Maintenance Phase - Dr. Oz | The Good Janets

00:00:00.000 Hi, everybody. Welcome to Maintenance Phase, your favorite podcast about health and wellness

00:00:16.960 myths and the human version of Oscar the Grouch, maybe.

00:00:22.480 I think your favorite might be a little ambitious. I think we're a middling podcast.

00:00:27.080 An okay podcast sometimes.

00:00:29.760 It's fun. If there's lots of dishes, it's okay. It'll do.

00:00:32.940 We're the green bean casserole.

00:00:37.040 My name's Aubrey Gordon, and I am a writer and fat lady about town.

00:00:41.820 And I am Michael Hobbs. I am a reporter for the Huffington Post.

00:00:44.760 You can find us on social media pretty much everywhere at Maintenance Phase.

00:00:48.120 You can also find us on Patreon, which is patreon.com slash maintenance phase.

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00:01:00.640 yes or you can not support us that's fine too yeah do what you want yes and today we are talking

00:01:06.300 about dr oz no dr oz mr oz america's doctor america's sweetheart dr i mean this is another 0.96

00:01:14.540 one of those episodes where it's so hard to research because you're like you know he's trash 0.95

00:01:18.380 and then you read all the research and you're like okay he's like more trash than i thought 0.96

00:01:22.360 and like trash in slightly different ways. 0.98

00:01:25.580 That seems right to me.

00:01:26.580 I feel like the things that I know about Dr. Oz 0.98

00:01:28.940 are just these peak moments of garbage nonsense. 0.94

00:01:32.200 Like I know about him being an Oprah, not disciple. 0.98

00:01:37.400 What's the word that I'm looking for?

00:01:39.040 Frankenstein's monster.

00:01:40.360 So I know about him being sort of Oprah approved.

00:01:43.260 I know about him like pretty consistently promoting fat camps.

00:01:47.000 And I know about him getting hauled in front of Congress.

00:01:50.420 Yes, we're going to talk about that in great detail.

00:01:52.140 I feel like that's just from, like, moving through the world in which Dr. Oz exists. You know what I mean? Like, I don't really feel like I know more than that.

00:01:59.520 I mean, I feel like the Aubrey version of I'm coming in fresh is still, like, pretty well-versed on this stuff compared to most of the general public.

00:02:09.240 All right, fine.

00:02:09.940 So, I mean, for listeners that don't know who he is, can you just give us the broad strokes? Who's this Dr. Oz dude?

00:02:15.940 Yeah, so Dr. Mehmet Oz, yeah?

00:02:19.240 Yes.

00:02:19.580 He was a frequent guest on Oprah Winfrey's show, is my recollection.

00:02:24.340 He made 55 appearances between 2001 and 2009.

00:02:28.620 And that led to him getting a – like an afternoon talk show where he would sort of like address medical topics and sometimes would take questions from the audience that were like, I have this rash or whatever.

00:02:39.980 Yeah.

00:02:40.620 I don't know how long it was on the air, but I have a sense that it was on the air for like 10 years.

00:02:45.040 And it might still be on the air and I don't know.

00:02:46.800 Yeah, it's still on.

00:02:47.400 Jesus, is it?

00:02:48.140 Yeah.

00:02:48.320 they do 175 shows a year oh and he still does surgery like literal heart surgery one day a week

00:02:56.700 every thursday wow yeah the show is like consistently one of the top five shows

00:03:00.880 like on the daytime charts just because we have to have a cameo by her every episode now michelle

00:03:06.360 obama has showed up on his show twice so later on we are going to talk about sort of how dr oz got

00:03:12.740 like this but i think it's important to establish what like this actually means yeah there's

00:03:17.960 basically four different categories of topics that he has on his show. So the first is weight

00:03:23.860 loss and weight related, you know, diet exercise stuff, which is by far the most, like that's

00:03:28.200 probably 40% of his topics are in some way related to weight loss. One of them to pick a random

00:03:33.340 example is apple cider vinegar that he says that like, if you take a teaspoon of apple cider

00:03:37.760 vinegar with a meal, you'll like lose more weight than you would on other diets without it, blah,

00:03:43.480 blah blah and then of course you look into it and it's like there's one study and it's on mice

00:03:48.700 it was done in like 1992 and then like people try to debunk it but then he just like leans in like

00:03:53.880 one thing he's doing now with apple cider vinegar is he stopped talking about it as like a diet aid

00:03:59.160 he started talking about it as like a detox like you should only drink apple cider vinegar oh god

00:04:04.680 what which is worse and then he starts now he's talking about it as skincare and actual skincare

00:04:11.100 people are like, just because something is quote unquote natural doesn't mean that you should like

00:04:14.940 rub it all over your face every morning. Right. Apple cider vinegar is natural. It's also not a

00:04:19.200 great contact lens solution. Yes, exactly. Like, no. He's also really big on anti-cancer stuff.

