Dr. Oz fires back against critics calling for his exit from Columbia University, promising to addres

[LiberalElite]

Source: NY Daily News

Dr. Oz isn’t going anywhere — except back on the air to defend himself.

The embattled celebrity physician fired back Friday at critics calling for his ouster from Columbia University, promising to address their concerns on his syndicated show next week.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/dr-oz-fires-back-critics-calling-columbia-u-exit-article-1.2189727

---

Stay toooned for the next exciting episode...

[still_one]

1. His defense will be that it isn't him, it is his guests, but that really doesn't cut it as far as I

am concerned

He is giving them a forum, and his viewers jump on it hook line and sinker

He had Bobby Kennedy on several months ago pushing the anti-vaxer talking points:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/09/12/has-dr-oz-become-antivaccine/

[proverbialwisdom]

37. Framing is wrong, it's branding. Aren't these "antivaxer" talking points, too? That word means zip.

http://file.scirp.org/html/22932.html

Open Journal of Pediatrics, 2012, 2, 228-235

OJPed http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojped.2012.23036
Published Online September 2012 http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ojped/

Vaccination practices among physicians and their children

Michael Martin1, Vahe Badalyan2
1Department of Pediatrics, Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children, Falls Church, USA
2Department of Gastroenterology, Children’s National Medical Center, Washington DC, USA

Received 1 May 2012; revised 3 July 2012; accepted 30 July 2012

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to identify vaccination patterns of both general pediatricians and subspecialists with regards to their own children and projected progeny. A 14 question survey was sent randomly to 1000 members of the Academy of Pediatrics in 2009. Two categories of questions included 1) how physicians with children vaccinated them in the past, and 2) how all respondents would vaccinate a child in 2009. A comparison was made between the answers of general and specialty pediatricians. 582 valid questionnaires were received (58.2% response rate) of which 431 were general pediatricians and 151 sub-specialists. No statistical difference was found between general and specialty pediatricians on how they vaccinated their children up until 2009 (95% vs 93%). When asked about vaccinating a future child, a significant proportion of respondents would deviate from CDC guidelines, specialists more than general pediatricians (21% vs 9%). Generalists were more likely to give a future child Hepatitis A (OR: 3.6; 95% CI 1.3 - 10.4), Rotavirus (OR: 2.2; 95% CI 1.1 - 4.4), Meningococcal (OR: 9.9; 95% CI 3.3 - 29.9), and influenza (OR: 5.4; 95% CI 1.1 - 26.7) vaccines. Specialists were more likely to postpone MMR vaccination (OR: 4.4 95% CI 2.3 - 8.6). Safety was listed by both groups as the most common reason for altering the recommended immunization schedule. Until 2009, general pediatricians and pediatric specialists have largely adhered to ACIP recommendations, but due to vaccine safety and other concerns, both groups, albeit a higher percentage of specialists, reported greater numbers willing to diverge from these recommendations.

[proverbialwisdom]

38. Transparency in science is essential, is it not?

DECLINES debate:

Dr. Paul Offit, February 2, 2015

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/5/inside_the_vaccine_war_measles_outbreak

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, to be fair, we wanted to have both of you on together to have a conversation, because there are many in this country, and a growing movement of parents, who are deeply concerned. But you wanted to have this conversation separately, Mary Holland and you separately. So, it’s important to, I think, have this kind of dialogue on all of these issues. Dr. Offit, on this issue of vaccines now being—

DR. PAUL OFFIT: I’ll tell you—can I just address that?

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, sure.

DR. PAUL OFFIT: Can I address that for one second? I think that it is not important to have a debate about the science with someone who clearly doesn’t know the science. I’m sorry, Ms. Holland misrepresented the science again and again and again. I don’t think that in any way helps your viewer. I don’t think it’s fair to have a debate where two sides are presented, when only one side is really supported by the science. I think—I’d like to think we’re beyond that.

