Maintenance Phase - Dr. Oz

Episode Date: February 16, 2021

This week we're dissecting "America's Doctor." How did a smart, hardworking surgeon become one of TV's leading purveyors of junk science?  Along the way we debunk green coffee bean extract, raspberry ketones, conversion therapy (!) and a salad dressing skincare regimen.Support us: Subscribe on PatreonDonate on PayPalGet Maintenance Phase shirts, stickers and moreLinks:Transcript of the infamous Congressional hearingThe Making of Dr. OzColumbia and the Problem of Dr. OzThe FTC lawsuit against green coffee bean extract sellersThe Oz craze: The effect of pop culture media on health careThe BMJ content analysis of the Dr. Oz showAgeing, fitness and neurocognitive functionReal-world doctors fact-check Dr. Oz, and the results aren't pretty Dr. Oz may be America's most influential — and controversial — physician Thanks to Ashley Smith for editing assistance and Doctor Dreamchip for our lovely theme song!Support the show

Hi everybody, welcome to Maintenance Phase, your favorite podcast about health and wellness myths and the human version of Oscar the Grouch, maybe. I think your favorite might be a little ambitious. I think we're a middle-ing podcast. And okay, podcast sometimes. It's fun. If there's lots of dishes, it's okay, it'll do. We're the Green Bean Casterle.

My name's Aubrey Gordon, and I am a writer and fat lady about town. And I am Michael Hobbs. I am a reporter for The Huffington Post. You can find us on social media pretty much everywhere at maintenance phase. You can also find us on Patreon, which is patreon.com slash maintenance phase.

That is also linked on our website, which is maintenance phase.com. And you can also find t-shirts. If you want some t-shirts, you can go get some t-shirts. T-shirts. Yes. Or you can not support us. That's fine too.

Yeah, do what you want. Yes. And today we are talking about Dr. Oz, no? Dr. Oz, Mr. Yes. Or you cannot support us. That's fine too. Yeah, do what you want. Yes. And today we are talking about Dr. Oz, no? Dr. Oz, Mr. Oz. America's Doctor. America's sweetheart, Dr. Oz. I mean, this is another one of those episodes where it's so hard to research,

because you're like, you know he's trash. And then you read all the research and you're like, okay, he's like more trash than I thought. And like trash in slightly different ways. That seems right to me. I feel like the things that I know about Dr. Oz are just these peak moments of garbage nonsense. It's like, I know about him being an Oprah, not disciple.

What's the word that I'm looking for? Frankenstein's monster. So I know about him being sort of Oprah approved. I know about him like pretty consistently promoting fat camps. And I know about him getting hauled in front of Congress. Yes, we're gonna talk about that in great detail. I feel like that's just from like moving through the world in which Dr. Oz exists.

You know what I mean? I don't really feel like I know more than that. I mean, I feel like the Aubrey version of I'm coming in fresh is still pretty well versed on this stuff compared to most of the general public. All right, fine. So, I mean, for listeners that don't know who he is, can you just give us the broad strokes who's this Dr. Oz, dude?

Yeah, so Dr. Mehmet Oz, yeah. Yes. He was a frequent guest on Oprah Winfrey's show, is my recollection. He made 55 appearances between 2001 and 2009. And that led to him getting a, like an afternoon talk show where he would sort of like address medical topics and sometimes would take questions from the audience that were like, I have this rash or whatever, right? Like, I don't know how long it was on the air, but I have a sense that it was on the air for like

10 years. And it might still be on the air. And I don't know. long it was on the air, but I have a sense that it was on the air for like 10 years. And it might still be on the air and I don't know. Yeah, that's still on. Jesus, they said. Yeah, they do 175 shows a year. Oh. And he still does surgery, like literal heart surgery one day a week, every Thursday.

Wow. Yeah, the show is like consistently one of the top five shows, like on the daytime charts, just because we have to have a cameo by her every episode now. Michelle Obama has showed up on his show twice. So later on, we are going to talk about sort of how Dr. Oz got like this, but I think it's important to establish what like this actually means.

There's basically four different categories of topics that he has on his show. So the first is weight loss and weight-related, you know, diet exercise stuff, which is by far the most, like that's probably 40% of his topics are in some way related to weight loss. One of them to pick a random example is apple cider vinegar that he says that like if you take a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar with a meal,

you'll like lose more weight than you would on other diets without it, blah, blah, blah. And then of course, you look into it and it's like there's one study and it's on mice. It was done in like 1992. And then like people tried to debunk it, but then he just like leans in. Like one thing he's doing now with apple cider vinegar

is he stopped talking about it as like a diet aid. He started talking about it as like a detox. Like you should only drink apple cider vinegar. Oh God, what? Which is worse. And then he starts now, he's talking about it as skincare. An actual skincare people are like just because something is quote unquote natural, doesn't mean that you should like rub it all over your face every morning. Right. Apple cider vinegar is natural. It's also not a great contact lens solution.

Yes, exactly. He's also really big on anti-cancer stuff. One of the headlines I saw on his website was what you can eat to defeat cancer. Good God. Another one of the major categories of stuff that he talks about on his show is anti-aging. Yeah. There's also a fourth category of stuff. And so I'm about to send you a link.

Very excited. Oh my God. Oh, no! No! I know. Mike! I know, it's so bad. So this is apparently a title of an episode.

