5 Strange Things About Dr. Oz We Can't Ignore

It might be easy to forget that Dr. Mehmet Oz is an actual doctor — a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon, to be precise. He made the jump from full-time practice to multi-Emmy-winning TV and media personality thanks to his popularity as a guest on Oprah Winfrey's show. Those accomplishments alone would satisfy most people, but Dr. Oz felt pulled to yet another career switch. As the new administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, he oversees the healthcare programs used by millions, including older Americans, persons with disabilities, and underprivileged youth. 

Whether Dr. Oz will prove to be a huge regret for Donald Trump has yet to be determined at the time of this writing, but we'd be amiss if we didn't bring attention to the questionable acts that have plagued his long career. From his medical advice to a journalist's dishy phone call, the doctor has flirted numerous times with the limits of ethics and propriety. We offer a few representative samples for your review and offer a disclaimer: Always consult your own medical provider before going on or off any medicine or supplement.

Mehmet Oz left his popular syndicated show in 2021 to dip his toe into political waters. Dr. Oz ran for an open Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, winning the party nomination but ultimately losing to John Fetterman. (Keystone State voters may have been skeptical that a rich doctor with a primary home in New Jersey could represent their interests.) Then, just when it seemed the doctor would move on to other pursuits, President Trump tapped him for his cabinet. Eyebrows rocketed skyward at the news, with skeptics pointing to Dr. Oz's track record of promoting unproven treatments. Indeed, the question still remains: Was he right for the job, or did he just have the right connections?

As a candidate, the doctor ran as a Republican with a MAGA-friendly platform. He echoed Trump's "America First" messaging, criticized COVID-19 lockdown and masking policies, and promoted issues such as border security and lower drug prices. Trump, in turn, backed him for Senate, citing his popularity. "You know when you're in television for 18 years, that's like a poll," he said at one rally, per the AP. "That means people like you." Those words were very telling, editor Chris Cillizza has pointed out on CNN's website: To Trump, fame and popularity are equivalent to success. Although Dr. Oz wasn't the most obvious pick — former surgeon general Jerome Adams was another name mentioned — he was by far the most well-known to the general public. The president is all about glitzy appearances, and having a celeb in his cabinet is exactly the kind of achievement he'd love to brag about. 

As a surgeon, Harvard-educated Dr. Oz is highly regarded for his skill and innovations (he holds a number of patents on medical devices). When he shifted his focus to entertainment, however, his credibility took a tumble. "The Dr. Oz Show" quickly became a platform from which he promoted sketchy supplements as miracle drugs. Per CNN, the doctor touted green coffee bean extract as a weight-loss aid, even though studies have yet to confirm its effectiveness. Similarly, Dr. Oz called Garcinia cambogia, another herbal supplement, "a revolutionary fat buster" that he claimed could work without diet or exercise. 

His shilling resulted in a 2014 appearance before Congress to testify in a subcommittee investigation into the promotion of unproven weight loss treatments. In her capacity as chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance, then-senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) took the doctor to task: "I don't get why you need to say this stuff when you know it's not true," she said. "When you have this amazing megaphone, why would you cheapen your show?" 

Dr. Oz also paid for his misleading statements in a very literal way: He was one of the defendants in a 2016 class action lawsuit filed by plaintiffs who bought the supplements after seeing his show. The case was settled out of court for a cool $5.25 million. The settlement won't hurt Dr. Oz's wallet; he's worth an estimated $104 to $445 million. But the blow to his credibility is another matter. A number of physicians sent a letter to the dean of Columbia University Medical School urging that Dr. Oz be removed from his position on the school's department of surgery. 

During and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Oz publicly came out against many of the policies put in place to slow the spread and reduce the number of deaths. He pushed for schools to reopen, in the process arguing that the benefits would outweigh the chance of some students dying. The doctor also promoted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, despite the lack of evidence that the drug is effective against COVID-19. But his connection to the antimalarial meds creates more than a bit of doubt about his recommendation.

Around the time of his run for the Senate, it was revealed that Dr. Oz and his wife, Lisa, own hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stock in pharmaceutical companies that manufacture and distribute hydroxychloroquine. One would hope the doctor's medical ethics would be high enough not to put profits above patients' well-being, but knowing he stands to profit from increased use of an unproven medicine doesn't make for good optics.

In 2021, New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi hoped to interview Dr. Oz about his Senate candidacy — and got much more than she was hoping for. In the resulting article, she recalls looking up the Ozes' phone number and reaching his wife, Lisa Oz, who hung up and then phoned back to find out who had called her. Lisa hung up again after Nuzzi identified herself, but the connection wasn't actually broken. Nuzzi claimed the line was still active — she thinks it may have been connected to a car's sound system — and that she heard the Ozes talking for several minutes afterward. Among other tidbits, Nuzzi reported that the couple spoke dismissively about her (calling her "a f****ng girl reporter," among other slurs), then expressed concern that she might have also spoken to another source who was touting Dr. Oz as "the next leader of the Republican Party." 

That "girl reporter" would go on to greater fame (and scandal) as the alleged mistress of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, which cost Nuzzi her job and her engagement. She later enjoyed a best-revenge moment with her buzzy book, "American Canto," which goes into detail about their relationship. Meantime, the two men have become unexpected colleagues (read on).

Nobody had "Dr. Oz and RFK Jr. running national healthcare" on their bingo card for 2025, but then, there were a lot of things about the year that were hard to predict. Dr. Oz's strange connection to RFK Jr. comes courtesy of President Donald Trump, who appointed Kennedy as head of the Department of Health and Human Services just days after tapping Dr. Oz as CMS administrator. The TV doc and the nephew of John F. Kennedy have found common ground in their "MAHA" (Make America Healthy Again) platform, declaring that better eating and less exposure to chemicals will help turn around the rates of chronic disease.

Like his celeb counterpart, RFK Jr. has plenty of critics who say his recommendations are based on flimsy evidence and could even potentially be disastrous. Kennedy has pushed for changing the schedule of childhood vaccines and eliminating at least one. He has ordered the Centers for Disease Control to stop recommending fluoridation in drinking water, despite its effectiveness in preventing dental cavities. Both Dr. Oz and RFK Jr. argue that natural fats such as beef tallow and butter are healthier than processed seed oils such as soybean and corn oil, even though the bigger issue is the way the products are used. President Trump's favorite Big Macs and fries wouldn't be any better for him if they were cooked in beef fat. Come to think of it, maybe the best thing these men could do for their country would be to get the divisive POTUS to eat a salad once in a while.