AMY GOODMAN: But I think what’s—

DR. PAUL OFFIT: If you ask the question, why is it that—go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Offit, what I think is important, it’s not only about science. We’re talking about science. We’re talking about the practice of medicine in this country. We’re talking about public policy. I mean, after all, this has now become a presidential campaign issue, with possible presidential candidates taking on the issues. And I want your comment on that. But you’re combining all of this, and it’s important to bring all the various expertises of parents, of lawyers, of doctors together in a conversation on these issues.

Dr Paul Offit, April 14, 2015

INVITES debate:

Dr. Mark Hyman on January 8, 2015: http://drhyman.com/blog/2014/07/18/thimerosal-let-science-speak/
RFK, Jr, on April 6, 2015: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017257265#post2
Senior CDC scientist Dr. William W. Thompson, in conversation with Dr. Brian Hooker,

http://www.morganverkamp.com/august-27-2014-press-release-statement-of-william-w-thompson-ph-d-regarding-the-2004-article-examining-the-possibility-of-a-relationship-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism/

"...I have had many discussions with Dr. Brian Hooker over the last 10 months regarding studies the CDC has carried out regarding vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes including autism spectrum disorders. I share his belief that CDC decision-making and analyses should be transparent..."

[alp227]

43. Really? Someone's ideas are worthy based on the speaker being willing to debate?

Sorry, what Thompson is saying is a "release the data" canard.

[proverbialwisdom]

48. Lack of transparency is unsustainable in the long term because it is scientifically indefensible.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/14/8409725/clinical-trials-transparency-who-ben-goldacre

WHO calls on scientists to stop withholding results of clinical trials
'Powerful and welcome' statement targets bad science

By James Vincent on April 14, 2015 08:01 am

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a statement demanding more transparency in scientists' reporting of clinical trials. The statement updates and expands the WHO's position, adding specific timelines for scientists to register the outcome and methods of clinical trials. In an accompanying commentary, science writer and open science advocate Ben Goldacre said that the WHO's decision was "powerful and welcome" and that it "represents important progress on a long-standing and global structural problem."

WITHHOLDING STUDY DATA HURTS PATIENTS

"The best currently available evidence shows that the methods and results of clinical trials are routinely withheld from doctors, researchers, and patients, undermining our best efforts at informed decision making," writes Goldacre in PLOS. Recent studies have shown that even the US Food and Drug Administration routinely buries details of scientific misconduct, failing to alert the public or even the medical community about evidence of botched trials and bad data.

<>

The WHO's statement not only calls for future trials to be submitted to a scientific journal within 12 months, but for retrospective audits of old studies. As Goldacre points out, this is especially important given the slow pace at which research becomes medicine. "The overwhelming majority of prescriptions today are for treatments that came onto the market — and were therefore researched — over the preceding decades rather than the past five years," says Goldacre. He adds that "doctors and patients of the future may well look back on (the withholding of study data) with amazement, much as we look back on medieval bloodletting."

"Science isn't about authority or white coats; it's about following a method. That method is built on core principles: precision and transparency; being clear about your methods; being honest about your results; and drawing a clear line between the results, on the one hand, and your judgment calls about how those results support a hypothesis."

Ben Goldacre

vs http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6396288

[alp227]

49. There's transparency, then there's special pleading for transparency,

like creationists who ignorantly ask "where are the transitional fossils?" or GMOphobes who want to "see the data".

[wordpix]

2. it's terrible when a doc is knowledgeable about food/nutrition/supplements

Better they should tell us, as my surgeon told me before my big cancer surgery, "You can eat whatever you like after surgery." I went on a 100% organic diet with supplements designed for my cancer type. The guy in the hosp. room next to me was eating McDonald's with a Supersize drink. My cancer hasn't recurred but I wonder about his.

