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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMeet the medical student who wants to bring down Dr. Oz
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/12/5891451/meet-the-medical-student-who-wants-to-bring-down-dr-oz-quackery"Dr. Oz has something like 4-million viewers a day," Mazer told Vox. "The average physician doesn't see a million patients in their lifetime. That's why organized medicine should be taking action."
snip
Julia Belluz: So you're the medical student who wants to bring down Dr. Oz?
Benjamin Mazer: I'm definitely not the only one. This issue was brought up by a number of physicians I worked with during my family medicine clerkship. We had all of this first-hand experience with patients who really liked his show and trusted him quite a bit. [Dr. Oz] would give advice that was really not great or it had no medical basis. It might sound harmless when you talk about things like herbal pills or supplements. But when the physicians' advice conflicted with Oz, the patients would believe Oz.
snip
JB: Was there a particular patient who inspired this crusade against TV quackery?
BM: The patient who inspired the policy I wrote was an older woman in her 60s who had a lot of the classic, chronic health problems we deal with in America. She was overweight, she had diabetes, heart disease. And so the physician I was working with was recommending these oral diabetes medications that are pretty standard fare. She had watched the Dr. Oz Show featuring green coffee-bean supplementsand how it was great to lose weightand she was convinced this was going to be a huge impact on her weight.
We tried to politely express concerns that this probably wasn't going to be effective because there's no evidence for it. She refused the diabetes medications. The hope she had placed in the green coffee-bean extract was part of that.
Just another Monsanto shill, felon defending, Michelle Obama hater, obviously.
Sid
tridim
(45,358 posts)Has he harmed you in some way? Has he harmed anyone in any way?
giftedgirl77
(4,713 posts)& swindle people out of money he is no better than Pat Robertson. Everyday he has bullshit conartists on his show claiming to talk to dead people or peddle miracle weight loss pills that have been proven to do no good. Yes,I would say he is doing harm & as a medical doctor last I checked he took an oath not to do so. So at this point the guy has a choice actually practice medicine as a real doctor or just play one on t.v. which should require a disclaimer that his show is full of shit.
tridim
(45,358 posts)I need proof, not guesses. Awaiting your link.
Hint: If he had harmed anyone he would have been sued.
So, disclaimers on every show on television then... "This show is full of shit". Yea, that'll work.
Javaman
(62,439 posts)and there will be a few hits about him getting investigated and sued over his dietary sups BS.
tridim
(45,358 posts)AKA a hot pack, which all doctors prescribe.
And of course Dr. Oz won:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/dr-oz-beats-tv-viewers-648177
The judge also hints that television is not a two-way medium, and as a result, viewers are in a better position to understand their own circumstances than the TV doctor. She says, "Dietl was well aware of his own medical condition, and the possibility that he could be susceptible to injury because of the diminished sensation in his legs."
Frivolous lawsuits 101.
Javaman
(62,439 posts)that his dietary sups were bs...
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/17/health/senate-grills-dr-oz/
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)medicines?
Take your anger out on doctors prescribing horse piss to women and giving them cancer
or doctors prescribing anti-depressants that don't work
or prescribe statins
. or the list is endless.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Shady arrangements between pharmaceutical companies and doctors is an ethics and economics issue. Pharmacology's validity and the "nutritional supplements'" lack of validity is a scientific one.
Attack pharmaceutical companies for their shady practices, and attack asshats like Oz for peddling bullshit on gullible people.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Premarin should have gone through much more testing than it did.
But just because Premarin exists doesn't mean the whole of pharmacology is invalid and you should eat magic coffee beans to treat your cancer. What it means is pharmaceutical companies need better oversight.
Orrex
(63,085 posts)No? Then the comparison is meaningless.
Your accusation is an ad hominem and doesn't actually support your argument.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)one can only imagine you are a male and not involved with a woman who has ever had to deal with menopause.
In that case:
https://nwhn.org/menopause-hormone-therapy-and-breast-cancer
I could go on and post links to stories about anti-depressants that work as placebo:
How do antidepressants compare to placebos?
In general, the efficacy of a drug is defined by how it differs from placebo. More than two dozen antidepressants have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) based on trials in which the drug is better than placebo. Sometimes the differences are small. Sometimes only positive results have been selected for submission to FDA. And sometimes the placebo effects are profound. For reasons that are not entirely clear, placebo effects have increased markedly over the past two decades in trials of psychiatric medications.