00:04:26.860 One of the headlines I saw on his website was what you can eat to defeat cancer.

00:04:30.600 Good God. Another one of the major categories of stuff that he talks about on his show is anti-aging.

00:04:36.360 Yeah. There's also a fourth category of stuff. And so I'm about to send you a link.

00:04:41.100 very excited. Oh my god. Oh, no. I know. I know. It's so bad. So this is apparently a title of an

00:04:52.800 episode and it says from gay to straight question mark the controversial therapy. He did an episode

00:04:59.680 on gay conversion therapy like recently. Yeah. So the the sort of little synopsis says,

00:05:06.540 is there a gay cure? Dr. Oz investigates reparative therapy. Recently banned in 0.65

00:05:12.700 California for minors. Experts on both sides speak out. Watch the heated debate. So recently

00:05:20.000 banned in California for minors means that this episode happened in the last five years.

00:05:24.080 Yes. We are not in the middle of a society-wide debate about whether conversion therapy for gay

00:05:28.860 people is useful. That is a closed debate. We do not have questions about that as a society.

00:05:34.400 Yeah, we are not going to watch this segment together because it's a fucking nightmare. But it's like one of the most unethical six minutes of TV I've ever seen. He basically brings on a bunch of gay men talking about like, I had these urges. And then I found gay conversion therapy. And now I don't have them anymore. Which is like, what? Are you fucking kidding me? Like, this is like, Donahue episodes from the mid 90s. Like all this shit has been completely debunked, dude. 0.98

00:05:57.400 Right. I don't think you and I have talked about this. This is a campaign that I worked on for like years. I worked on the Oregon campaign to ban conversion therapy. It is a shit show. And so I will tell you, I know inside and out that there is zero dispute amongst psychologists and psychiatrists. 0.99

00:06:16.120 It doesn't work. And even if it did, why would we do it?

00:06:20.300 And I mean, I think this is important for understanding sort of the Dr. Oz phenomenon

00:06:24.040 because on some level, like some of the things on his show you can defend, right?

00:06:29.660 Like helping people live longer, like diet and exercise, blah, blah, blah, fine. 0.98

00:06:33.340 But then it's like every fifth or sixth segment is just random moral panic bullshit. 0.97

00:06:39.720 Yeah. 0.79

00:06:39.920 So there's this infamous one where during the Ebola panic, which I think was 2013,

00:06:44.520 he had a whole show about how it might go airborne at any time.

00:06:47.880 What?

00:06:48.200 There was one of the ones that I found. He had Jordan Peterson on to do divorce counseling with, like, a couple that was fighting?

00:06:56.280 What? 0.94

00:06:57.100 You're just going to have, like, this random alt-right fucking ghoul help people with, like, oh, John works too much and he's never home anymore. Like, why does this exist? 0.98

00:07:05.880 I was laughing in anticipation of him being like, let's do the carnivore diet.

00:07:10.360 I know.

00:07:11.080 Not, like, Jordan Peterson marriage counselor.

00:07:14.440 It's nuts. He's had like mediums on like one of the headlines that is still up on his website is how talking to the dead can keep you healthy. His website has a true crime section. He'll randomly do these like this girl went missing in Albuquerque or whatever. And you're like, why the fuck are you talking about this?

00:07:36.260 no health tie-in got it i want to sort of spoil the ending one of the best articles that i came 0.96

00:07:42.380 across on dr oz was written by a doctor like doctors loathe dr oz it's an article called

00:07:48.740 why dr oz makes us crazy and it's by a universe of chicago doctor called adam sifu and he

00:07:54.620 summarizes i think really well just like the central problem not just with dr oz with this

00:08:00.040 entire genre of entertainment bear with me it's kind of a long quote but it's really good great

00:08:03.960 The day-to-day practice of medicine is about caring for the individual.

00:08:07.440 While we physicians fill our days providing sound advice to our patients,

00:08:10.600 there are, by comparison, remarkably few recommendations that we can make to the population as a whole.

00:08:16.420 Everyone should exercise and wear seatbelts.

00:08:18.680 Nobody should smoke or drink excessively.

00:08:20.760 Everyone should receive childhood vaccines.

00:08:22.820 Not only are these types of recommendations limited in number,

00:08:25.400 they are also neither terribly interesting nor surprising.

00:08:28.280 They would certainly not support a daily or even weekly television show.

00:08:31.620 And this is really the central problem with a figure like Dr. Oz.

00:08:35.500 Yeah.

00:08:35.700 Instead of trying to actually like be America's doctor, he's just like giving everybody everything at once with no context.

00:08:43.620 Totally. And I think like most of research world is like pretty unsatisfying.