[1monster]

3. Yeah. My husband was told he could eat anything he wanted after he had his stent put in and was

taking a powerful statin. So he was eating McDonald's breakfasts and Kentucky Fried Chicken three times a week. (I cooked dinner for him, but he worked a lot of evenings and that's when he went to KFC.)

Three and a half years later to the month, he had to have a triple by-pass.

KFC is now a once in a great while treat for him, and McDonal's breakfasts are about once a month.

It's been nine years now, and his cardo-vascular system is still going strong.

[Fred Friendlier]

4. Good nutrition is good

This is good. Everyone knows this is good.

Hawking magic green coffee beans, backed by fraudulent "science," is not good. This is dishonestly making a quick buck, by exploiting the trust of people who conflate having a tee vee show with being an expert.

This is bad. Oddly, some people are so dedicated to their crackpot beliefs that they dig in their heels and refuse to admit that this is bad, and thus defend known frauds in open forums.

In the bigger picture, this kind of thing is destroying my beloved country.

I do not like this.

In closing, your supplements were not designed for your cancer type. They were designed for your gullibility type. Certainly they work in the sense of easing your anxieties about a deadly illness, but if they actually worked to cure cancer they would not be languishing in the supplements bin.

Stay healthy!

[jeff47]

19. You wanna know how many of those supplements work?

None.

Absolutely no supplement has have been proven to treat the conditions that they claim to treat. None of them are more effective than a placebo. All that has been proven is that the supplement is not toxic.

If the supplement worked, it wouldn't be "a supplement". It would be a medicine.

"But big pharma can't patent green coffee beans!!". No, but they can patent the chemical extracted from green coffee beans that actually cause the beneficial effect. They can also patent other, 100% synthetic molecules once the mechanism by which the supplement worked is figured out. "Hey, a molecule that looks just a little different would fit even better. Let's make one".

[MH1]

31. Not true.

Fiber supplements work. Guaranteed. (unless you have a more severe medical issue than routine sluggish bowels)

Melatonin works. My doctor even recommended it to me.

Chamomile and valerian perform as advertised. (relaxants - valerian is stronger than chamomile).

That said, many DON'T work, and the anemic regulation of the industry results in often not knowing what you're really getting.

Homeopathy seems like simply placebo effect to me.

Many supplements claim to do a lot more than what they really do, but an intelligent person can figure out what fiber and chamomile really do. (OTOH, if you have many issues due to lack of sleep, and chamomile cures your insomnia, lots of other stuff will get "miraculously" better. But it will be due to the sleep, not the chamomile directly.

There are a lot of problems with the supplement industry, but saying NONE of them work is as bad as saying they are all miracle cures.

[jeff47]

42. Yes true.

See, if they can be shown to successfully treat a medical condition, they are legally regulated as medicine. By going the "supplement" route, they make less money, but don't have to actually show they work.

Fiber supplements work. Guaranteed.

So does eating sufficient fiber in your diet. And vitamin C supplements will prevent scurvy, but so will eating a diet that doesn't resemble a 1600s sailing ship.

Supplements can cover over malnutrition. But once you've met your basic nutritional needs, they do no more. That vitamin C pill won't prevent a cold. Those fiber supplements won't help if you eat enough roughage.

Melatonin works. My doctor even recommended it to me.

It's been studied repeatedly, and not shown to work better than a placebo. Including in me, when damn near everyone I ran into kept insisting that it was a miracle cure for their insomnia.

Chamomile and valerian perform as advertised. (relaxants - valerian is stronger than chamomile).

Again, not shown to work better than a placebo. Warm liquids can have soothing effects, but it doesn't particularly matter what liquid (barring stimulants that have been shown to work, like caffeine). The relaxants in those teas are not at a high enough concentration to have an effect unless you are a particularly small human. Just like 1ml of alcohol won't make you drunk.

