Ive been trying to figure out what the campaign to demonize Dr. Mehmet Oz is all about. In the latest effort to marginalize the television personality/surgeon as a quack as opposed to an open-minded medical expert, ten prominent physicians wrote a letter to Columbia Universitys president, asking that Dr. Oz be removed from the faculty there.
For ten physicians to gang up on a colleague this way is a very big deal. Doctors are like copsthey stick together and almost never criticize each other publicly, even if they know a colleague screwed up a medical procedure. So when they decide to throw one of their own to the wolves, you know that they and their backers have to be very upset.
In recording his television show Tuesday (for Thursday showing), Dr. Oz vowed he will not be silenced in our quest to make America healthy. Good for him.
The only thing I can figure out is that Americas corporate-medical complex is seriously threatened by the tide of public awareness and upset about genetically modified food, and the demands for labeling of such food (which is what Dr. Oz has asked for). I did some exploration of his views on other corporate-medical hot buttonsvaccinations and raw milk, for exampleand Dr. Oz has toed the party lines on those matters (even though hes interviewed guests who have different views).
The timing is interesting, and understandable. If I were a Big Food or Big Pharma executive, Id be worried as well, especially after what I heard and saw in Los Angeles this past weekend.
Los Angeles has long been a foodie paradise, a place where the latest food trends are on full display, in advance of the rest of the country. Now it seems as if every other restaurant and food truck explicitly promises not only non-GMO food, but also that it is locally produced, the meat grass-fed, and the chickens pastured. Outdoor farmers markets, making the same promises, are carried on year-round.
Dr. Oz was a major topic of conversation at a health conference I attended and spoke at this past weekend (the Take Back Your Health conference), and it was just one of a number going on around L.A. I presume at most of the others, the tone on GMOs, vaccinations, and sustainable farming was similarabout the desire for choice.
As if to highlight the exploding interest in good food, one of the exhibitors at this conference included yet another documentary producer promoting a film about the benefits of sustainable farming; the producer, Loreto di Cesare, has launched a Kickstarter campaign that in its first week raised more than half of its targeted $10,000.
Diana Reeves, founder of GMO Free USA, told the conference that her organizations Facebook posts reached 9.8 million people last week. It has been carrying on a campaign to boycott Kelloggs cereals for persisting with GMO ingredients, and she proudly pointed out that the company has had seven consecutive quarters of declining sales and earnings.
Her organization, along with others, is pushing for labeling of GMO ingredients in all foodsin other words, for the inclusion of information on food labels that will enable consumers to make the choice of whether to include GMOs in their diets. This is a notion the major food makers have been resisting tooth and nail.
A couple other notable presentations at the conference:
On vaccinations: Victoria Bloch, a Weston A. Price chapter leader (and one of the Rawesome Three defendants in 2011) provided a detailed overview of the mushrooming use of vaccines in children. From four in the 1950s, to 17 now, which translates into 33 doses. She joined the chorus of concern being expressed that childrens immune systems were being overloaded at a young age, beginning in infancy. Like others, she advocated choicethat parents be encouraged to space immunizations out, perhaps leave some out in other words, have a choice, rather than have immunizations mandated for their children.
On sustainable farming: Gary Cox of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund said the bulk of the legal action is coming on the local level, in the form of zoning actions against would-be sustainable farmers. Federal and state actions against raw dairy farmers have tailed off over the last few years, he said, likely because of FTCLDFs presence. Municipalities have taken up the slack by using zoning laws to challenge people trying to farm rural and suburban tractswith chickens, goats, or sheep.
Once again, the issue comes down to choice, Cox suggested. People should always have the option to turn land into productive agriculture, rather than being placed in a position of having to fight zoned designations as if they prohibit agriculture.
My sense is the corporations and their docs are too late to head off Dr. Oz, and the millions of consumers he influences. Theres an old saying in business that the customer is always right. In that spirit, Ill just say that its never ever a good idea to fight with your customers, no matter how big and powerful you think you are. Your customers (or, increasingly, your ex-customers in the case of the Big Food corporations) can bring you down to size pretty darn quickly.