00:08:48.000 If you've not done the deep dive into like Google Scholar, there are very few medical studies that like a single study comes up with a definitive conclusion about what every individual should do differently.

00:09:01.620 Exactly. And those things where there are definitive findings are the things that you're

00:09:05.500 talking about, which is just like, you should probably drink some more water. Yeah. It's like

00:09:09.120 a little bit of, you know, squeezing blood out of a stone. Yeah. So I want to do a deep dive into

00:09:15.500 the green coffee bean kerfuffle. Oh, tell me. Which I'm sure you were aware of.

00:09:21.020 All I know is that it was a big thing. And it was a big thing mostly because of him.

00:09:25.400 But I don't know anything about the science behind it. I don't know anything about sort of

00:09:29.880 how it became this sort of juggernaut.

00:09:32.560 Would you like me to walk you through it with clips and Google Scholar citations?

00:09:36.400 Oh my god, everything. Yes, please.

00:09:38.280 All right, I'm gonna send you a clip. It's kind of long,

00:09:40.320 but there are specifics in this clip that we need to dissect.

00:09:42.800 Gotcha.

00:09:43.080 So here it is.

00:09:44.120 Oh, okay. So I will say, while we're getting it queued up,

00:09:46.520 Dr. Oz is standing in front of a screen. He is surrounded by these little pedestals that have

00:09:52.440 flames on the side of them. And the screens behind him say,

00:09:56.820 the miracle pill to burn fat fast i know and it only gets worse aubrey just wait till we get into

00:10:03.420 this oh lord this little bean has scientists saying they found the magic weight loss cure

00:10:11.000 for every body type it's green coffee beans and when turned into a supplement this miracle pill

00:10:17.320 can burn fat fast for anyone who wants to lose weight

00:10:20.900 naturopathic doctor and certified nutritionist lindsey duncan is here with the findings

00:10:27.100 so dr lindsey you you love this bean why is that you know i usually don't recommend weight loss

00:10:32.460 supplements but this one has got me really really excited the recent study that you were talking

00:10:37.380 about earlier they the participants took the capsules and they did nothing else they didn't

00:10:43.220 exercise they didn't change their diet they actually consumed 2400 calories a day they burned

00:10:49.740 only 400 calories. Now that's weight gain, not weight loss. And they lost over 10% of their

00:10:56.380 total body weight. And they had no side effects, zero side effects. That's remarkable. Are you

00:11:02.100 guys interested in this? So this is the raw material for coffee that we drink. Why wouldn't

00:11:10.660 just drinking coffee do this? It's what we call a triple threat. Okay. And it's the chlorogenic

00:11:15.240 acid that causes the effect and it works three ways. The first way is it goes in and it causes

00:11:20.780 the body to burn glucose or sugar and burn fat, mainly in the liver. The second way and the most

00:11:26.980 important way is it slows the release of sugar into the bloodstream. When the two are combined

00:11:33.340 together, you get this synergistic effect that basically burns and blocks and stops fat, but it

00:11:40.640 also is natural and safe so the capsules you can buy where you buy it online you want to make sure

00:11:47.120 that this is important that it's pure so you go to your web browser you type in pure green coffee

00:11:52.560 beans or pure green coffee bean extract and you make sure that it doesn't have all the additives

00:11:58.000 the excipients the binders the cellulose and the silica and all the other stuff so look under other 0.99

00:12:03.440 ingredients to make sure that it's a pure product oh it's such bullshit but it's such 0.99

00:12:11.560 compelling bullshit do you want to keep going are you bummed that we stopped i hardly even know 0.98

00:12:17.120 where to start with this right you have to make sure that it's pure but there's no regulation 1.00

00:12:22.280 on supplements yes and truly every even just like street drug dealers will tell you shit is pure 0.63

00:12:29.120 It feels certain that both of these people probably know better than to just say, hey, check and make sure it's pure. 0.93

00:12:37.600 Oh, sweet, sweet Aubrey.

00:12:40.240 It's so much worse than you think, Aubrey.

00:12:42.700 It's so bad.

00:12:44.040 Okay, tell me.

00:12:45.520 All of this information is from a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit.

00:12:49.640 So what we find out from the discovery files once everything goes public, this guy, Lindsay Duncan, he's not a medical doctor.

00:12:58.200 He has a naturopathic degree from the Clayton College of Natural Health, which is a school

00:13:05.260 that the state of Texas has said confers fraudulent and substandard degrees.

00:13:11.660 He seems like he's just like a doctor on this, right?

00:13:14.020 Like, I'm just somebody who cares about your health.

00:13:15.860 He's actually a marketing executive for a company that makes supplements.

00:13:21.180 Yeah, that's right.