[Arugula Latte]

27. He's probably a good cardiac surgeon, but his TV show pushes quackery.

Half of Dr. Oz's Medical Advice is Baseless or Wrong, Study Says

* * *
"...And now, his work has come under even greater scrutiny in the British Medical Journal, which on Wednesday published a study analyzing Oz’s claims along with those made on another medical talk show. What they found wasn’t reassuring. 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.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/19/half-of-dr-ozs-medical-advice-is-baseless-or-wrong-study-says/

[arikara]

45. When my husband was diagnosed with diabetes

After years of fighting him with his junk eating habits, I asked the dr what he should be eating thinking I would finally get some backup. The answer was anything he wants, because people don't listen anyhow. 2 heart attacks and dentures since haven't changed the eating habits much.

It just seems common sense that the body will be healthier if fed proper nutrients. Instead, medicine now only means adding a new pill into the mix.

[Corey_Baker08]

5. Go Dr. Oz, Why Not Go After That CNN Anchor 'Dr' Sanjay Gupta?

Over the past 30 years Dr Oz has continued working as a world renowned heart surgeon at one of America's busiest hospitals, New York Presbyterian Hospital/ Columbia University Medical Center...

http://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-03-2010/dr-oz.html

[COLGATE4]

6. Why the "Dr" in referring to Sanjay Gupta?

Gupta is an extraordinarily talented neurosurgeon, a graduate of Univ. of Michigan Medical. The fact that he anchors programs on CNN in no way reflects on his unquestioned ability and record.

[Corey_Baker08]

7. Well Is He A Practicing Physician? Does He Still Work At A Hospital Or Private Practice?

I understand he has a degree and yes he is a Doctor. Yet how can he still be a practicing physician when he has his own TV show on CNN & he is constantly on call as CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent?

[drray23]

9. yes he does

He is assistant professor of neurosurgery at emory university and operates at grady memorial hospital where he is the associate chef of neurosurgery.

http://m.chron.com/life/article/CNN-s-Sanjay-Gupta-is-a-surgeon-first-4024538.php


Some people are able to combine more than one thing at a time.

Not sure why you are dismissive of gupta. I have never seen him push questionable cures or the like on tv.

[mainer]

13. Doesn't matter if you're actively practicing. You're STILL a doctor.

You never stop being a doctor. Sanjay Gupta will always have an M.D. behind his name.

[COLGATE4]

35. I understand he does still operate. I don't know with what frequency.

In any event it's irrelevant if he's dedicating more of his time right now to TV rather than neurosurgery. As far as I am aware he hasn't given up the practicing.

[jtuck004]

8. And also reminds them that they should look at Garcinia Cambogia Extract. It's a game changer.

[BuddhaGirl]

10. Good for him

And I'm glad to see Columbia standing behind him. He's been on the faculty there since 1993 and is a talented surgeon.

I don't agree with everything he presents on his show but featuring different points of view regarding health shouldn't get him fired.

[alp227]

44. If what Dr. Oz promotes on TV is "different points of view regarding health",

then creationism is "different points of view regarding biology".

[cosmicone]

11. His license should be revoked for moral turpitude.

A doctor is supposed to go by published science and consensus-based standard of care.

As soon as a doctor starts peddling parsley juice, garcinia cambogia and other foofoo products, he has officially become a quack, unworthy of a license.

[grasswire]

12. how much damage has been done by "concensus-based standard of care"?

The low-fat high-carb era?

That was one of the "standards of care" that has done enormous damage to more than one generation of Americans now.

And I would posit that statin drugs are the same kind of fraud on most patients.

Published science currently shows that coronary artery disease is caused by inflammation, not cholesterol. And yet statins are still pushed as a standard of care.

Physicians still only ask a woman if she is suffering shortness of breath/chest pain, when science has informed us that women likely present with different symptoms than those of a man where myocardial infarction is ultimately diagnosed: fatigue, indigestion, back pain.

And so on.

[jeff47]

14. How much damage will be done by the low-carb high-fat era?

You know what backs up "low-carb, high-fat"? Exactly the same thing that backed low-fat, high carb.