There seems to be a national medical truth paradigm happening. Raw milk is past of that, medical marajuana is part of that…GMO labeling and the emerging Round-up crisis is part of this.
America is awakening and some doctors are awaking as well. The old guard is shocked and the only thing they appear to able to do is label the departed doctors as quacks or worse. The only problem is …..these brave souls are not quacks….they are just saying….the fricken emperor has no clothes!!! He is naked as hell, sick, diabetic, immune depressed, lactose intolerant, allergic, asthmatic, mal nourished, drug dependent, dangerous and fat to boot.
Great time to be alive…awesome. Love it!! Things are changing. Go Ozz !!
They are now using natural ingredients.
Tell me…dollar voting is not working! It is working great ! Worked for rejecting BST hormones in milk cows and is working for removal of antibiotics in chicken.
Slowly but surely, the consumers dollar votes are pressuring change. The dollar votes say: change or die in bankruptcy!! Next up is GMO labeling. After that the huge breaking news debut that Roundup is not benign but rather a huge risk because of its antibiotic effect. It is being found in breast milk!!
Where is the FDA in all of this? Lost in space of course. How embarrassing.
As a federal government budget restraint move…The office of inspector generals office and the IRS just announced that because the FDA employees get two paychecks….the FDA has been shut down and all official duties will be merged and subcontracted to Monsanto….no policies will change and business will remain as usual.
Privatization….at least it is now official.
The movement for healthy foods has been a slow growing entity. With the use of the internet, people have become more informed than had they ever were in the past. This ease in obtaining information/knowledge has greatly aided the movement and opened many eyes.
There was fear when Oprah said something about ground beef and then was sued. That was a circus, I’m glad she won. They are trying a different tactic with Dr Oz. They were pissed when he proved the apple juice? had poison in it, and he was right! I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, yet he gets people to thinking and questioning and that is a good thing.
They are very afraid, they see the $$$$ dwindling, the writing is on the wall. It won’t be easy for the healthy food movement, there will be many battles yet to fight.
When you read these articles, be sure to keep scrolling until you’re sure you’re at the end of the story, because they are fairly fractured with ads and other suggested story headlines to read.
http://www.vox.com/2015/4/20/8455401/sony-wikileaks-dr-oz
http://www.vox.com/2015/4/20/8455505/dr-oz-GMO
I don’t really see him as fighting back. I’ve rarely watched his show because I don’t watch traditional tv (except my favorite westerns channels!) and I was also unaware of the CNN fiasco, and that’s most likely what it is. Not sure I’d waste my time watching anything from CNN as it’s likely shameless promotion of some ridiculous agenda on both sides.
The thing is, if people want to use natural or alternative methods to ANY health problem, they should not listen to tv, they should do research themselves and look at it from many, many angles. Every single BODY in the universe is different, so why doctors think they have a corner on the market of health totally escapes me most of the time. They are “practicing” (what a great word for it, cuz that’s what they do), they are experimenting on the human population without any way of knowing the long-term results, or even the short-term results most of the time. Doctors are mostly Jekyll’s – or should that be jackals?
I will agree that with the modern advertising propaganda blitz it has become much harder to tell what’s good, and not. Now a days my biggest fear is that the internet will eventually get narrowed and hijacked like the radio and TV stations did decades ago, then what? Back to shortwave radio or dots and dashes Morse code? Smoke signals.
If people are blind to swallow all or even part of what any of them say without doing their own research, then they deal with the consequences. It is no different that the scalpel happy MDs that do unnecessary surgery for more $$$ or keep passing out more “medications” to cover the side effects of the other drugs they are on.