And it says, from gay to street question mark, the controversial therapy. He did an episode on gay conversion therapy. Like recently. Yeah, so the sort of little synopsis says, is there a gay, cure? Dr. Oz investigates reparative therapy. Recently banned in California for minors,

experts on both sides speak out, watch the heated debate. So recently banned in California for minors means that this episode happened in the last five years. Yes, we are not in the middle of a society wide debate about whether conversion therapy for gay people is useful. That is a closed debate. We do not have questions about that as a society. Yeah, we are not going to watch this segment together because it's a fucking nightmare, but it's like one of the most unethical six minutes of TV I've ever seen. He basically brings on

a bunch of gay men talking about like I had these urges and then I found gay conversion therapy and now I don't have them anymore. Which is like what are you fucking kidding me? Like this is like Don A Hue episodes from the mid 90s like all that shit has been completely debunked dude. Right. I don't think you and I've talked about this. This is a campaign that I worked on. Oh, it's really? For like years, I worked on the Oregon campaign to ban conversion therapy. It is a shit show. And so I will tell you, I know inside and out that there is zero dispute amongst psychologists

and psychiatrists. Zero. It doesn't work. And even if it did, why would we do it? I mean, I think this is important for understanding sort of the Dr. Oz phenomenon. Because on some level, like some of the Dr. Oz phenomenon because on some level Like some of the things on his show you can defend right like helping people live longer like diet and exercise blah blah blah fine

But then it's like every fifth or sixth segment is just random moral panic bullshit Yeah, so there's this infamous one where during the Ebola panic, which I think was 2013 He had a whole show about how it might go airborne at any time. What? There was one of the ones that I found. He had Jordan Peterson on to do divorce counseling with like a couple that was finding what? You're just going to have like this random alt-right fucking ghoul help people with like, oh, John works too much and he's never home anymore.

Like, why does this exist? I was laughing in anticipation of him being like, let's do the carnivore diet. I know, not like Jordan Peterson, marriage counselor. It's nuts. He's had like mediums on, like one of the headlines that is still up on his website is how talking to the dead can keep you healthy.

His website has a true crime section. Okay, he'll randomly do these like this girl went missing in albacurky or whatever and you're like, why the fuck are you talking about this? No health tie-in, got it. I want to sort of spoil the ending. One of the best articles that I came across on Dr. Oz was written by a doctor like Drs.

Lowe's Dr. Oz. It's an article called Why Dr. Oz, and it's as crazy and it's by a University of Chicago Doctor called Adam Sifu, and he summarizes I think really well Just like the central problem not just with Dr. Oz with this entire genre of entertainment They're with me. It's kind of a long quote, but it's really good. The day-to-day practice of medicine is about caring for the individual. While we physicians fill our days providing sound advice to our patients, there are, by comparison, remarkably few recommendations that we can make to the population as a whole. Everyone should exercise in wear seat belts. Nobody should smoke or drink excessively. Everyone should receive childhood vaccines. Not only are these types of recommendations limited in number,

they are also neither terribly interesting nor surprising. They would certainly not support a daily or even weekly television show. And this is really the central problem with a figure like Dr. Oz. Yeah. Instead of trying to actually be America's doctor, he's just like giving everybody everything at once with no context. Totally and I think think most of research world is pretty unsatisfying. If you've not done the deep dive into Google Scholar,

there are very few medical studies that a single study comes up with a definitive conclusion about what every individual should do differently. Exactly. And those things where there are definitive findings are the things that you're talking about, which is just like, you should probably drink some more differently. Exactly. And those things where there are definitive findings are the things that you're talking about, which is just like, you should probably drink some more water.

Yeah. It's like a little bit of, you know, squeezing blood out of a stone. Yeah. So I want to do a deep dive into the green coffee bean kerfuffle. Oh, tell me. Which I'm sure you were aware of. All I know is that it was a big thing and it was a big thing mostly because of him. But I don't know anything about the science behind it.

I don't know anything about sort of how it became this sort of juggernaut. Would you like me to walk you through it with clips and Google Scholar citations? Oh my God, everything. Yes, please. All right, I'm going to send you a clip. It's kind of long, but there are specifics

in this clip that we need to dissect. Gotcha. So here it is. Oh, okay. So I will say while we're getting a cute up, Dr. Oz is standing in front of a screen. Uh, he is surrounded by these little pedestals that have flames on the side of them.

Then the screens behind him say, the miracle pill to burn that fast. I know, and it only gets worse, Aubrey. Just wait till we get into this. Oh, Lord. This little bean has scientists saying they've done the magic weight loss cure for everybody type. It's green coffee beans.

And when turned into a supplement, this miracle pill can burn fat fast for anyone who wants to lose weight. Oh, Lord. That's rather doctor and certified nutritionist, Lindsey Duncan is here with the findings. So, Douglas, you love this bean. Why is that?

You know, I usually don't recommend weight loss supplements, but this one has got me really, really excited. The recent study that you were talking about earlier, the participants took the capsules and they did nothing else. They didn't exercise, they didn't change their diet. They actually consumed 2400 calories a day. They burned only 400 calories. Now that's weight gain, not weight loss.

And they lost over 10% of their total body weight. And they had no side effects, zero side effects. That's remarkable. Yes. Are you guys interested in this? Yes, that's awesome. Yeah. Are you guys interested in this? Yes, that's right. This is the raw material for coffee that we drink. Why wouldn't you drink can coffee do this? It's what we call a triple threat.

Okay, and it's the chlorogenic acid that causes the effect and it works three ways. The first way is it goes in and it causes the body to burn glucose or sugar and burn fat mainly in the liver. The second way, and the most important way, is it slows the release of sugar into the bloodstream. When the two are combined together, you get this synergistic effect that basically burns and blocks and stops fat,

but it also is natural and safe. So the capture you can buy, where? You buy it online. You want to make sure the cap is where you can buy it online. You want to make sure that this is important, that it's pure. So you go to your web browser, you type in pure green coffee beans, or pure green coffee bean extract. And you make sure that it doesn't have all the additives,

the exhibits, the binders, the cellulose, and the silica, and all the other stuff. So look under other ingredients to make sure that it's a pure product. Oh. Oh. It's such bullshit, but it's such compelling bullshit. Do you want to keep going?

