Dr. Oz

Dr. Oz goes full quack with Astrology

by


Dr. Oz is a well known proponent of alternative medicine quackery, but when he recently promoted Astrology on twitter as a health solution it surprised some of his critics. The push back he received was well-deserved. Given the degree of embarrassment, he quickly deleted the tweet, but once it is out there then it is not going away …

Just how deep is Dr Oz’s quackery?

In short – very, and that is not simply an opinion, it is a well-established evidence-based fact.

Back in 2014 the British Medical Journal published a study on his claims that come via TV shows. The Washington Post also highlighted that at the time, and laid out the results as follows …

The researchers, led by Christina Korownyk of the University of Alberta, charged medical research either didn’t substantiate — or flat out contradicted — more than half of Oz’s recommendations. “Recommendations made on medical talk shows often lack adequate information on specific benefits or the magnitude of the effects of these benefits,” the article said. “… The public should be skeptical about recommendations made on medical talk shows.”

In other words, he might indeed be filling a demand, but the evidence is that most of the advice he dispenses is not evidence based but instead falls into another category labelled “mostly quackery”. In a medical context the wrong advice is potentially life threatening and so that is a serious issue.

They selected 40 episodes from last year, identifying 479 separate medical recommendations. After paging through the relevant medical research, they found evidence only supported 46 percent of his recommendations, contradicted 15 percent and wasn’t available for 39 percent.

Finding that he is now also promoting Astrology for better health should perhaps not be a surprise.

Twitter Reactions

The twitterverse has been having some fun with it …

Given his public demonstrations of utter medical incompetence, he has of course been especially selected by Trump.

… or to put that another way, the quack bot nails it …

Leave a Comment

Exit mobile version