By skyforbes 
And now in charge of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Congratulations, United States Senate. You just put a whack job in charge of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
We’re talking about a celebrity talk show doctor who has endorsed a number of scientifically unproven medical methods. Including, get this, talking to the dead.
Yes. I mean Dr. Oz.
According to an article in the Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association, “on a show titled Medium vs. Medicine, Oz had as a guest a psychic who claimed she could communicate with the dead…Describing his own reading from television psychic John Edwards, Oz stated, ‘Let me tell you, it changed my life!’.”
A doctor who talks to the dead in charge of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Maybe the Doc can improve medical outcomes in the US by convening a panel of ghosts to explain what killed them.
Some of them might mention pseudo scientific practices such as those below, all of which have been endorsed by the Whacko Doc O.
What else has Doc O endorsed?
There’s Iridology, described in the MMA article cited above as a “widely debunked, bizarre belief” in which “each part of the iris corresponds to a specific area of the body, and a person’s state of health can be diagnosed by examining particular regions of the iris…”
Iridology has been characterized as a “pseudo science” in medical journals. As one study by Dr. Dabeluchi C Ngwuin and several colleagues in the journal EC Ophthalmology put it, “medical science has repeatedly rejected, apparently without success, the notion that disorders in different body organs are reflected in the iris by the appearance of various signs and spots…”
Another study in JAMA Ophthalmology concluded: “The validity of iridology as a diagnostic tool is not supported by scientific evaluations. Patients and therapists should be discouraged from using this method.”
Just as with chatting with the dead, Doc O endorsed iridology on one of his shows that featured a practitioner. This despite the fact that the method, as shown above, has been shown to be bunk. Still, millions of viewers place their faith in Oz.
Oz is also a fervent believer in Homeopathy, described by a study published by the European Molecular Biology Organization as “neither effective nor rational”.
The National Center For Complementary and Alternative Medicine says this about homeopathy: “There’s little evidence to support homeopathy as an effective treatment for any specific health condition”.
According to Dr Steven J. Dell, MD, Chief Medical Editor of Cataract & Refractive Surgery Today and an opponent of homeopathy, the system uses medication “even in extremely dilute concentrations, when not a single molecule of the original drug remains”. One article characterized homeopathy as “diluting substances to almost unmeasurable concentrations and then using them as therapies.”
Dr Oz’s guest explained away the lack of even a molecule of the drugs in this way. “The essence of the medication — oh, let’s say the spirit of the medication — is imbibed and it sends a message to the body to heal itself.” Oz stated, during the same show, that his family uses homeopathic treatments, even on his children.
So without a scientific basis Dr. Oz, through his show, has endorsed homeopathy to millions.
Maybe Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill put it best during a 2014 Senate subcommittee hearing when she said this about Oz’s unfounded claims about miraculous dietary supplements “I don’t know why you need to say this stuff, because you know it’s not true. Why — when you have this amazing megaphone and this amazing ability to communicate — would you cheapen your show by saying things like that?”
There is a place for alternative medicine
I’m not saying Doc O is wrong about everything.
I’m not even saying people can’t talk to the dead. I know some people in New Orleans who believe in communicating with the ancestors. I’ve even been to Voudun ceremonies. I’m just saying that a doctor should not endorse such beliefs as having medical value when that value has not been scientifically proven and is rejected by the vast majority of the medical community.
I do agree with his advice that having 200 orgasms a year can extend one’s life span. But so far I’ve been unsuccessful in getting my own doctor to write me a prescription for more sex.
There can be a place for alternative medicine as long as treatments are closely regulated so you don’t, you know, wind up having to get two legs chopped off.
What do I mean about the legs? A patient of one of Dr. Oz’s guests sued that guest when the patient had to have both legs amputated after being treated at his London clinic.
I hope most would agree that for a well known doctor to push unproven and in some cases down right nutty and even harmful practices on a show that is watched by millions is irresponsible to the point of criminality.
And now we’ve put that snake oil salesman in charge of the hospital.
What do Doc O’s colleagues think?
Some in the medical community take Oz’s lack of scientific rigor quite seriously. In 2015, ten prominent physicians sent a letter to Columbia University calling Oz’s faculty position there unacceptable and citing his “egregious lack of integrity.”
Here is the letter:
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.
You can read the list of signers at this link.
The Journal of Ethics of the American Medical Association seems to agree. It had this to say:
“Dr. Oz is a dangerous rogue unfit for the office of America’s doctor.”
The Journal went on to cite a number of offenses by Oz, including that “He has told mothers that there were dangerous levels of arsenic in their child’s apple juice (there weren’t) and suggested that green coffee is a “miracle” cure for obesity.
Well, now he’s not in the halls of Congress. He’s heading up a major agency.
We might have been safer having him in the Senate.
How far have we fallen?
It is not only amazing that this charlatan has been put in charge of one of our most important health agencies.
It is even more bizarre that he was even nominated for the post, let alone taken seriously.
I guess I’m old. I can remember when the nut would never even have gotten past the gatekeepers.
But now the gatekeepers are either as nutty as the nuts the head nut is foisting upon us, are too cowardly to publicly resist the cascade of whackadoodleness descending upon us, or are being swamped by the coalition of the crazies and the cowards that have taken over the inoperative Legislative Branch.
What will be the result of all of this? It’s fairly simple.
Our public health system will crash, people will become even less trusting of science than they already are, and people will die.
Welcome to the Land of Oz.