Are you bummed that we stopped? Oh, I hardly even know where to start with this, right? You have to make sure that it's pure, but there's no regulation on supplements. Yes. And truly, ever, even just like street drug dealers will tell you, shit is pure. It feels certain that both of these people

probably know better than to just say, hey, check and make sure it's pure. Oh, sweet, sweet Aubrey. It's so much worse than you think Aubrey is so bad. Okay, tell me. All of this information is from a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit. So what we find out from the discovery files, once everything goes public,

this guy, Lindsey Duncan, he's not a medical doctor. He has a naturopathic degree from the Clayton College of Natural Health, which is a school that the state of Texas has said confers fraudulent and substandard degrees. He seems like he's just like a doctor on this, right? Like I'm just somebody who cares about your health. He's actually a marketing executive for a company that makes supplements. Yeah, that's right. So about a month before he comes on Dr. Oz, he gets an email that eventually ends up

in the Federal Trade Commission lawsuit. From the Dr. Oz show, and they say, you know, we're hearing about this green coffee being extract, do you know anything, you know, have you heard anything about this? You know, there's this study that's coming out showing weight loss, have you heard anything about this? He at this point has never heard of this thing.

He immediately writes back and says, yes, I've heard of it, I'm really excited about it. And then that same day starts calling manufacturers to start producing green coffee bean extra. Oh, God. It's dark. So over the next month, he calls up like wall greens and Amazon, all these other retailers and says, look, I'm going to be be on the Doctor Oz show. You guys need to have this on your shelves and ready. Ugh. Another really important thing. Remember in the clip, how we said,

like you need to take 800 milligrams of it twice a day, and you need to look for the pure version of it, whatever, these are search terms that he bought on Google. What? Yes. So he's done SEO. Exactly. To make sure that when people search those terms,

they will get his version and not anybody else's version. Exactly. So according to the lawsuit, all of this is completely deliberate. Like all of the wording that he uses on the show is deliberate and he's going back and forth with the producers of Dr. Oz, like working on the script for weeks before this air.

So he knows exactly what he's going to say. That's so upsetting. Like, so truly, I feel like I don't have a ton of like polyanna kind of, no, no. I really, really, really thought this episode was gonna be, like, he's been reckless. Not this is like an evil mastermind scheme to like, just to sell shit.

I mean, the closest thing we have to a defense of Dr. Oz is that Dr. Oz does not sell and never has sold supplements. The only thing that he sells is he has like a sleep store on his website where he sells like pillows and mattresses and shit. I think Dr. Oz probably didn't know, but also they didn't do any background checks on this guy. Right, zero due diligence. Zero due diligence.

Yeah. While we're at it, the study that they mentioned on the Dr. A's show, the study that shows that people do no diet, they do no exercise. All they do is they start taking green coffee beans and then all of a sudden the weight magically melts off. Oh, yes. And they also said like, this miracle pill for 16 weeks, you just, the weight just drops off. I was like, this is all of the language from Fenthan and Redox. Yes. So it turns out that this study is a total scam.

The study was initiated by the manufacturer of green coffee bean extract. Oh God! The study was on 16 people, already huge red flag that it's that small. They found a researcher in India and then hired a researcher to do this study, like to recruit participants. And then what they find out, this is all part of the FTC lawsuit eventually, they find out that the researcher is like constantly

changing things, like she's not putting the data into the study well, so like people's weights are fluctuating all over the place. She's mixing up who's in the green coffee bean group and the placebo group. Oh, no. Basically, the company that makes this green coffee bean stuff loses confidence in this researcher, and they hire two more researchers at the University of Scranton. They basically take her data, which they already knew was bad because the numbers had been changing all over the place, and they presented at a conference. So it's never actually published, but it's presented at this Cleveland Clinic conference. That is the entire basis for this claim that you can do no diet and exercise and lose 10% of your body weight. Right, which is also, again, since time immemorial, this has been sort of like the magic claim.

Yes, at the very least, if we had found something like that, you would hear it from your doctor. I mean, so much of this really, to me, comes back to this idea that like, there's something doctors don't want you to know. I mean, this is language that Dr. Oz uses on his show all the time. He's like, this is what the Western medical system won't tell you. And it's like, the obesity epidemic is a pretty entrenched component of our culture. And if there was a cure for it that was this easy, you wouldn't just be hearing about it in like a four-minute segment on a dodgy TV show.

It would be cover of time. It would be cover of Newsweek. It would be a huge fucking deal. Right. And even then, it would be Fenthan. Yeah, exactly. Even then, it would still likeENFEN. Yeah, exactly. Even then, it would still like maybe kill you, probably make you super sick, or like, ugh. So, do you want to know how he got this way, Aubrey? How did he get this way?

What's his backstory? It's kind of a fascinating and like tragic story. So, Menet Oz, he's born in 1960. He grows up in Ohio. His parents are Turkish, so he spends summers in Turkey growing up. His father is also a surgeon. And just seems to be like one of those dads

that just like wants you to be number one all the time. The story that Dr. Oz always tells is that he tells his dad, you know, I'm one of time magazines, 100 most influential people in America and his dad immediately says what number are you? Oh, so he goes to Harvard for undergraduate in 1985 this actually turns out to be a really important moment for him He meets his wife who at the time is named Lisa Lemolle Mm-hmm her dad's a surgeon and her mom is like kind of a woo-woo

New age person and it seems like as soon as Dr. Oz marries Lisa, this is when he starts dabbling in like alternative medicines. In 1986, this is wild, he got a dual MD-MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. Right, but also it feels like that's some solid foreshadowing to be like, I know. I know. I know it'd be good at doctoring and business. Businessing, yeah.

Then he immediately gets a post at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. This is when like all the doctors, all his colleagues, everybody says that he's a wildly talented surgeon. Julia Ballouz, this really great journalist for Vox, goes and interviews a bunch of his colleagues. And most of them say, I would let Dr. Oz do surgery on me. He wins like prestigious awards. He has 11 patents. Wow. For various, you know, open heart aorta valve,

something, something stuff. But then this is also when he gets more serious about the alternative therapies. So this is an excerpt from an article that Julia Ballouz wrote about Dr. Oz, basically trying to answer the question like, how did he get this way? And this gets published in 2014. She says, with his father-in-law's encouragement, he began to explore music therapy, energy fields, and therapeutic touch, and began to offer them to his surgical patients. Here too, Lisa played a major role.

She is a reiki master, and Oz soon became famous at New York Presbyterian and began to offer them to his surgical patients. Here too, Lisa played a major role. She is a reiki master and Oz soon became famous at New York Presbyterian for encouraging the practice of reiki in the operating room. This is, are you familiar with reiki? I am a queer lady from Portland, Oregon. Okay. So yes, I am.