Supposedly, he is an excellent cardiothoracic surgeon. I’ve met some real asses of docs and with horrid bedside manners. Most patients didn’t care as long as they were good at what they were supposed to be good at. Years ago, the orthopedic surgeons I worked with had stuff they sold too, just like the Vets do, the allergy doc, Chiropractors do. What doc doesn’t sell stuff?
The trouble with being a patient who doesn’t “care as long as they were good at what they were supposed to be good at” is that sometimes the patient doesn’t find out whether they were good or not until it’s too late. Those are not exactly the odds I’d want to face, given a choice. I realize in medical emergencies there sometimes is no choice.
And nothing in my comment had anything to do with who sold what. If they all do it, so be it, but it’s not very comforting to think you are dealing with a *salesman* in some of the biggest health issues people face. But people still need to do their homework before they buy (if possible) and before they believe.
They used the “Evidenced Based Medicine” argument and that natural or nutritional medicine is not evidence based. What a crock!!!
I think we should start a war against the term…”EVIDENCE BASED”. When evidence based really means…”bought and paid-for” then allowed through the FDA gate after the toll has been paid…that is not evidence anything.
This very narrow lens is being challenged and I love it.
My evidence based study of RAWMI LISTED dairy raw milk test data…is as hard core as evidence comes and it is completely ignored by the FDA and others cause it isn’t evidence that they want to see!!! It is politically incorrect and very uncomfortable!
Who gives a damn about evidence based when that is a term used to filter out evidence and promote an agenda and a system of financial security that excludes evidence unless that evidence is suitable and politically correct for the establishment. Go Oz…he’s my hero!
Most definitely.
D, it’s important to separate out info about Dr. Oz’s business practices from the attacks against him. I’ve paid little attention to Dr. Oz because I assume he has potential conflicts of interest between what he recommends on TV and advertisers/investments and such. As others point out here, it is mainly about the money with big-time professionals/entertainers like Dr. Oz. However, that is separate from what is going on with the attacks on him. In fact, the attackers would very much like to make the link between his opposition to GMOs and his television-related business interests. They want to suggest that because he has conflicts of interest like other entertainers, his views about GMOs are tainted. The reality is those two areas are almost certainly unrelated. The only problem would come if Dr. Oz was being paid by anti-GMO interests, or had holdings in a major competitor to Monsanto, or similar. I haven’t seen any suggestion of such a connection. Absent that, the attacks on Dr. Oz by his profession amount to vicious smear tactics designed to discredit the anti-GMO movement.
The mainstream doctors argument that nonconventional alternative therapies/modalities are quack medicine is a red herring.
If they were to honestly examine the evidence I would think that they should be somewhat concerned and ashamed with the relentless harm resulting from their so-called evidence based as Mark put it or science based approach to health care.
To Err Is Human, so goes a widely touted analysis by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
http://www.forbes.com/sites/leahbinder/2013/09/23/stunning-news-on-preventable-deaths-in-hospitals/
With these latest revelations, medical errors now claim the spot as the third leading cause of death in the United States, dwarfing auto accidents, diabetes and everything else besides Cancer and heart disease. Harvards Dr. Lucian Leape, the father of the patient safety movement and one of the experts behind the original IOM report, says the numbers in this new study should supplant the IOM estimates from 1999. That means hospitals are killing off the equivalent of the entire population of Atlanta one year, Miami the next, then moving to Oakland, and on and on.
Im all too familiar with your argument that they stick together and almost never criticize each other publicly, even if they know a colleague screwed up a medical procedure. Indeed and when it comes to formalities this still is more often then not the case. Consumers however are experiencing une réveillon due to personal experience and thanks to the internet and outspoken doctors such as Robert Mendelsohn and Mehmet Oz. etc.
There is no argument from me that doctors are human and that they make mistakes. However, the harm that results from mainstream medicine extends well beyond human error for it is often the result of intentional calculated motives that are based on accepted modalities such as vaccines, chemotherapy and the prophylactic use of antibiotics etc. Herein lies the greatest harm. If it werent for its many accomplishments, especially when it comes to serious trauma, complex surgery and emergency care, allopathic medicine would have very little ground to stand on.
