Dr Oz under fire from senators over ‘miracle’ claims

The American TV host and natural health champion Dr Mehmet Oz has faced a grilling by senators for allegedly spreading “false hope” and “perpetuating scams”.

Oz, whose TV shows are seen by up to 4 million a viewers day, was called last week to answer questions by the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Product Safety about a promotion of weight loss supplements on ‘The Doctor Oz Show’

During recent shows Oz has used phrases such as “miracle pill”, “magic pill” and “lightening in a bottle” to describe to diet supplements including green coffee bean extract and garcinia, for which scientific evidence is limited or contradictory.

The chairwoman of the committee, Senator Claire McCaskill, told the cardiac surgeon and TV host: “The scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products you called ‘miracles’.” She said she was discouraged by the “false hope” such claims created and questioned his role “intentional or not, in perpetuating these scams.”

The ‘Oz effect’ continues to have a major impact on the sales of supplements and health foods that get mentioned on the Dr Oz shows. The high profile TV doctor is even having an effect on sales on this side of the Atlantic – Holland & Barrett’s head of supplements told The Grocer (14 June) that the ‘Oz effect’ was helping to fuel the UK diet pill boom. Oz is also regularly featured flatteringly in the health pages of the UK media, although this week Mail Online branded him the ‘Father of weight loss CONS’.

The US trade press has warned that Dr Oz’s use of terminology like ‘magic’ and ‘miracle’ threatens to bring the supplements industry into disrepute. Nutrition Business Journal senior editor Rick Polito wrote that Oz’s “disastrous senate appearance” had invited an “endless assault on supplements” and made the industry an soft target for late night TV comedians like the Daily Show’s John Oliver who pilloried Oz and the US supplements industry in a 16 minute segment.

Commenting on continuing bad practice from parts of the US diet supplements industry Polito continued: “If the industry doesn’t work hard to clean up its act and make regulation part of that, the up-and-coming consumers will see nothing but what the comedians describe: a parade of charlatans and shenanigans and snake oil.”