You're doing it right now. So. Yeah, it's sort of like the idea is that you're doing this sort of laying on of hands, but you're not actually touching someone, right? Yes. And the idea is that you're manipulating their energy field. Yes. I think this is a really big moment because on some level, the reiki stuff seems fine to me. Mm-hmm. If a surgeon is a little kooky and you know, they think that playing classical music helps you recover faster, or there's some things in sort of ancient Chinese medicine

that might help surgical patients recover from a heart surgery. The placebo effect is a real thing. And so if the doctor is convinced that these therapies work and the patients are convinced that these therapies work, they probably do actually have some beneficial effect. Yeah, very truly couldn't hurt. But then it seems like from this little seed, But then it seems like from this little seed, he then starts just expanding more and more and more. So in 1994, he opens his own clinic and then he starts doing sort of hypnosis and aromatherapy and prayer.

It just becomes like this weird grab bag. Right. And it's not like, he's not adopting whole cloth additional sort of like systems of medical thinking, right? He's not going like we're gonna do a hybrid of Western surgery plus Principles of Chinese medicine plus blah blah blah. He's just going like yeah sure sounds like a good idea Right, there's no there's no sort of theory behind it. He's just vacuuming up whatever's around whatever you got All right. Yeah. Another really important thing that starts happening in the mid-90s is he starts to get mainstream press attention. So the surgical team that he's part of in New York does a bunch of sort of firsts,

like a bunch of genuinely really innovative surgeries and gets press attention. Uh-huh. And once journalists start sniffing around and they realize there's this like charismatic, handsome, doctor who does these sort of weird kooky things in the operating room but is also really effective, stories start trickling out of this clinic. And so Julia Belou's interviews, one of his former nurse practitioners, she says, it became about Oz, not about the project, not about the patients, not about the work, that all became secondary to his rise to the top. He was always acting. He didn't know this patient. He was not connected to this patient. We'd give him a two or three minute sound bite and he'd sit there in front of cameras like he'd done this work and had this deep connection. Yeah, it's it's so sad because I'm like I

can totally understand why people get irritated and I can also totally understand how this would be so enticing for someone whose dad just always wanted them to be number one Seriously, oh, I feel for you bud, but also this might not be the way right and also he has the Confidence of an evangelist, you know, I mean the guys literally doing heart surgery on people. He's saving people's lives Yeah, so it's very easy after that to say it wasn't the heart surgery It was the reiki that saved somebody's life. I know. This is also 2001 is when he gets his TV show for the first time.

So little known fact, Dr. Oz's roommate in college ended up becoming the president of the discovery channel. So after them talking and him getting all this press attention and doing this interesting surgical stuff, eventually he and his wife pitched this show to the Discovery Channel called second opinion with Dr. Oz. They do a series of 13 episodes where every episode is him interviewing a celebrity about some sort of health issue. So faithfully, his first episode is about obesity and he interviews Oprah.

So this is how they come in contact. She really likes him and she starts thinking, hey, why don't I have this guy on my show? He's charismatic, he's smart, he's interesting. Yeah, he's a super likable dude. Yes, exactly. And he has a way of presenting information in a way that makes it really easy for people.

So one of his first appearances on Oprah famously, he comes on with like a heart, like an actual heart. And he's like, this is a healthy heart. And then he pulls out like a big, gross, sort of white, marbled heart. And he's like, this is a heart if you have obesity. And like, look, how bad it is, but this sort of, this showmanship, this way of having visual aids,

this becomes his trademark. Yeah, I absolutely, as you were describing that, I was like, oh, I absolutely remember both watching that show and then hearing the way that people talk to me afterwards. Yeah, it was this wild moment of supercharging that like, don't you care about your health. I know. I also remember from prop world that he had one episode that I saw at one point. I think I might have from prop world that he had one episode that I saw at one point

I think I might have been getting my nails done or something where he was like Let's talk about your colon and he had this big fabric tube set up Oh, that was like have people like walks through yeah inside of their colon There's a lot of pooping stuff that I cut out of this episode honestly He's like obsessed with bombers and the way that your poo is supposed to look and how it's supposed to sound. And this sort of demystification of these kinds of things

that you're quote unquote not supposed to talk about is actually a big part of his brain. Are you happy now, dad? I'm the number one poop doctor. I can't believe you brought up the poop stuff. I really wanted to skip the poop stuff. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

It was like watching one of those like dystopian future things, where I'm like, in the future people laugh at a doctor talking about pooping. I know. What is this? The Hunger Games stuff? So in 2009 is when he finally gets his own show. So it's been 11 years. Yes.

One of the most interesting studies I've found was a BMJ study that did a systematic content analysis of what he presents on his show. So they watched 40 episodes. They got 479 health recommendations from those 40 episodes. And then they picked 80 of them at random to look at the evidence. What they found is that only 46% of them had any evidence to support them, and 15% had evidence against them, like evidence that they don't work. Wow! So nestled among the sort of the bullshit, weight loss, intermittent fasting, take a green coffee bean pill,

you'll find things like how to get a better night's sleep, how to get more fruit into your diet. Here's tips for how to quit smoking. So it's not all bullshit, but the fact that it's half bullshit and half not, and he's toggling between them without necessarily good road signs for this as evidence and this doesn't. Like, that's the central problem. Right, I would actually argue that that is more destructive. That's the like straight up like medicine show pitch. So just like, I've got your miracle cure right here. Right? Yeah.

It just sort of fortifies this soup that we're all living in all the time, which is when it comes to health and wellness and weight loss and nutrition and all of that kind of stuff, we're like in this mucky combination of real verified information and marketing and wishful thinking. Right. So, for the rest of the episode, I want to walk through the way that he defends what he's doing.