Mild depression tends to improve on placebo so that the difference between antidepressant use and placebo effect is very small, or at times, absent. In more severe forms of depression, antidepressants show greater efficacy. It is important to note that these clinical studies have primarily focused on reducing the symptoms of depression and not on a broader range of potential outcomes (such as changes in everyday functions, cognitive abilities, quality of life, etc.). In addition, because clinical trials are conducted in a controlled environment, they do not necessarily reflect the way actual clinical practice operates. And even under research conditions, clinical trials for antidepressants use rating scales that may be weak or imprecise indicators of efficacy.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2011/antidepressants-a-complicated-picture.shtml
..
And then the statin scam
Do You Really Need That Statin? This Expert Says No:
Barbara H. Roberts, M.D., is director of the Women's Cardiac Center at the Miriam Hospital in Providence, R.I. and associate clinical professor of medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She spent two years at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she was involved in the first clinical trial that demonstrated a beneficial effect of lowering cholesterol on the incidence of heart disease. In addition to The Truth About Statins: Risks and Alternatives to Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs, she is also author of How to Keep From Breaking Your Heart: What Every Woman Needs to Know About Cardiovascular Disease.
Martha Rosenberg: Statins have become so popular with adults middle-aged and older in industrialized countries, they are almost a pharmaceutical rite of passage. Yet you write in your new book there is little evidence they are effective in many groups and no evidence they are effective in one group: women without heart disease. Worse, you provide evidence, including stories from your own patients, that they are doing serious harm.
Barbara Roberts: Yes. Every week in my practice I see patients with serious side effects to statins, and many did not need to be treated with statins in the first place. These side effects range from debilitating muscle and joint pain to transient global amnesia, neuropathy, cognitive dysfunction, fatigue and muscle weakness. Most of these symptoms subside or improve when they are taken off statins. There is even growing evidence of a statin link to Lou Gehrig's disease.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-rosenberg/statins_b_1818370.html
.
As for asking for a link to pharmaceuticals bribing doctors- I can only wonder at such a complete lack of awareness of what goes on in medicine. That you'd be so unaware stretches credulity.
GlaxoSmithKline fined $3bn after bribing doctors to increase drugs sales:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/03/glaxosmithkline-fined-bribing-doctors-pharmaceuticals
Orrex
(63,085 posts)Last edited Fri Apr 24, 2015, 03:10 PM - Edit history (1)
See, when you accused doctors of giving women cancer, that came across as a claim that doctors had given women cancer. But what you really meant is that doctors prescribed a procedure that was--at the time--accepted and approved but which was later found to lead to an increased incidence of cancer.
That is, you were equivocating. Not quite lying, but pretty damn close.
I also missed the part where you documented your claim about horse piss. Could you clarify?
Also, since I didn't contest your points about antidepressants or statins, I don't see how I'm required to address your follow-up to those points. However, I would point out that you need to demonstrate that doctors were/are knowingly prescribing these drugs while aware that they were harmful/ineffective, and that they were doing so because they were paid by GSK to do so. If they prescribed them in good faith--even in subsidized good faith--then they were incorrect but not unjustified.
Do you attack Dr Oz when he gets paid to promote his bullshit, or do you only complain when real doctors receive compensation?
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)The New York State attorney generals office accused four major retailers on Monday of selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous herbal supplements and demanded that they remove the products from their shelves.
The authorities said they had conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four national retailers GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart and found that four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels. The tests showed that pills labeled medicinal herbs often contained little more than cheap fillers like powdered rice, asparagus and houseplants, and in some cases substances that could be dangerous to those with allergies.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/new-york-attorney-general-targets-supplements-at-major-retailers/?_r=0
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)tridim
(45,358 posts)It is RW, pro corporate medicine propaganda.
He would have been sued if your claim was true.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)He shows us every day, pro corporate propaganda every day, its the authoritarian way.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
G_j
(40,366 posts)Sid
Orrex
(63,085 posts)What a bastard.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Orrex
(63,085 posts)She's sneaky like that.
mmonk
(52,589 posts)GMO's? People he considers liberal? Wild associative connection speculation theories with other causes or people? I don't understand Dr. Oz posts and it's relativity to Democratic Underground.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)claiming that whatever's in it (who knows what's actually in it, those supplements have a history of lying on their labels) will cure cancer and a whole other variety of conditions.
Fuck him, he's a fraud and a quack.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)The Drug company say its OK and the FDA grants the patents . $$$$$$
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)If you honestly think it's just a rubber stamp process.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Or please explain the CDER process
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Hint: The FDA does not test supplements.
The supplement company say (sic) it's (sic) OK and it goes on the shelves. To be sold by people like Dr. Oz.
Also, the FDA does not grant patents. That would be the Patent and Trademark office.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)gcomeau
(5,764 posts)The only "test" the patent office does is to look if it's different enough from any other patented products to qualify to be uniquely patented instead of having already been patented.