If there is any middle ground to be achieved in all of this then the currently political enforced medical tyranny system has to be abandoned for freedom of choice.
A simple suggestion might be that the TV show would be less inflammatory for other MDs if it were the ‘Mr Mehmet’ show. On the other hand, when Dr Oz is in surgery, he should rightly use ‘Dr Oz’ as the appropriate professional title. Using ‘Dr’ for both (somewhat contradictory) roles, I suspect is a big part of the reaction in this case.
John
Everything is about money, it seems. What a sad portrait America has painted of herself.
They used the “Evidenced Based Medicine” argument and that natural or nutritional medicine is not evidence based.” [end quote]
Those are the same type of doctors who allow fast phood joints in hospital cafeteria areas. What does that say about their agenda?!
Are you joking?
You have to ask yourself if allopathy is right for you.
The draped stethoscope syndrome is a major investment in brainwashing by the allopathic world.
One day, someone left a stethoscope over a store mannequin and I described my troubles at length to it.
Purely anecdotal would be any evidence that the allopathic (M.D.) institutions give a rats ass for your or anyones good health, those institutions care as much as the mannequin, dont you think?
Do they care for your $, especially your insurance $? What do you think?
Yes, yes, there might be a few good apples; so what?
At this point, what difference does it make?
The curse of credentials shows the truth of the old saying
if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
Petitioners: Leave Dr. Oz alone.
Ozs a good apple.
Mary got kicked out of hospice for being too healthy.
The M.D. ran into Marys daughter later and offered condolences.
For what?
For the loss of your Mother.
But shes doing fine.
This allopath couldnt believe it and had to go see for himself.
What restored Mary to health?
Nutrition. Complete nutrition. What the body needs.
You have to ask yourself if M.D.s are right for you.
You have to ask yourself if Monsanto is right for you.
You have to ask yourself if Roundup ® is right fo you.
You have to ask yourself if glyphosate is right for you.
You have to ask yourself if GMOs are right for you.
You have to ask yourself if mercury is right for you.
The courts as commercial bludgeons are a corruption of law.
You have to ask yourself if liberty is right for you.
You have to ask yourself if the defense of liberty is right for you.
Have a glyphosate free Spring in the N. Hemisphere!
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
30 Years of Exemptions
Vaccination & the Struggle for Health Freedom
http://vaccinechoicecanada.com/exemptions/threats-to-exemptions/
http://thinkingmomsrevolution.com/an-open-letter-to-legislators-currently-considering-vaccine-legislation-from-tetyana-obukhanych-phd-in-immunology/
What happened on today’s Dr Oz show demonstrated degrees of change. When a famous and highly respected western medical heart surgeon takes a stand against the establishment in no uncertain terms…that is huge. It is true that his positions are centrist for the most part, but not so quick to judge the man. He is saying very profound things against the machine. He is standing against GMOs by simply saying give the consumer all the facts and a choice….label the GMO products just like 64 other countries do. That is not for or against, it is simply pro consumer rights.
As far as the rest of the stuff…vaccinations and etc…there is so much canon fodder right now, it is hard to believe. The lines are being drawn. It is conscious consumer against the industrial machine that has made billions on unconsciousness consumption. There is no way to keep the masses sleeping.
This is the 2015 US citizens spring awakening. It is “the American Spring”. It is happening with police abuse and body cameras, it is happening with raw milk sales, it is happening with nutritional awareness, it is happening with the right of self determination and fourth amendment vaccination violations. We even saw Kraft take a stand with Mac&Cheese.
Things are happening in rapid sequence and doctor Oz is a sign of the timed.
I especially loved the report that showed the columbia doc that was a felon and another that was a shill for Monsanto…all exposed because of Oz. Support our Oz…remember change comes in degrees not all in a day.