Oh, interesting. Most of this comes from his 2014 congressional testimony, which I think is like a rich text. Yeah. The sort of the clips from that testimony that go viral are the back and forth between him and the senators. And I mostly think those are bullshit

because the senators are just kind of playing to the cameras. Sure. But when you give congressional testimony, you have to give a long detailed statement. And Dr. Oz's statement is actually very interesting because it's the first time that he's ever in detail had to defend the impact that his show has on the health of Americans. That's so fascinating. I realize, like, as you're saying this, I'm realizing that I don't think I've ever heard

him answer for any of this sort of on his own terms. Like you, I watched the sort of like Claire McCaskill and Dr. Oz back and forth, which was, I will say, totally playing to the cameras, totally political theater. Don't care. Oh, yeah, it's compelling political theater. It's fun to watch. We're gonna do it later in the show.

Yes. He makes four claims in defending his show. And we're gonna walk through them one by one great The first claim that he makes is that he's educating viewers about their health So this is what he says in his congressional testimony when we write a script We need to generate enthusiasm and engage the viewer viewers don't watch the show because they're seeking dry clinical language They watch because we use language that's familiar to them which they would use when speaking to friends and loved ones. Which is a lot of a goal. If he was actually doing that, yes, that would be great.

Totally. This is, I feel like this is gonna be like probably how this testimony all plays out, where I'm like, that sounds good and reasonable and you're gonna be like, that's not what he was doing. Exactly. Because yeah, so okay, I should not have done this. This was like the biggest waste of my fucking time But I read one of his books. No, Mike. It's called you the user's manual It was actually really easy because it's mostly like recipes and shit like there's very little actual content in his book But there's a difference between boiling scientific information down for a lay audience and fucking lying to them And he consistently lies. Give me a flavor of some of those lies. Like, what are some of the things that are just categorically untrue?

Okay, so I'm going to read to you from his miserable book. Oh god. You don't need to be a Rhodes scholar to stay mentally strong. Simple changes can do the trick. Take another study. One that measured brain function of retirees who frequented a Starbucks in Illinois. The half who just sat and drank their coffee got no smarter. While the half who drank their coffee while walking for 45 minutes, at least 3 days a week,

actually improved their IQs. Parentheses know where on how many bathroom breaks they needed. Oh lord. The explanation, physical activity improves arterial function, and better arterial function improves brain function. I feel like I'm going to go into the methodology flaws of this study and be like, right, but these kinds of people have access to these kinds of spaces to do walking and both of that and then you're just going to be like, it wasn't a study.

Look, I could start to pick it apart, but I also know that I'm going to be like too generous with how I pick it apart. This is exactly what I was expecting. You would find some sort of specific things to nitpick at. And then the twist, I'm like, the study does not exist, Aubrey, which is true. I spent half a fucking day looking for this actual study. I put it out on Twitter, I was like, if you have any background in neuroscience,

cognitive function, anything, have you ever heard of this study? I looked at literature reviews. I could not find a study that found people in Starbucks and some of them drink coffee and some of them walked and drank their coffee. This study does not exist. Oh, God. I want to be clear. This is the first study in his book that I looked at. It's not like I went through his book and I wrote down all the studies and it looked for us like, oh, that one's real and that one's real. Oh, this one's fake. This is the first one I looked into.

And it's not a fucking real study. There is no study that measured the effect of walking on IQ and what actual cognitive neuro people say they don't use IQ as a variable in studies like this because IQ does not change like that. That's not how these studies work. And it didn't even happen. It's not even making you smarter because it didn't even happen. That study doesn't exist. Oh my god, Mike. Also, can I just be a total dick? Yes, of course.

All of his thing is like, oh, we need to use colloquial language. We just like to talk to folks how they're folks. And then listen to this fucking sentence. Physical activity improves arterial function and better arterial function improves brain function. Yeah, that's a shitty sentence. Like exercise increases your blood flow. Yes. And your brain needs blood to function. Yes. Oh, Jesus. This is why science communication is hard,

is because you don't want to miss represent anything. But you do want to get it across in a way that people can absorb it. And that's something that Dr. Oz, like instead of doing the difficult work of coming up with like metaphors that can help people understand complex phenomena or whatever, he's just like, this is a breakthrough, revolutionary thing, walking and coffee, IQ. You're like, well, you're not actually simplifying anything, you're making stuff up. Those are two different things.

He's coming up with these sort of studies that don't exist, or if they do, he's not citing them or whatever. Yeah. And then he's building giant fabric colons for TGZ and like flames of green coffee beams and whatever. Right, like, oh, it's not science. Yes. So, okay, second defense, the Dr. Oz offers for himself, he is giving people an alternative to Western medicine. No, he's not.

I know. I know. I know, it stops boiling the episode. So for this one, we're gonna do a little table read. Oh my God. Okay, are you still in a mail link? Yes, I was gonna play the clip of his exchange with Claire McCaskill in the congressional hearing, but it's just really long and really boring.

So I took the transcript and I condensed it down. So we're gonna do a sort of distilled version of this. Okay. Do you wanna play Dr. Oz or do you wanna play a Claire McCaskill? I'll be Claire McCaskill. That sounds fun. Okay, so this is from the 2014 congressional hearing,

Congress was looking into false weight loss claims. Oh dang, all right, it is. It's long. It's serious business. I know. Okay. Your motivation is that your mad at Dr. Oz? viral moments for your Twitter feed later today. All right. All right. Grille me. Now, here are three statements you made on your show. Quote, you may think magic is make believe, but this little bean has scientists saying they found the magic weight loss

cure for every body type. Quote, I've got the number one miracle in a bottle to burn your body fat. It's raspberry ketone. Sorry, I just got it sounds like a delicious salad dress. You're breaking character already. I know. It's a deep, unprofessional outbreak. There is the point. Quote,

Garsinia Cambogia, it may be the simple solution you've been looking for to bust your body fat for good. I don't get why you need to say this stuff, because you know it's not true. With regards to whether they work or not, take the green coffee bean extract as an example. I'm not going to argue that it would pass FDA muster if it was a pharmaceutical drug seeking approval, but among the natural products that are out there, this is a product that has several clinical trials. I mean, I've tried to really do a lot of research in preparation for this hearing,

and the scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products that you call miracles. And when you call a product a miracle, and it's something that you can buy, and it's something that gives people false hope, I just don't understand why you needed to go there. My job, I feel, on the show, is to be a cheerleader for the audience. And when they don't think they have hope, and when they don't think they can make it happen, I want to look, and I do look, everywhere, including in alternative healing traditions,

for any evidence that might be supportive to them. So, you pick on Green Coffee Bean Extract. With the amount of information that I have on that, I'm still comfortable telling folks that if you can buy a reputable version of it, and I say this all the time, I don't sell it. And these are not for long-term use.

