This is not very ethical in my opinion.

What else? Well when the swine flu epidemic struck, Dr. Oz was pushing the H1N1 vaccine like no one else. Problem? The vaccine hadn’t even been tested. This happened around October, 2009. Dr. Oz was said to be promoting the vaccine to millions of Americans, on many shows, and profiting from it. This is a question of medical and personal ethics. Reports go on to say that pregnant woman were especially targeted for being at higher risk. There was no study done by the government, but it has been alleged that some women lost their babies after getting the vaccine. Reports then say, after building up the danger of the swine flu, the shortage of the vaccine ploy was used to create a demand. Without even testing the vaccine for 21 days, 40 million vaccines were rushed to market. Sigh. Upon more investigation, it was discovered that Dr. Oz owned 150,000 shares in a vaccine company. He never said that he owned stock in this company which is said to be against the law. It is required that any television personality who endorses a product, makes it known they have a personal financial interest in it.

Some think that for a surgeon, who is actually no longer practicing, he gives out a lot of information about nutrition that is incomplete and not entirely accurate. They feel he is not qualified to be dispensing that information either. Who knows. I’m sure he has consultants on his show to advise him if necessary. A lot of it makes sense to me and if it gets people looking into nutrition so much the better.

In any case, that the worst of what is out there right now. Of course, dr. Oz has not been around as long as our good ol’ boy Phil, so he has time to get into more hot water. Scandals do sell better than good news. So, Dr. Oz will have to be careful if he wants to keep a low profile in the media. I got the H1N1 vaccine as soon as I could and brought my whole family too. Would I do it over again after reading about how is wasn’t tested? Probably. I got caught up in the hysteria too. I did waited until many doses were dispensed to see if there were bad reactions reported. I didn’t hear of any, so I made my appointments. I haven’t read anything on Dr. Oz that is so offensive I would stop watching or taking his advice. But, Dr. Oz, be careful…the media is out to get you!