“Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine,” the letter said. Columbia said its faculty members have the right to “freedom of expression.”
Dr. Mehmet C. Oz
Lauren Victoria Burke / AP
In their letter addressed to Lee Goldman, the Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at Columbia, the physicians said they were "surprised and dismayed" at Oz's appointment and that he has "misled and endangered" the public with his pathology.
Oz is the Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Oz, who hosts the popular The Dr. Oz Show on primetime TV, had to defend his claims of "miracle" weight-loss supplements he promoted to his viewers during a June 2014 U.S. Senate hearing. Members of Congress criticized his claims as medically unsound, saying, "The scientific community is almost monolithically against you." A senator even accused him of deliberately lying.
While testifying, Oz admitted that some of the products he told his viewers to use "don't have the scientific muster to present as fact."
Dear Dr. Goldman:
I am writing to you on behalf of myself and the undersigned colleagues below, all of whom are distinguished physicians.
We are surprised and dismayed that Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons would permit Dr. Mehmet Oz to occupy a faculty appointment, let alone a senior administrative position in the Department of Surgery.
As described here and here, as well as in other publications, Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine, as well as baseless and relentless opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops. Worst of all, he has manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.
Thus, Dr. Oz is guilty of either outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgements about what constitutes appropriate medical treatments, or both. Whatever the nature of his pathology, members of the public are being misled and endangered, which makes Dr. Oz's presence on the faculty of a prestigious medical institution unacceptable.
Sincerely yours,
Henry I. Miller, M.D.
Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy
& Public Policy
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CAScott W. Atlas, M.D.
David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CAJack Fisher, M.D.
Professor of Surgery (emeritus)
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CAShelley Fleet, M.D.
Anesthesiologist
Longwood, FLGordon N. Gill, M.D.
Dean (emeritus) of Translational Medicine
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CAMichael H. Mellon, M.D.
Pediatric Allergist
San Diego, CAGilbert Ross, M.D.
President (Acting) and Executive Director
American Council on Science and Health
New York, NYSamuel Schneider, M.D.
Psychiatrist
Princeton, NJGlenn Swogger Jr. M.D.
Director of the Will Menninger Center for Applied Behavioral Sciences (retired)
The Menninger Foundation
Topeka, KSJoel E. Tepper, M.D.
Hector MacLean Distinguished Professor of Cancer Research
Dept of Radiation Oncology
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Chapel Hill, NC
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1NRgXbr
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