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PA Doctors Call Out Oz As “A Fraud,” “A Threat To Public Health,” & “The Wrong Prescription For Pennsylvania”

Dr. Val Arkoosh: “As a physician, I can tell you with certainty that Dr. Oz is the wrong prescription for Pennsylvania”
Dr. Lisa Perriera, OB-GYN: “If Dr. Oz were elected, he would only make the struggle for my patients harder”
Dr. Marcelle Shapiro: “As physicians, we take a pledge to do no harm as part of our Hippocratic Oath. It is clear that Dr. Oz has violated his pledge”

News coverage is highlighting how Pennsylvania doctors slammed Mehmet Oz “for promoting dubious medical treatments during his years as a celebrity physician on daytime television” – calling him “a fraud,” “a threat to public health,” and “the wrong prescription for Pennsylvania.”

See for yourself:

Philadelphia Inquirer: John Fetterman campaign’s ‘Real Doctors Against Oz’ tour hits TV doctor over weight-loss advice
Val Arkoosh, a physician and chair of the Montgomery County Commissioners, said Mehmet Oz “is the wrong prescription for Pennsylvania.”
By Sean Collins Walsh

August 10, 2022

  • Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman’s campaign on Wednesday launched an effort to attack his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, for promoting dubious medical treatments during his years as a celebrity physician on daytime television’s The Dr. Oz Show.
  • Speaking at a “Real Doctors Against Oz” news conference outside City Hall, physician and Montgomery County Commissioners Chair Val Arkoosh criticized Oz for “making his fortune as a TV scam artist providing reckless medical advice” and hawking “miracle” drugs that are not embraced in the medical community, as well as questionable COVID-19 treatments like hydroxychloroquine.
  • “Oz simply does not care about the health of Pennsylvanians,” said Arkoosh, who ran against Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, in the Democratic primary. “As a physician, I can tell you with certainty that Dr. Oz is the wrong prescription for Pennsylvania.”
  • He lost standing with many in the medical community for using the show to promote unproven treatments, including some weight-loss products.
  • Marcelle Shapiro, vice chair of the Medical Alumni Advisory Council at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, said at the event… “Sadly, he fell from grace and lost respect from the medical community once he endorsed miraculous powers of green coffee extract and other potentially harmful supplements to promote weight loss.”
  • In 2014, he spoke at a congressional hearing and was attacked by lawmakers from both parties over his on-air advice. Arkoosh pointed to a 2013 Georgetown University study that found that 78% of the advice on Oz’s show “did not align with evidence-based medical guidelines, society recommendations, or authority statements.”

NBC Philadelphia (WATCH): Real Doctors Against Oz

August 10, 2022

  • Reporter: In Philadelphia today, doctors rallying against the famous doctor in Pennsylvania’s Senate race.
  • Arkoosh: Dr. Oz is a fraud.
  • Reporter: The Fetterman campaign organizing this event focused on their Republican opponent.

WHYY: Pa. doctors call Dr. Oz’s run for Senate a ‘threat to public health’
By Nicole Leonard
August 10, 2022

  • A group of Philadelphia and state doctors have come out against Dr. Mehmet Oz’s run for U.S. Senate, proclaiming that the heart surgeon and TV personality poses “a major threat to public health” in Pennsylvania.
  • “Oz simply isn’t trusted by real medical professionals,” Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, said Wednesday on the north steps of Philadelphia City Hall.
  • Arkoosh, who ended her own pursuit for the Senate seat earlier this year, is joining physicians on a new tour called “Real Doctors Against Oz.” They plan to drum up support for Democratic nominee John Fetterman, who will face off against Oz, the GOP nominee, in the November election.
  • The doctors group is targeting Oz’s medical treatment recommendations and health product promotions during his time as host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” his comments on COVID-19 treatments and protocols, as well as his stance on abortion and reproductive rights.
  • Oz’s position has put him at odds with abortion providers like Dr. Lisa Perriera, an OB-GYN, abortion provider, and chief medical director at the Women’s Centers, which offers abortion services in Philadelphia and Delaware County.
  • “I know what happens when abortion becomes illegal. Everything gets harder for pregnant people,” Perriera said. “If Dr. Oz were elected, he would only make the struggle for my patients harder.”

Business Insider: A group of doctors, backing Fetterman, accused Dr. Oz of ‘disgusting’ attacks on a stroke victim and promoting dubious medical treatments
By Charles R. Davis
August 10, 2022

  • At a press conference outside City Hall on Wednesday, medical professionals backing [Oz’s] Democratic rival for Senate accused him of betraying his responsibilities by promoting dubious treatments to his daytime viewing audience.
  • “Oz simply isn’t trusted by real medical professionals,” Dr. Val Arkoosh, who briefly sought the Democratic nomination for Senate, told reporters at the event, which was organized by the campaign of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.
  • Arkoosh singled out Oz’s promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, despite studies showing it is not effective; the FDA has warned against its use for the coronavirus, citing reports of kidney damage and liver failure. She also pointed to the Oz campaign’s attacks on the Democratic nominee.
  • “No real doctor — or any decent human being, to be honest — would ever mock a stroke victim who is recovering from that stroke in the way that Dr. Oz is mocking John Fetterman,” Arkoosh said. “It’s disgusting.”
  • Oz… used his television platform to promote a number of extraordinary but false claims. In 2012, for example, he told viewers that, according to scientists, green coffee extract was a “magic weight-loss cure for every body type.” In fact, the study he cited, which claimed the extract reduced a consumer’s weight without the need for exercise or changes to their diet, was retracted.
  • At the press conference, Dr. Marcelle Shapiro, vice chair of the Medical Alumni Advisory Council at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania — which Oz attended — noted that, when the Republican candidate appeared before a Senate committee in 2014, “he received a bipartisan scolding for misleading claims.”
  • His record, Shapiro argued, is disqualifying.
  • “As physicians, we take a pledge to do no harm as part of our Hippocratic Oath,” she said. “It is clear that Dr. Oz has violated his pledge.”
  • Dr. Lisa Perriera, chief medical director of The Women’s Centers, which provides abortion care, said Oz’s opposition to Roe v. Wade was a dealbreaker. Since the Supreme Court overturned the decision, Perriera said, she’s been inundated with out-of-state patients seeking care in the commonwealth, where it remains legal.
  • “If Dr. Oz were elected, he would only make the struggle for my patients harder,” she said.

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