Seriously, she is an innovator,a mentor, a student and a communicator as well as a humble raw milk producer with fantastic RAWMI numbers. I am proud to count her as a friend. Go Shawna!!
It was a lovely catch up. Thanks Mark! 🙂
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/fda-allows-5-potentially-harmful-products-on-market-b99470437z1-299885171.html
And people will actually use these, that’s the really scary part.
This is my sister’s comment to an email I sent to her, describing how my friend acts when talking about Dr. Oz: “Every show of Dr. Oz’s has some “new miracle” supplement or food that was never known before until he discovered it and put it on his show. And if you watch the audience, they are mesmerized by him. Oprah had the same effect when her show was on. It’s like if Oprah said it, then it must be true!”
If Dr. Oz wants to “out” someone or something, more power to him, but, unlike my friend, I’m not just going to blindly follow what he says without some sort of scrutiny. If he presents information that causes people to actually ‘think’, and ‘question’ what’s going on (like Sylvia said), well that’s good as far as I’m concerned.
As one of the commenters said in your link; ” FATALLY…DUMB…ADMINISTRATION (FDA) has been nothing but a rubber stamp for Big Business for YEARS…DECADES ”
In spite of the doctor god effect….I still love watching the paradigm shift and other docs having chest pain over one of their own going rogue and swimming against the tide. By the way….the doctor god effect does not work so well with enlightened consumers. We are very much aware of so much more and reserve docs for trauma and not much else most of the time.
But, but but Dr. Oz is just trying to make a living, and you both know that his ratings will go through the roof wit all this publicity.
Ive only watched his show a couple of times and I believe the intent of the program is to empower his viewers, give them options and let them decide for themselves; As with Silvia I take no exception with that. Indeed Mark, I can see where that would make the self-righteous medical monkeys squirm.
As far as his position on vaccination is concerned It seems he too is in a state of transition like Robert F Kennedy Jr. and fortunate for his children, it appears that his wife calls the shots in that regard. Both she and the children are not vaccinated.
http://www.yourspine.com/Chiropractic/Dr+Oz+Swine+Flu.aspx
Ok…I am going to kick the hornets nest a little. America was founded on individual rights and personal freedoms. The Chinese revolution led by Mao, was based on groups of people being liberated with groups of people giving up their individual rights for the betterment of the whole. At least that was the concept. The problem with that concept is that the decision on what was good for the whole was made by the few that were empowered by AK47s and those that disagreed were shot….for the betterment of the whole. By the way…that’s not really what China is today. It is now some kind of efficient hybrid of uber controlled capitalism and social sheep herding.
America has always rebelled against this group think and group betterment. Instead we embrace what is good for the individual with incentives for individual advancement based on hard work and innovation! At least that has been the mantra.
Now…forced vaccinations change all of this. It is clear that gardacil vaccinations have killed a whole bunch of very healthy young girls and serves very little true medical benefit!! Yet….it is being promoted as good for the whole. It is so dangerous that many countries have banned it.
I am not anti vaccination….but I am very much pro individual choice and pro freedom of self determination and this new corporate take over of congress where no liability rests on the producers of vaccine is insane, corrupt, ignorant, communist, fascist and unAmerican.
If this country cared about individuals more than captured corporate profits, nutrition would be promoted, protected and the responsibility of immunity for individuals would be encouraged through food! The human genome project speaks directly to this.
The reason this is not happening is because it means the flow of money changes….lowly farmers become rewarded and compensated instead of pharma fascists.
Lets see this for what it is…fascist and a smoke screen for making pharma extremely rich while each of us suffer individually. Yes….it is a Chinese communism because the few are making choices for the many for the benefit of the few but mascarading this mandate as good for the whole. I use the word fascist with great reserve…but when the government protects corporate interests….that is fascist. No hiding this.
