Doctors ask Columbia to reconsider Dr. Oz's faculty appointment

[Who Me?]

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/16/8423867/dr-oz-letter-columbia


A group of doctors has had enough of Dr. Oz. On Wednesday, 10 physicians, surgeons, and professors from across the country signed a letter — addressed to Columbia's dean of medicine — calling the medical school's affiliation with its most famous employee "unacceptable":

Lee Goldman, M.D.
Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine
Columbia University


Dear Dr. Goldman:

I am writing to you on behalf of myself and the undersigned colleagues below, all of whom are distinguished physicians.

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.

Sincerely yours,
Henry I. Miller, M.D.
Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy
& Public Policy
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Scott W. Atlas, M.D.
David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Jack Fisher, M.D.
Professor of Surgery (emeritus)
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA

Shelley Fleet, M.D.
Anesthesiologist
Longwood, FL

Gordon N. Gill, M.D.
Dean (emeritus) of Translational Medicine
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA

Michael H. Mellon, M.D.
Pediatric Allergist
San Diego, CA

GIlbert Ross, M.D.
President (Acting) and Executive Director
American Council on Science and Health
New York, NY

Samuel Schneider, M.D.
Psychiatrist
Princeton, NJ

Glenn Swogger Jr. M.D.
Director of the Will Menninger Center for Applied Behavioral Sciences (retired)The Menninger Foundation
Topeka, KS

Joel E. Tepper, M.D.
Hector MacLean Distinguished Professor of Cancer Research
Dept of Radiation Oncology
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Chapel Hill, NC
​

 

[Hello!]

I have little respect for the Dr. Oz show, however, I do see the impossibility of producing a meaningful daily medical show. He needs to fill time with something to keep the show going.

I agree with the medical science police signatories that his affiliation with Columbia should hold him to a higher scientific standard and that he is doing the masses harm by telling them how to cure diseases with simple, unproven remedies.

The lynch mob scares me, too. What we don't know about health is vast, what we do know is minor. That's pretty obvious in ME/CFS and FM. Evidence based medicine is small. These diseases have no proven treatments. Are we therefore meant to try nothing? Should physicians ignore these diseases and the people with them because there is no evidence that they exists, I mean, other than all of the sick people? Will the EBM police keep clinicians from trying new things? If so, who will ever advance the state of the art in unknown areas?

 

[Who Me?]

There is a medical show on CNN or one of the other news channels. But my feeling is the doctor are mostly very main stream and can't look outside the box, which is what we need.

Dr. Oz is venturing too far outside his scope of knowledge and the people he has on? Who are they?

A few years ago he had Dr. Teitlebaum with one of his patients who went to one of those Fatigue Clinic's that popped up a few years back. She raved about her cure with supplements. Lost me.

 

[Hello!]

It seems that Dr. Oz has taped a show to defend himself, it will air on Thursday. One journalist claims that the 10 doctors who wrote the letter to Columbia University all work for the GMO industry and one of them spent time in federal prison after being convicted of medicare fraud.

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/04/19/rs-did-dr-oz-break-the-publics-trust.cnn

 

[San Diego]

The lynch mob scares me, too.

I've not watched Dr. Oz so I don't really have a valid opinion. But I do agree that the lynch mob mentality is rather scary - not necessarily in this case (I'm uninformed) but in many situations where Twitter and other social media blow up with public shaming. I find it a disturbing trend.

 

[Lissa]

Wow! I agree that Dr Oz has gone too far with his shameless promotions and willy-nilly mis-information. Although I do think he has lost his edge as a "real" doctor because he turned himself into a sheer TV personality, I am much more disturbed by the angle the "mob" is taking here. What really stands out to me is that the group attacking him has ties to GMO's. YIKES!!!! As much as I am not a fan of Dr Oz, I appreciate that he has brought GMO's into question for the mainstream audience. For THAT to be a reason to de-throne him.....sure seems suspicious. Things that make you go hmmmm........ once again Monsanto affiliates have too much to lose and are scrambling to squash the truth.