Slashdot Mirror
Columbia University Doctors Ask For Dr. Mehmet Oz's Dismissal
circletimessquare writes Dr. Mehmet Oz serves as vice chairman of Columbia University Medical Center's department of surgery. He is a respected cardiothoracic surgeon but his television show has been accused of pushing snake oil. Now other doctors at Columbia University want Dr. Oz kicked off the medical school faculty. Dr. Oz has responded on his Facebook account: "I bring the public information that will help them on their path to be their best selves. We provide multiple points of view, including mine which is offered without conflict of interest. That doesn't sit well with certain agendas which distort the facts. For example, I do not claim that GMO foods are dangerous, but believe that they should be labeled like they are in most countries around the world." In their letter, the doctors accuse Dr. Oz of quackery: "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."
he's irresponsibly pandering to ignorance to raise his profile
ignorant think he's informing them and giving them "choices"
but this is merely a logical fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
a choice between quackery and sound science is not a choice
it's preying on the science illiteracy of many and steering them to make uneducated bad choices that hurt their health. all to turn a quick buck and bask in the blessings of idiots
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As long as he was peddling magical dietary supplements and weight loss pills he was a lovable scamp and was allowed to carry on with his mischief. But as soon as he dared cross Monsanto, he is a quack that must be squashed.
they're jealous because they want to be successful snake oil salesmen?
so according to you, the only reason to oppose snake oil salesmen... is because you want to be one?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I thought Jamie Oliver comprehensively put this guy on the quack-heap: https://youtu.be/WA0wKeokWUU
A shame it wasn't Jamie Oliver or a few more people might have heard it.
I don't think there is much overlap between the Oprah audience and the John Oliver audience, and one Oprah endorsement is worth a thousand minor-celebrity condemnations.
Quackery they could tolerate. But how dare he question the nutritious yummy GMOs whose manufacturers are pumping millions of dollars into endowments for those other Columbia University medical faculty. While he's enriching himself, those poor souls may lose out on lucrative $$$. Can't have that.
(That's not to say dr. Oz is not a quack - he certainly is a snake oil salesman, but these guys have an agenda that's as clear as day)
Rather Dr. Oz has an agenda in spinning his response so it looks like his accusers have an agenda.
Police: Joe robbed a grocery store last week and shot five people this week!
Joe: It's not fair to say I robbed the grocery store. The owner was greedy and ripping people off!
I stole this Sig
can you legitimize that accusation please?
Well, going down the list of signers http://www.vox.com/2015/4/16/8... I notice
GIlbert Ross, M.D.
President (Acting) and Executive Director
American Council on Science and Health
I am not completely for or against ACSH. Elizabeth Whelan, their founder, was an advocate for some issues I agreed with and some issues I disagreed with. I met Whelan a couple of times. I liked her. She was adding information about some controversial debates, and she was particularly useful in taking on some politically correct positions that had a weak science base. As I recall she was defending GM food, and also taking money from Monsanto.
Most admirably, she was taking on the cigarette industry when it was still a "controversy," especially in magazines that were getting a lot of cigarette advertising, notably almost all the major women's magazines.
But Whelan was also trying to round up "unrestricted" grants from industry to write supposedly unbiased or objective reports on major controversies. To her credit, they tried to give all the scientific evidence, although they seem to have run into problems with that.
The one I remember was their report on that fat substitute, Olestra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... This was not a life-or-death issue, but olestra had a few side effects, the most noticeable of which was diarrhea. Procter & Gamble managed to get the FDA to allow them to refer to "diarrhea" by the euphemistic term, "loose stools," which I thought was misleading. At any rate, when I read that report I realized why you can't get an objective report sponsored by a corporation with a financial interest. Whelan couldn't even use straightforward language and arguments to defend olestra, because P&G's lawyers made them follow the FDA-approved wording.
Whelan's big disappointment was that the industry wouldn't support her (the way they do for the more partisan think tanks like the Manhattan Institute), so she gave up that economic model. I don't know where they get their money from now, but I assume they disclose it. In a way it's a shame, because Whelan failed because she was too honest (but not completely candid). Or to put it less flatteringly, you can't be a little bit of a prostitute.
But let's go to the signers at the top.
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
Hoover did not deign to include its funding sources in the "About Us" section of its web site, and I'm not going to track it down. But as I recall, when Hoover was first created, the Stanford faculty complained that they were an independent institution using Stanford's name but without academic accountability to Standford, and they were funded by corporations that had a financial stake in some of the areas of their research.
Miller was one of the founding members of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition which was founded by Philip Morris to challenge the evidence of harm from tobacco http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...
I remember reading Miller's defenses of GM food. I happen to think that GM food is (probably, mostly) pretty safe. But if Miller believes in the free market, he ought to let consumers know which foods are GM and which aren't, so they can make their own free-market decisions. I don't know if Miller takes any money directly from those corporations. But the organizations he works for, like the Hoover Institution, ACSH, and ASSC, do. So that's where his paycheck ultimately comes from. So in that sense the parent's accusation is true.
Oz has
There are actually a few differences that can have real consequences. For example, simple cross breeding is a fairly slow and limited process that gives us time to see if a problem is developing. It is further limited by the need to stick with plants that can cross-breed in the first place.
Another factor is that not all genetic modification techniques lead to the plants breeding true. The next few generations may be substantially different from the original.
If the work was being done in a verifiable cautious manner, it might be OK, but there is a history of modifications that "can't escape to the wild" being spotted in the wild. It's somewhat amusing the number of weeds that gained roundup resistance from roundup ready canola. Also amusingly, in spite of Monsanto's claim that only their transgenic techniques could have produced roundup ready crops, traditional breeding has managed it in a few cases including in coca.