Mehmet Oz is the OG wellness grifter: his millions were made by lying to you
His career prioritized personal gain over public health and he will do the same to CMS and its beneficiaries.
Mehmet Oz has a net worth of over $100 million because of his career-long grift.
Mehmet Oz is the OG wellness grifter and probably the most notorious. He’s made millions misleading the public and selling vulnerable people false promises. In fact, The Federal Trade Commission estimates that Mehmet Oz scammed YOU - the public - out of over $50 million by hawking fraudulent products on his TV show, The Dr. Oz Show alone.
Even before he got his big break by Oprah (still not forgiving that one), Oz was drawn to “alternative medicine” and the wellness industry. That lean into medical conspiracism can be strong, especially when lots of money is involved.
And now, he has been nominated to head up The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), one of the most critical human services agencies under the purview of HHS. CMS oversees healthcare programs that support over 160 MILLION Americans through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Health Insurance Marketplace. It is critical this agency is ensuring nearly half our country has access to evidence-based care.
Dr. Oz’s history of peddling pseudoscience, profiting off health disinformation, causing harm to the public, and committing fraud should fully disqualify him for this role.
Mehmet Oz has made millions promoting fake medical treatments, disinformation, and endorsing others who do the same.
Mehmet Oz started his career as a cardiac surgeon, but diverged from there in the 2000s, augmented by his platform on the Dr. Oz Show. Oz’s empire is built on celebrity and pseudoscience.
His net worth is estimated at over $100 million, most of that coming from hawking unproven and pseudoscientific products as part of his platform on the Dr. Oz show. . Ironically, while he has undermined vaccines and other evidence-based health interventions, he has made $1.5 million from various pharmaceutical companies.
Between 2009 and 2022, Oz was earning $20 million a year from 2009 to 2022, an estimated $260 million in gross earnings.
The Dr. Oz show was a global platform for profitable pseudoscience and snake oil.
Studies have demonstrated that more than half of the claims Dr. Oz made on his TV show were not supported by any evidence-based science or contradicted his own previous claims. But they’ve made him a lot of money.
His endorsements of supplements are linked to companies that collectively generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, all of which he received a percentage of. His branded vitamin line alone generated roughly $10 million annually.
He was paid to endorse unregulated and unproven supplements, such as green coffee bean extract, Garcinia cambogia, raspberry ketones, and others.
He called raspberry ketones a “miracle in a bottle to burn your fat”, Garcinia cambogia the “newest, fastest fat burner,” and told his viewers you could burn fat without dieting or exercising. He told his audience it worked for weight loss, appetite suppression, and emotional eating, while clinical data demonstrated none of these claims were true.
But he exploited people’s vulnerabilities, their medical anxiety, and their desire to take control of their health. Much of his wealth comes from his TV show, books/ magazines sales, business ties, and investments.
He is an iHerb Global Advisor and Stakeholder, a company that has an extensive catalog of unproven and unregulated dietary supplements, many of which make pseudoscientific claims related to immune boosting, longevity and anti-aging, detoxing, and more.
Other financial conflicts of interest include (this is not remotely comprehensive):
Oz is a board member of PanTheryx Inc, a company that sells bovine colostrum supplements and products
Oz co-founded billion-dollar firm Sharecare with WebMD’s Jeff Arnold, which features apps and questionnaires that provide unsupported claims like your “RealAge” and undermined health interventions like dental fillings.
Oz is listed as a “Trusted Partner” of multi-level marketing company Usana Health Sciences, which sells supplements, collagen powders, and skincare products. Many of these products were regularly featured on his show and sold on the Dr. Oz website.
Oz is guilty of fraud, he is not going to reduce “fraud”
Mehmet capitalized on his name recognition to launch branded products across the wellness industry: dietary supplements, wellness books, and fitness programs. He also leveraged his perceived expertise in “science and health” based on his career in cardiovascular surgery to hawk disinformation and false claims. (A reminder that someone being a surgeon does not make them a scientific expert).
Mehmet promoted Pure Green Coffee green coffee bean extract as a “cure-all for body fat,” while fabricating claims. There is no evidence that these supplements help burn fat or lose weight, but the company’s profits relied heavily on Oz’s televised endorsements, which were estimated to have directly contributed to over $50 million in fraudulent sales.
A U.S. district court judge issued a $30 million judgment against them for deceiving consumers using false weight-loss claims, bogus testimonials, and fake news websites.
Mehmet also promoted Applied Food Sciences’s green coffee extract, touting it as another weight-loss miracle. FTC charged the company by using flawed data to make baseless weight-loss claims about its green coffee extract. AFS settled with FTC with a $3.5 million fine.
Two more companies, Genesis Today, Inc. and Pure Health LLC, also had green coffee extracts that were promoted by Mehmet on his show. They were charged by the FTC with deceptively promoting green coffee bean extract through endorsements on “The Dr. Oz Show," and making unsubstantiated weight-loss claims. They were fined $9 million for defrauding consumers and were barred from making false claims about supplements.
These are only a few examples of Mehmet’s complicity, and how his endorsements of wholly pseudoscientific claims leverage his perceived authority to coerce people out of money and potentially harm their health.
The Fraudster of Oz
Oz was brought in front of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection in 2014 because he routinely misled consumers about products he sold and promoted on his show, especially his “miracle” weight-loss products.
Senator Claire McCaskill stated:
“The scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products you called ‘miracles.’”