In the 1960 and 1970s, studies were done where overweight people were given a well, balanced diet with portions around 2000 calories and moderate exercise. Those people lost weight and improved overall health.

They declared the miracle to be "low fat", because fat is more calorie-dense. So low-fat makes it easier to stay under that 2000 calorie threshold. It obviously didn't suddenly stop obesity. Because it wasn't just the low-fat diet that made people lose weight. The restricted overall calories and moderate exercise were critical too.

So in the 1990s and 2000s, studies were done where overweight people were given a well, balanced diet with portions around 2000 calories and moderate exercise. Those people lost weight and improved overall health. Just like the 1970s.

They have declared the miracle to be "low carb". Golly, I wonder if it will turn out it wasn't just the low-carb diet that made people lose weight, and the restricted overall calories and moderate exercise are critical too.

Eh, too hard to market all that. We'll just say "low carb".

[grasswire]

32. with all due respect...

...the damage done by "low fat--high carb" diet recommendations had little to do with weight loss or maintenance. A high carb diet introduces massive amounts of sugar into the body's system as the carb is converted to sugar. What does sugar do? Inflammation. What does inflammation do? Allows cardiovascular disease. What else does this sugar dump do? Contribute to diabetes.

That is the damage that was done by "standard practice". An epidemic of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

[jeff47]

47. :facepalm:

Sugar causing inflamation is woo.
Inflamation causing cardiovascular disease is woo.
Carbs are sugars, they are not converted to sugar. And if by "converted to sugar" you mean what we commonly call sugar (aka sucrose) you're wrong since nothing in our body makes sucrose.
Type 2 diabetes does not require a high-carb diet, but a high-calorie diet.

I think you almost managed to have a glaring error or unsupported claim in every sentence in that post.

[mainer]

16. Consensus-based medical care has led us down all sorts of blind alleys

I recall when we were recommending gastrectomies for peptic ulcer disease. Then some weirdo in Australia started claiming peptic ulcers were due to the bacteria Helicobacter pylori and the medical establishment laughed at him. Until it turned out he was right and he got a Nobel prize for it.

I remember when Stanley Prusiner was considered nuts when he postulated a whole new type of infectious particle -- the prion. Meanwhile, all us "consensus-based" docs thought Creutzfeldt Jakob disease was due to a slow virus.

I remember when consensus-based medicine told us that all postmenopausal women should be on Premarin to prevent osteoporosis.

I remember when Dr. Atkins was ridiculed for his belief that carbohydrates -- not fat -- was the root of obesity. Until we realized, hey whaddya know, he's right!

With age (and hopefully wisdom) I've learned to doubt consensus, because "common wisdom" is too often "common idiocy."

[jeff47]

17. Yes, much better to abandon all medicine and just go with what feels right.

So which supplement will treat my heart attack? I don't want to turn to that evil consensus-based medicine.

As for your examples, two of them show how consensus is not locked-in-stone as you are claiming. Consensus changes when someone proves the consensus is wrong.

The third, about Dr. Atkins, is false. No one has proven that it's the carbs that cause obesity. Low-carb diets are one method of calorie restriction that reduces obesity. But it's the calorie restriction (and much more importantly, moderate exercise) from the "Atkins diet" that causes the weight loss.

[mainer]

20. My point is that NOTHING is set in stone. And MDs (I'm one) should always doubt.

Because many of us have seen "proven" science turn out to not be proven.

First do no harm.

[jeff47]

21. And that also includes not blindly accepting claims about miracle cures. (nt)

[mainer]

22. Did I say we should accept miracle claims?

I'm simply pointing out that "medical experts" are often mistaken. Sometimes it takes the passage of years and multiple trials to understand what's really in the patient's best interests.