Mm-hmm. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's over. Oh, God. What do you think? It is total political theater because he doesn't say anything substantive. No.

It's a satisfying exchange, but there's nothing in there where she goes, no, these are the studies. How do you respond to all these studies that say this doesn't do shit? Right. So the thing that jumps out at me about this, and I think because I've read so many interviews with him and he does this all the fucking time and it drives me nuts, he does this three-step move.

First of all, he says, green coffee bean extract is good because look at the studies that show how much weight you can lose by taking this extract, right? And then somebody pushes back on him and they say, well, that study was only of 16 people, that study wasn't very high quality. And then instead of responding to those points, he then says, well, it's alternative medicine. I don't know if it would necessarily pass FDA muster, but you know, there's different healing traditions around the world, and we couldn't possibly apply those standards. And it's like, if we can't apply those standards then why were you saying that you should take it

because of a study? Right, don't know. Pick one. This is an alternative treatment and the way that we know that is because of Western studies. Yes. And is it doing right by those medical traditions either? Well, that's a thing.

Green coffee bean extract is a fucking pill that is made by a multinational corporation. And then you're saying it's alternative? You know, in a lot of ways, it mimics the medicine show stuff that we talked about during our snake oil. Dude, totally. Totally.

People have been rightfully disappointed by Western medicine. People have had bad experiences. I'm a fat lady. You don't need to tell me about bad experiences and doctor's offices. And what he's doing is sort of like glomming on to this sort of vague but not totally founded idea that there is like someone else is doing it better somewhere. It's sort of writing the co-tails of the genuine mistrust that folks have for understandable reasons often.

Yes. Also another really interesting thing, there's a lot of really good articles by doctors, like people who literally practice Western medicine. They say that it's also kind of bullshit to be saying, you know, these are alternative medicines. We couldn't possibly measure them with Western medicine. And what these doctors point out is that, you know, if you talk about something like yoga, that's like a alternative medicine, you know, seen as very woo-woo 20 years ago. The medical benefits of yoga are extremely well documented. That's not some woo-woo thing, like we couldn't possibly say that yoga is good using our techniques of Western medicine.

It's like there are hundreds of studies showing that yoga improves people's lives, things like meditation and getting a good night's lead and eating a balanced diet. We can measure the effects of those things. Those are not somehow alternative. I don't know why we're acting as if these are somehow these mystical practices that we couldn't possibly assess. No.

Right, and not every treatment from every corner of the world has been sort of like tested or studied, right? There has to be money behind that. There has to be all of this different kind of stuff. So we're not saying like, if it's good, Western medicine, quote unquote, will have validated it, right? So like, but in this case, like,

so if we take green coffee extract, we have an incredibly moneyed supplement company that stands to gain astonishing levels of wealth. Yes, this stuff has the money and the systems to be sort of studied and to see if it's effects are what we think they are, and that hasn't happened. So at the very least, that's like a red flag, dudes. That's a red flag. There's this like weird fake dichotomy between alternative and Western medicine and neither one of those games are remotely defined. Right, it's sort of this like floating signifier, right?

Yeah, and it also, it feels to me like it prevents change too. Because if what you're against is Western medicine, you're just gonna do all this like naturopath random stuff. You're not gonna try to get better policies for universal healthcare or maybe doctors should be able to spend more than seven minutes with their patients. I mean, there's specific changes that we can make to the American healthcare system to make it more responsive to people. Right. If you have a critique of that system, listen, I'm an organizer. I am on board. This is not how that happens. I mean, I do think the fact on board. This is not how that happens.

I mean, I do think the fact that Dr. Oz is a lifelong Republican is under-discup. Oh, no. This is a very Republican worldview, right? That it's like the free market's gonna solve these problems. Yeah, there's nothing we can do to change our medical system, except for the many massive things that can't done to change our medical system. Yes, I just hate that shit. I mean, this is like one of my like extreme pet peeves

is like, you can't change the world, you can only change yourself kind of thing. Well, Western medicine is gonna be, what Western medicine's gonna be, but listen, what you gotta get on board with is this green coffee extract or raspberry ketones or what the fuck ever. So his next claim,

Oh, Lord, okay, is that he never endorses specific products. So this is an excerpt from his opening statement at the Congressional hearing. I started as a guest on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2004 and had my first experiences with scam advertising at that time. When we discuss supplements like SIEBari and Res Vera Troll, there wasn't anything special about my description of them, but immediately the internet ads began spraying up, using pictures of us, showing quotes, claiming that Ms. Winfrey and I were supporting these products and selling them. This is basically his main claim that, you know, look,

did we mention something called Res Vera Troll on our shows? I guess we mentioned it, sure. All of a sudden, these random internet con artists start selling it and saying that we're endorsing it, how dare they? Yeah, but also like, you are fucking endorsing it, dude. Do you wanna hear the actual transcript of what he said about Res Vera Troll on Oprah?

Oh God. Okay. Keep in mind, he is saying, how would anyone get the impression from this that I'm endorsing this product, right? Here's the actual words that he said. Resvera Troll does one other thing. It turns on a system in your body that prevents your cells from aging. Now think about it. Where do they grow these grapes?

On trees on hillsides, right? It's not a very hospitable environment. So these grapes are sending a signal to us that life might not be so good. So why not turn on that cellular chemistry that you have that allows you to live longer and better? What? It's like, oh yeah, how could anybody get the impression that you're endorsing this product? Also, how does any plant survive on a hill?