Worse, Oz defended his misleading claims. How can someone like that be trusted to oversee an agency that manages and provides healthcare for 160 million Americans?
Mehmet Oz makes unfounded and dangerous health recommendations.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Oz promoted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. In fact, his website still promotes it, even though copious data have demonstrated that this medication does not improve outcomes of COVID-19. He even cited the discredited French “case study” as his evidence, demonstrating that he either doesn’t know how to interpret scientific data or he doesn’t care about misleading people, both of which disqualify him for heading up CMS.
He’s also promoted high doze zinc supplements as effective for appetite suppression and weight loss and told his viewers to take 12-15 mg of zinc a day, doses that exceed the recommended daily allowance levels for zinc. Just to note: numerous studies have shown that there are no data to support these claims. Zinc supplementation does not cause significant changes in weight, body mass index, body fat percentage, or waist circumference. Leptin didn’t increase either, and one study suggested zinc may even lower leptin levels.
He has also recommended everyone take 2 baby aspirin daily before bed, a blanket recommendation which is medically irresponsible and should never be promoted. It can cause serious harm. For people at high risk for coronary heart disease, daily low dose aspirin might be beneficial, but that would be determined by an individual’s care team. For many individuals, including most healthy individuals, older adults, people taking anti-coagulants, this recommendation can be dangerous. It can lead to bleeding ulcers and other dangerous side effects.
Mehmet Oz is a direct contradiction to the principles of CMS.
Dr. Oz’s history of promoting pseudoscience, combined with his financial entanglements, raises serious concerns about his ability to lead such a critical institution like CMS.
CMS relies on rigorous scientific evidence to determine which treatments, diagnostics, and medical interventions are covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Oz’s track record directly contradicts these principles.
Let’s also mention that he has claimed that astrological signs affect our health, sells a homeopathic starter kit (I discuss homeopathy here), promotes iridology as a legitimate field, endorses Reiki, has amplified psychic mediums as credible, promoted dangerous supplements like colloidal silver as treatments for infectious diseases. He’s even touted unproven treatments for cancer, a tactic that tangibly harms people and causes increased death rates among cancer patients.
Endorsing "alternative" cancer treatments is a danger to public health
I’ve been wanting to start to dig into cancer pseudoscience for a long time, and in my other pieces, I’ve really only scratched the surface. But with the rampant headlines about Elle MacPherson, now is the perfect time to really start to get into it.
If Mehmet Oz leads CMS, he would undermine evidence-based medicine to benefit himself and his buddies.
CMS has a duty to combat misinformation and ensure public trust in these critical programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If Mehmet Oz is given the reins, this will not happen.
His support for unproven remedies that lack evidence would weaken the commitment to robust science-based principles. Oz has serious financial conflicts of interest that would compromise his ability to administer programs that require data-driven decisions.
His enthusiasm and personal wealth that comes from the unregulated supplement and wellness industry, guarantees that he will loosen regulations for these products as CMS administrator. His lucrative career misleading the public has altered the way medicine and health are viewed. His notoriety has driven the scramble for the next quick fix: fad diets, supplements, and alternative treatments, even when no data support their use.
Trump announced that Mehmet would “rid CMS of fraud and waste” yet Mehmet has himself committed fraud.
CMS has an important role in preventing fraud and ensuring quality care. Oz has, to this day, serious conflicts of interest with evidence-based medicine. He is directly linked to numerous cases of fraud, where consumers were influenced by his lies and disinformation to purchase and participate in wellness interventions that are not effective and can cause legitimate harm. And Oz knows he is scamming people.
While he hawks and profits off miracle cures, Oz himself doesn’t rely on magic pills or quick fixes to maintain his health. He monitors his weight, exercises daily, and has specific dietary habits. It's almost as if he knows these things don't work.
Even if someone has an advanced degree and speaks with authority, they can have ulterior motives. In Oz’s case, his motives have always been clear: he values fame and fortune over credible science and medicine. If he is given this leadership role, he will do exactly the same for CMS programs.
Do not be misled: Oz will gut the evidence-based methods of Medicare and Medicaid for his own benefit. His nomination is not only hypocritical, it threatens public health.
Mehmet Oz is a danger to public health. In CMS, he would exacerbate the healthcare challenges Americans face.
We all must join in the fight for science.
Thank you for supporting evidence-based science communication. With outbreaks of preventable diseases, refusal of evidence-based medical interventions, propagation of pseudoscience by prominent public “personalities”, it’s needed now more than ever.
Stay skeptical,
Andrea
“ImmunoLogic” is written by Dr. Andrea Love, PhD - immunologist and microbiologist. She works full-time in life sciences biotech and has had a lifelong passion for closing the science literacy gap and combating pseudoscience and health misinformation as far back as her childhood. This newsletter and her science communication on her social media pages are born from that passion. Follow on Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and Facebook, or support the newsletter by subscribing below:
Yes, thank you yet again! I became a certified PA in the mid 2000s when he was really taking off. At the time it barely occurred to me that any medical doctor would go so off course like this. Evidence based medicine helps ensure we maximize benefit and minimize harm, right? I didn’t understand the concept of a grifter. I was skeptical always, but it took me a few years to catch on to this wellness/psudoscience/grifter machine. Their voices are getting louder than ours, and your reminders that we’re on the right side of medicine and history are invaluable.
Once again, thank you!