That is it.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Believe it or not, different departments of our government do different things.
Also, there is no requirement that a medication actually work before it is patented. You can patent the chemical or the process to extract/synthesize the chemical before you know if the chemical does anything.
The FDA puts forth the standards companies have to follow, and the studies they have to submit before they can market a medicine. Why? Because there is nowhere near enough resources for the FDA or other public entities to test every medication. Instead, companies are liable for fraudulent studies.
Part of the problem is the belief that studies can actually reveal all possible side effects of a medication. They can't.
An enormous study is 10,000 people. Those 10,000 people do not have every possible combination of genetics, medical conditions and other medications to detect every possible side effect.
So sometimes drugs get approved, and then it turns out there is a condition not in those 10,000 that makes the drug dangerous. And then approval either gets yanked, or the drug's label is updated telling doctors to not prescribe it if the patient has that condition.
That's why it takes a very long time for a drug to move from prescription to over-the-counter. We need to try the drug in a pool of millions before we've identified every possible combination of genetics, medical conditions and other medications to find adverse reactions, and your doctor is supposed to be monitoring for adverse reactions to prescription medications. Only after the drug has been used by many, many millions can a decision be made if it's safe enough for over-the-counter.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)jeff47
(26,549 posts)Got to get through animal trials before you can move to humans.
Feel free to explain how we could test every possible combination of medical conditions, genetics and drug interactions some other way.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)put them on the market, wait for the deaths, then let the attorneys sort it out, No Woo there,
jeff47
(26,549 posts)There are not enough scientists at the FDA to test every new drug, and there is not enough space or budget at public universities to test every new drug. And there's no way to convince Congress to swap the FDA's and DoD's budgets.
So either the drug companies pay the many billions per year for testing within a regulatory framework, or there are no new drugs.
That last option is fine if you just have a fever, but there's a lot of diseases that would benefit from new drugs. Plus we can retire some old ones that are not as effective or have more side effects.
Yes, there are examples of ones where "the attorneys sort it out". There's many more where attorneys do not get involved.
Logical
(22,457 posts)bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)We know you don't like to think past a snide remark. but how many people have to die or become Ill for a drug to be recalled?
Logical
(22,457 posts)You said "The Drug company say its OK and the FDA grants the patents"
Like I asked you.......if that is true why are so many drugs not put on he market?
You don't really know much about this do you??
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Logical
(22,457 posts)need to prove that is true, which anyone with any knowledge of the Pharma business knows is bullshit.
You are the typical whiner who just spouts BS and hopes someone believes it.
If you want me to show you how to google for drugs the FDA has rejected let me know.
SCantiGOP
(13,856 posts)I have thought he was a smug quack for years.
gcomeau
(5,764 posts)It detailed EXACTLY how he is harming people.
Logical
(22,457 posts)I assume you might be really gullible.
obnoxiousdrunk
(2,906 posts)another hater trying to bring down the Republican liberal Dr and Kevin Trudeau.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)PCIntern
(25,347 posts)I learned everything I know about peaceful protest there during the end of the Vietnam War.
3catwoman3
(23,819 posts)School of Nursing, 1973.
PCIntern
(25,347 posts)CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)...choose an alternative to the great American Medical Industry. A system so heavily invested in sham psychology and propaganda one wonders how they can attack Dr Oz with a straight face. Generally they can leave it up to the 'true believers' to do their dirty work, who flail away at the easy targets, cheered on by the thoughtless crowd.
'They're stealing our business'.
"Dr. Oz has something like 4-million viewers a day," Mazer told Vox. "The average physician doesn't see a million patients in their lifetime. That's why organized medicine should be taking action."
For an industry like the AMA, whose only interest in the concept of PUBLIC HEALTH, is how to profit from it, to get such unbridled support from its' victims (of a liberal persuasion), simply baffles me.
.
Dr. Oz Admits To Senator Many Of The Diet Drugs He Promotes Arent Based In Fact
Later Oz would acknowledge many of the products he mentioned dont have the scientific muster to present as fact but nevertheless he gives his audience advice to use the products.
I actually do personally believe in the items I talk about on the show, Oz said. I passionately study them. I recognize they dont have the scientific muster to present as fact but nevertheless I would give my audience the advice I give my family all the time and I have given my family these products. Specifically the ones you mentioned, then Im comfortable with that part.
The scientific community is almost monolithically against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products you called miracles, McCaskill shot back at Oz.