I know. So hospitable. I know. So inhospitable. What? It's also not very convincing. Things grow everywhere. What are you talking about? So I mean, on some level, I have a teaspoon of sympathy for Dr. Oz, because of course, after this show airs, all these scam companies appear out of nowhere and apparently they started selling, you know, 30-day supply of resveratrol and people would sign up for it, but then they would make

it impossible to cancel. And at the same time, they're saying it's endorsed by Dr. Oz and Oprah. So a lot of people end up getting mad at Dr. Oz and Oprah. It's totally shitty and also at some point, he has to acknowledge and the show has to acknowledge that that is an ecosystem that has sprung up around their show. Well, this is the thing is that if he had said on his show, eat avocados, avocados are good. You know, avocado sales probably would have spiked or whatever, but you wouldn't have all

these fucking grifters coming out of the woodwork because that's not like a grifty sector. Right. Anytime you're sending people to essentially a used car dealership, they're going to get scanned because you're sending them into this extremely grifty sector of the economy. Yeah. And you can't just say like, I bought a Honda Civic and I love my Honda Civic and it's a handsome car and then be like, I can't believe all these people bought Honda Civic. It's like, well, four million people watch your show. He's not even meeting the Instagram threshold for you have to be like, tag ad. So this is actually, I think the biggest flaw in the congressional testimony,

is that over and over again, the senators will press him on selling these scam products. And then he will push back and say, the problem is that they weren't really selling the product. So this is what he says, I once confronted an egregious advertiser of Garciniacambosia on my show in part because we found not only was he stealing my name, he was also only providing 10% of the active ingredient. And it's like, you don't get it, do you? The classical nobody follows up on this. It doesn't matter, the active ingredient is bullshit.

It doesn't matter if it's 10% or 100%. Right, there's like a darkly hilarious section of the congressional testimony where he's going back and forth with one of the male senators. And they're like, so what are your policy ideas for fixing these like scammy, weight loss, grifty sector of the economy?

Dr. Oz's main policy idea, like how to fix it. He's like, we need a database of products that are really endorsed by celebrities. What? That's for you. Like, that's to protect you, Dr. Oz. That's to protect other people. Look, I need to know that Kim Kardashian

really endorsed Black Tommy T. Okay, so last claim we're gonna talk about. This one is this one's really mean. Like, I've been mean, I've been like not charitable in this episode. And this is like the least charitable. So the final claim that Dr. Oz makes is that he's gotten better. One of the last things that he says in his congressional testimony is he's like, what the green coffee bean extract thing. He never says, I'm sorry, but like the closest thing he ever does to saying, I'm sorry, he's like, you know, we made some mistakes there.

And, you know, as an example of how I've learned, we recently had a product on our show called Yakon Surup. Have you heard of this, Aubrey? Not ever. It's basically an extract from like sweet potatoes, like the syrupy stuff that comes out of sweet potatoes. Sure, when you bake a sweet potato, there's like that little goo that sort of puddle of goo. Yes. He says like, look, we recently did a segment on this on the show.

We didn't call it a miracle. We didn't call it magical. We were really responsible. And so of course, as soon as I was reading this, I was like, I need to see this segment. Yeah. Like, let's see the new and improved Dr. Oz. So we are going to watch this clip.

Oh my God. This is the new and improved Dr. Oz. This is Dr. Oz on his best behavior. Oh my God. Two women up here, right? I've got a woman that's a little bit on the big side, right? You come next to me. Not come next to you.

You won't bite me. Not a little bit at all. All right. And on the side, I Not a little better all. All right. And on the side, I get a little bit of a thinner woman. So researchers think that the first way this syrup works is to speed up your metabolism. So if you do have excess fat, one of the reasons we think that's happening, and a lot of you

don't want to look like that. Do I have that right? Yes. Right. So if we believe, as more and more of us in the science field are, that the bacteria in your gut are what's making you heavy, then the question becomes, can we change that?

That gut that bacteria you have is very different. It's caused by having too many processed foods, it's poor diet, you don't want those kinds of bacteria. Those are fat bacteria. This thin person's gut, however, is filled with more of the good bacteria. I like to call it skinny bacteria. That's one of the reasons that people who are thin

can this day thin. That's the first way that scientists believe that this your cone syrup works. The next way that we believe that your cone syrup may work, weight loss, is that it makes you feel full. Yeah. So in order to demonstrate this, I have to put you a little bit of risk.

So come on up here. I'll help you up. All right, we're stopping now. It's a fucking nightmare from here on. I don't need to know why he's hucking her into a sex swing. He ends up doing this thing where he talks about how you cone syrup affects your hunger and satiety hormones. And it's like, it lifts up the level of satiety hormones, and then he lifts her off the ground. What? It's like him, it's him trying lifts up the level of satiety hormones and then he like lifts her off the ground.

What? It's like him, it's him trying to do like make a fun explanation out of an extremely simple scientific concept. So when they step on to the stage, there is this sort of wall of screens at the back of the stage that has a profile of a thin white woman in a brawn panties. And I would say a pretty small fat white woman also in a brawn panties. And I would say a pretty small fat white woman also in a bra on panties. That's what he's referring to when he goes,

most of you don't wanna look like this, right? The woman that he has brought up from the audience absolutely looks like that. Yeah, I know. She is the size and shape that he is talking about while he's asking the audience, you don't wanna look like that, do you? I know, she seems nice.

She seems lovely. I guess he's careful to say that it's not a miracle and it's not magic. I mean, he doesn't technically use the words that he used in the Green Bean Extract clip. Right, but he straightforwardly says that it speeds up your metabolism. He straightforwardly says that it gives you

skinny stomach bacteria. He straightforwardly says that it makes you feel full for longer. Like, he's still making a bunch of claims, like specific claims that are not true. And at this point, he doesn't need to say that it's a miracle cure. He has the miracle cure show. Yes, that's what people tune in for. Right. He's basically making the argument that it is this miracle thing, without saying

the word miracle, but there's not a meaningful difference between those two things. Telling people that switching from sugar to yacone syrup is going to lower their blood pressure, ease their constipation. Of course, he mentions constipation, speeds up your metabolism and makes you feel full for longer. That's what people want from a miracle weight loss cure is for those four things. I have to say, now that I know you're aversion to the poop staff, I very much want to find a poop center. Please don't. Don't do that.