I remember when EVERY OLDER MAN was told to get their PSA checked (blood test for prostate cancer.) Then we found out the morbidity of treating a high PSA level exceeded the morbidity of actually having a tiny prostate cancer. Now doctors are telling men not to get the test at all. How many patients were harmed because we blindly did those blood tests? Too many.

[jeff47]

23. Your point is consensus-based medicine is bad.

Your alternative is............?

You either need to wait for "the passage of years and multiple trials" to move consensus, or you're going to be accepting someone's claim of a miracle cure.

[mainer]

25. NO. My point is consensus-based medicine is SOMETIMES WRONG

To blindly place your faith in it will sometimes harm patients.

Is your point that consensus based medicine is ALWAYS RIGHT?

I'm not here to defend Dr. Oz because I don't know enough about him. But whenever I hear someone proclaim that doctors ALWAYS know best because of, well, CONSENSUS, I can come up with examples from my own medical practice to demonstrate that we can't be so naively trusting.

[Faryn Balyncd]

30. Here's the point:

"You either need to wait for 'the passage of years and multiple trials' to move consensus, or you're going to be accepting someone's claim of a miracle cure."

A polarized framework (one that that says one must either accept consensus as infallible, or be labelled a quack, or a peddler of "miracle cures&quot leaves no room for those innovators who revolutionize science with paradigm shifts. Such innovators as Galileo, William Harvey, and Ignaz Semmelweis, by your polarized definition would be quacks.

And if one accepts a definition that one either accepts "consensus standards" or is a quack, that leaves no room for an innovator to ever "move the consensus" other than to be labeled a quack prior for the entire time prior to the evidence becoming so overwhelming that the consensus is moved via a paradigm shift (as Thomas Kuhn so eloquently illustrated in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions&quot .

"Your alternative is............? "

The alternative is to keep an open mind, a healthy dose of both skepticism & humility, and a willingness to realize that knowledge is incomplete and reality nuanced, and to avoid the pitfalls associated with creating artificial black and white dogmas when the available evidence does not make that possible.

[cosmicone]

34. There is a path for "miracle cures" to become scientific

It is called "clinical trials" and GMP.

Just saying pomegranates cure liver cancer on a talk show is quackery. Actually doing a double-blind, randomized controlled trial is science.

[skepticscott]

29. There is a huge scientific and moral difference

between disagreeing with the current consensus of best care (which no one is disputing can turn out to be non-ideal), and promoting alternative treatments with no scientific support at all.

[grasswire]

33. I could tell you several supplements that could prevent your...

.....heart attack. But I doubt you are interested in that.

[Faryn Balyncd]

24. What do you think of Semmelweis?

... and "consensus-based standards of care"?

[mainer]

28. Poor Semmelweis. Died in an insane asylum

because he was right, and his medical colleagues were wrong.

[Major Nikon]

36. I love that movie

[arikara]

46. But its totally fine to push questionable and dangerous pills

As so many do for absolutely anything. I'd rather have a shot of parsley juice than say,
a statin.

[jeff47]

15. Study: Dr. Oz is full of shit.

http://factually.gizmodo.com/study-dr-oz-is-full-of-shit-1673235629

Researchers randomly selected 40 episodes of his show and examined 160 recommendations. Their measure for whether something was truthful hinged on an ability to find at least one case study that supported what he said. Researchers were only able to do that 54 percent of the time.

And keep in mind, that 54 percent includes pay-to-publish journals. And most case studies can not separate correlation from causation - people who get moderate exercise and eat a balanced calorie-restricted diet and happen to drink green coffee extract are healthier! Must be the green coffee!

[Initech]

40. John Oliver totally tore apart Dr. Oz and the supplement industry:

[DeSwiss]

18. K&R

- We're just starting to scratch the surface. We've spent more time in animals skins skulking in caves than wearing doctor's garb. Nobody knows what the hell they're talking about.....




Jealousy is extremely ugly.........

[shenmue]

39. Oh really? Nobody knows?

[LiberalFighter]

41. quack quack