Oz then told McCaskill it was his job to be a cheerleader for the audience in defending his his advice to use so-called miracle products.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/senator-slams-dr-ozs-overuse-of-miracle-when-discussing-diet#.qyvKdkv17
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)phil89
(1,043 posts)About empirically validated approaches to medicine. Ok... I wonder if you had cancer what treatment you opt for? Medical science or magical thinking and homeopathy? Shameful.
vankuria
(901 posts)and therapies out there, whether Dr. Oz is talking about them or not. I found a great one for sleep, "peace and calming" essential oils, no side effects and perfectly safe, just rub a little on your neck or face and off you go. If I brought my sleep problems up to my Dr. he would've prescribed a pharmaceutical, which most likely would have side effects and perhaps some addictive qualities.
Alternative medicine isn't always a bad thing, as long as you've done your homework and know there could be consequences. I'd say people should be open to it with a discerning eye of course.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)There is either medicine, or stuff that doesn't work.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)vankuria
(901 posts)But yea there was a lot of quackery in the old days, including blood letting, praying the evil spirits out of someone, etc. Sometimes a mixture of modern medicine and homeopathy can do wonders for someone. My mother relied heavily on modern medicine for her children but she had some home made recipes too she learned form her mom, she had a great one for ear aches, worked everytime.
deurbano
(2,891 posts)and other side effects.
vankuria
(901 posts)glad to hear it! Hope your daughter is doing well!
deurbano
(2,891 posts)is quadriplegic to start with, and the effects of the chemo were much more challenging than for most people, but the chemo did a great job, and the prognosis has always been very good... she just had a very rough time (5 months in the hospital when she had only thought she was checking in for 5 days!) and a long recovery, but she's doing great now. Thanks so much!
vankuria
(901 posts)And continued good health for your daughter!
jeff47
(26,549 posts)There are plenty of "alternatives" that help sleeping. As long as you believe in them.
The reason the medicine has side effects is the medicine works whether or not you believe in it.
If there was something in those essential oils that actually worked, the pharmaceutical industry would love to extract it, purify it, and sell it as a medicine.
Just because the original molecule comes from a "natural" source does not mean it can not be turned into a patentable medicine. See: Aspirin or Penicillin and its derivatives.
vankuria
(901 posts)but since people are already buying it up without a prescription and for probably a lot cheaper than big pharma would sell it for, it might not be worthwhile to them.
Same thing with medical marijuana.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)And that is so incredibly unlikely that we can assume a more effective drug could be made from it.
For example, medical marijuana. The active ingredients are not at the perfect concentration. There would be marijuana-based drugs sold by big pharma, except our drug laws forbid experimenting and testing with marijuana.
PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)greatauntoftriplets
(175,698 posts)PeaceNikki
(27,985 posts)greatauntoftriplets
(175,698 posts)bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Laser102
(816 posts)One is fourteen and the other is thirteen. Hip problems, nasal polyps, etc. tried all conventional drugs with nothing working. Now they both get a capsule of circumin every day. It seems to help manage a lot of the symptoms of age. At least the polyps are gone and my black lab can breath again.
phil89
(1,043 posts)Got it. You're scientifically illiterate.
erronis
(14,955 posts)Just like aspirin and many of the chemicals that we use as drugs, the mechanisms of these effects are not well known.
Because it is a component of turmeric, the drug companies and prescribers don't like to bruit about it too much since there is no profit for them.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)You extract the chemical that actually has a medicinal effect, purify it, and sell it as a medicine.
Just like aspirin. We aren't chewing on plant leaves, we're taking pills to get aspirin. The only reason aspirin is cheap now is the patent expired long ago.
deurbano
(2,891 posts)recommended by a vet...
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)...if people want to buy what Oz is selling? Let their stupid asses die with puzzled and surprised looks on their dying faces.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)to amass a fortune for Dr. Oz.
zappaman
(20,605 posts)From being gullible.
It's fine if you don't care though.
Logical
(22,457 posts)BainsBane
(53,003 posts)I haven't even cracked the surface of volume 1 yet. You guys are moving too fast for me.
REP
(21,691 posts)He's even admitted that the pills he shills can't be proven to do anything but extract money from the wallets of his followers, yet The Cool Kids are so hep with their anti-medicine stance they'll fall in line behind anyone who bangs their drum.
Well, as Ella Fitzgerald said, ain't nothing squarer than a hep square.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Used to be, the Cool Kids didn't like Republicans.
You and I both know there's a strong anti-science faction within the progressive community.
Sid
REP
(21,691 posts)And I'll just leave it at that.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Just because you're on Monsanto's payroll, hate Michelle Obama, transparency, God and apple pie doesn't mean the rest of us do.
We're on to you, sid.
eta: this thread is full of win