There is some good news. Raw milk continues to thrive and grow. Why is this important? It is the nutritional and part of the essential pathway to natural immunity. Why is this good? farmers, the cows, the consumers and the planet wins!! So take your shot of raw milk…and pass on the forced piece of Chinese fascism. Our founding forefathers would roll over in their graves and load their muskets if they knew about this. If pharma really cared, they would offer individual vaccinations with far fewer on the schedule. If pharma really cared, the ingredients in vaccinations would DO NO HARM to the individual.
All of this inflammatory talk from a fairly liberal kind of guy that truly loves his country. But as Abe Lincoln said…”if your country is right, fight to keep it right…if wrong, fight to make it right”
Time to fight back guys. Fight with your dollar voting and “get to know your farmer” individual safety, health and freedom matters.
Vote with your dollars, folks, and this means buy American AND Canadian – our two economies are too intertwined to be separated, as is the employment and capital migration between the two nations.
These weren’t my opinions, I was kinda doing what Mark did in his other comment–kick the hornets’ nest. And like you said, give people options, and let them decide for themselves.
Well said! My own family members are guilty of that one too. As long as it’s cheap, they don’t care.
Amen to that!
Inflammatory talk? Not! I definitely don’t have a problem with you kicking the hornets’ nest. We may be opposites as far as ideology is concerned (I’m not a liberal), but share the same common ground when it comes to individual rights and personal freedoms. No Chi-coms for me.
http://www.nutritionalanarchy.com/2015/04/25/congress-wants-to-put-artisanal-soap-makers-out-of-business-for-your-safety/
To the best of my knowledge COSTCO membership stores are not the Chinese Overseas Trading Company. There is a COSCO, China Ocean Shipping Company.
Ingvar
Cheers to the upright,
Disruption of their wicked plans to those of an evil intent,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Indeed. Thus the political posturing by Feinstein (and the other woman politician) because I would bet yesterday’s supper they both have deep pockets for many of the bigCOSmetic makers of today.
I am happy to report there are several soapmakers right here in my area and I don’t think they’ll stop doing this anytime soon. :))
I recently got into soapmaking. I made several batches with a friend a few years ago, but since we were unable to get together to make any more, I finally attempted to try it on my own. I’ve made two batches, and they both turned out fine. They are also made with milk, but not from goats (I don’t have mine anymore). Everybody that I’ve given a bar too really likes it. The second batch is ready to be used.
Here’s a great article I just found that will also help show and explain why we shouldn’t use store-bought body products. (The men on this blog will love the illustration!). Hey, that’s one way to get the men to look at this important issue…… 8)
http://complete-health-and-happiness.com/this-carcinogenic-illegal-chemical-was-found-in-nearly-100-shampoo-brands/
The batch of soap I made last month really didn’t take all that long to do. I don’t think it was more than two hours tops. I’ve been finding people who are making their own body care products. One is a niece of a friend I met not too long ago. She was wanting a little bit of milk to make some body wash. I can’t legally sell it, so I gave it to her, and she brought some of her items for me to try in exchange for what she got from me.
As for the illustration, it depends on what kind of *men* they are 😉
Then on top of that, GenMills big seller yoplait tanked in sales anyway due to the rising popularity of Greek yogurt.
Point being that the big food industrials are being hurt by the trends but that they will always take the cheapest, most unhealthy route possible. Getting decent food out “industry” really takes getting their arm twisted behind their back, and then you have to keep it there.
https://whopoisonedmyfood.wordpress.com
Has anyone heard any updated information about this Dr. Oz blow-up?
I believe Dr. Oz defended himself, and the publicity died down. The docs went after him partly as a publicity stunt, and they accomplished their goal. Not sure it was all to their benefit, since that many more people were alerted to the potential risks of GMOs.
As for logging on to this blog, that process will likely change sometime in the coming months, along with a few other things that will, hopefully, improve accessibility.
The logging in thing is a pain, but it ain’t the worst thing in the world I guess. It’s just that sometimes by the time I log-in I’ve forgotten what I wanted to comment on and what I wanted to say!! Brain overload, good, bad, or indifferent.
😉