I don't want to do a poop episode. This is our poop episode. This is as close as we're getting. No, this in O'Lestra. Oh yeah, huh. Poop episodes. I mean, of course, I looked up the science on your concern. It's a bunch of fucking mice studies.

It's a real thing. It appears that there's actually some use of your concern for diabetics because it's a bunch of fucking mice studies. It's a real thing, it appears that there's actually some use of your conserup for diabetics because it's a way of sweetening foods, but it's much less sweet than sugar. So like, okay, is it a completely useless thing in the world? No, it seems fine. But also, it has side effects if you eat too much of it.

And also, most people that switch from sugar to your conserup just end up using more your conserup because they want the sweetness. Yeah, totally. I just think it's incredible. Does he not think that we can see him? Like, he goes in front of Congress and he's like, look how much better I am now.

Is this you better? Right. No, I don't think it's that he thinks we can't see him. I think, look, if we're looking at this through, like, strategic communications perspective, right? He knows that his audience is not watching his congressional hearings. The people who watch Dr. Oz and the people who watch fucking C-SPAM. Yeah, no kidding. Like, there's not a lot of overlap, guys.

So he's aware that he just has to give quotes that sound reasonable. Yeah. And get out of there. Yeah. Yeah. And the whole thing is just like a whole mess. There's a huge, like like elite accountability story here too. Yeah.

There was an open letter from 10 prominent physicians to Columbia, saying that Columbia should no longer have him working there. Oh, wow. There's been attempts at the American Medical Association, but the American Medical Association can't really do anything because all the licensing is done at the state level. And then the state level says that they can't do anything because it would be setting a bad precedent, etc., etc. I mean, it's very white-collar crime. Right. Over and over again, every form of accountability that would ever impose any minor tiny

consequences on Dr. Oz finds unexcus not to do it. Yeah. Like one of the defenses of him in Inside Higher Ed, which is doing this panic thing about free speech, doctors, professors, ten years, etc. They say, the real reason these writers are seeking to fire Oz from Columbia is a form of public shaming. And it's like, yes, people should be shamed for constantly lying. Right, or at the very least, you shouldn't be continually provided with the tools to continue to lie to people. Yes. You have an ethical obligation to your patients and to people who think they are your patients. Yeah. You can't just keep doing everything as you have been doing it if it's actively hurting people. Stop being bad. Yes. Stop being bad, dude. Stop being bad. I don't know. Since the Congressional

hearing, if anything he's gotten worse, so in 2016, he does a physical exam on Trump. What? Sort of live on TV. Yeah, he had Trump on and Trump, you know, he's like, why didn't you release your medical records? And Trump is like, I did release my medical records. And Dr. Oz is like, sounds good. What?

And then he does this like theatrical fake physical exam, which like he doesn't in any way touch. Like it's not a real physical exam, which he doesn't in any way touch, it's not a real physical exam, but he just asks Trump a bunch of these questions and Trump is able to answer yes or no. And then he's like, you seem like you're in good physical health. She's crazy. And then this is amazing synergy, convergence for our show.

In 2018, Trump appoints him to the President's Council on youth fitness. Oh my God. That old chestnut. I know. So just like all the bullshit fads coming together. The last thing I googled on Dr. Oz's website was what he's been doing this year during COVID and I'm going to read you some headlines. Oh God. Okay.

COVID-19 and immunity, the vitamin and mineral prescription plan recommended by experts. This shopping list will help you choose foods for COVID-19 immunity. This is my favorite one. Should zinc be added to treatment protocols for COVID-19 patients? In his defense, he has not been a COVID anti-vaxxer.

He's been very clear about like, you should get vaccinated for COVID. So that's like the one saving grace. But he spent a lot of 2020 spreading basically some, like, pretty bad information about COVID. COVID immunity is not gonna come from the fucking grocery store, dude. All of those headlines sounded to me, like,

Troy McFluer educational films. Yes, as an actor, I mean need my eyeballs to be their whitest. Yes, again, like if we're talking about playing on folks' anxiety about mortality, I don't know if there's any clearer way to do that, then say, oh, you gotta take zinc, otherwise you're gonna get COVID. I can zinc, dude, I mean. Ugh, this is the kind of stuff that makes me feel sort of like, not hopeless, but despairing.

Dude, yeah. All of this stuff makes it seem like weight loss is super simple. All you need to do is buy this supplement. All you need to do is have the right gut bacteria. All you need to do is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Mm-hmm. The idea that you could spend this much time talking about how terrible it is to be fat and all the ways that you don't have to be fat,

and that that would not sort of impact the way that people think about and treat fat people or disabled people or chronic heal people or what have you is fully bananas. So it's also like not only is he playing real fast and loose with the truth and sometimes just making it up, he's also sort of feeding these fires, right? So, uh, we should let Dr. Oz have the last word on this show. So, this is, uh, this is how he, this is toward the end of his congressional testimony. You're not going to believe this. He says, you know what the biggest disservice I've done for my audience?

It's not the flowery language that Senator McCaskill is criticizing me for. It's that I never told them where to buy the products. But how dare they think I'm trying to sell something. This is what he sees as his central sin, that he was not selling them reliable versions of raspberry ketones or whatever. I love the idea that he's like, how dare people think I was selling them things? That's actually my biggest mistake because that I wasn't. I know, no sir. So that's it, that's our tour through

the yellow brick road of Dr. Oz's bullshit. I had to tell you, I was kind of excited coming into this to just be like, yeah, that guy seems like garbage. And this is significantly darker. And then I made it really sad and horrible, I'm sorry. No, no, it's not sad and horrible. It's just like, it is way more serenistered. It's serenistered, I know.

Systemically serenistered. But actually, you know, it's really good if you're reeling. Tell me, take a little bit of your conserah. Get out of here. One teaspoon, gut bacteria? I'm gonna hang up on you. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Thanks for watching!