00:13:22.060 So about a month before he comes on Dr. Oz, he gets an email that eventually ends up in

00:13:26.540 Federal Trade Commission lawsuit from the Dr. Oz show. And they say, you know, we're hearing about

00:13:31.520 this green coffee bean extract. Do you know anything? You know, have you heard anything

00:13:34.740 about this? You know, there's this study that's coming out showing weight loss. Have you heard

00:13:38.280 anything about this? He at this point has never heard of this thing. He immediately writes back

00:13:41.980 and says, yes, I've heard of it. I'm really excited about it. And then that same day starts

00:13:47.480 calling manufacturers to start producing green coffee bean extracts. Oh, God. It's dark. So over

00:13:55.260 the next month, he calls up like Walgreens and Amazon, all these other retailers and says,

00:14:01.700 look, I'm going to be on the Dr. Oz show. You guys need to have this on your shelves and ready.

00:14:07.800 Another really important thing. Remember in the clip how he said like you need to take 800

00:14:12.180 milligrams of it twice a day and you need to look for the pure version of it, whatever.

00:14:17.140 These are search terms that he bought on Google.

00:14:21.200 What?

00:14:21.480 Yes.

00:14:21.760 so he's done seo exactly to make sure that when people search those terms they will get his

00:14:27.680 version and not anybody else's version exactly so according to the lawsuit all of this is

00:14:33.540 completely deliberate like all of the wording that he uses on the show is deliberate and he's

00:14:38.960 going back and forth with the producers of dr oz like working on the script for weeks before this

00:14:44.200 airs so he knows exactly what he's going to say that's so upsetting like so truly like i feel

00:14:49.780 like I don't have a ton of like Pollyanna kind of moments. I really, really, really thought this

00:14:54.560 episode was going to be like, he's been reckless, not this is like an evil mastermind scheme to like 0.99

00:15:01.380 just to sell shit. I mean, the closest thing we have to a defense of Dr. Oz is that Dr. Oz does 0.98

00:15:06.980 not sell and never has sold supplements. The only thing that he sells is he has like a sleep

00:15:12.100 store on his website where he sells like pillows and mattresses and shit. I think Dr. Oz probably 0.98

00:15:16.860 didn't know. But also, they didn't do any background checks on this guy, right? Zero

00:15:22.140 due diligence, zero due diligence. Yeah. While we're at it, the study that they mentioned on

00:15:27.680 the Dr. Oz show, the study that shows that people do no diet, they do no exercise. All they do is

00:15:33.480 they start taking green coffee beans. And then all of a sudden, the weight magically melts off.

00:15:38.140 Oh, yes. And they also said like, this miracle pill for 16 weeks, you just the weight just

00:15:43.240 drops off. I was like, this is all of the language from Fen Fen and Rita.

00:15:46.860 Yes. So it turns out that this study is a total scam. The study was initiated by the manufacturer

00:15:54.400 of green coffee bean extract. Oh, God. The study was on 16 people, already huge red flag that it's

00:16:02.560 that small. They found a researcher in India and then hired a researcher to do this study,

00:16:09.420 like to recruit participants. And then what they find out, this is all part of the FTC lawsuit.

00:16:14.160 eventually they find out that the researcher is like constantly changing things like she's not

00:16:19.960 putting the data into the study well so like people's weights are fluctuating all over the

00:16:24.160 place she's mixing up who's in the green coffee bean group and the placebo group oh no basically

00:16:31.100 the company that makes this green coffee bean stuff loses confidence in this researcher and

00:16:36.940 they hire two more researchers at the university of scranton they basically take her data which

00:16:42.380 they already knew was bad because the numbers had been changing all over the place. And they

00:16:46.280 present it at a conference. So it's never actually published, but it's presented at this Cleveland

00:16:50.140 Clinic conference. That is the entire basis for this claim that you can do no diet and exercise

00:16:56.240 and lose 10% of your body weight. Right. Which is also, again, since time immemorial, this has been

00:17:03.140 sort of like the magic claim. Yes. At the very least, if we had found something like that,

00:17:09.160 You would hear it from your doctor.

00:17:11.920 I mean, so much of this really, to me, comes back to this idea that like there's something

00:17:15.840 doctors don't want you to know.

00:17:17.480 I mean, this is language that Dr. Oz uses on his show all the time.

00:17:20.080 He's like, this is what the Western medical system won't tell you.

00:17:23.240 And it's like the obesity epidemic is a pretty entrenched component of our culture.

00:17:28.620 And if there was a cure for it that was this easy, you wouldn't just be hearing about it

00:17:33.320 in like a four minute segment on a dodgy TV show.

00:17:37.080 Right.

00:17:37.300 It would be cover of time.

00:17:38.540 It would be cover of Newsweek. 0.99

00:17:39.560 It would be a huge fucking deal. 0.99

00:17:41.700 Right. 0.99

00:17:42.060 And even then, it would be Fen Fen.

00:17:44.320 Yeah, exactly. 0.99

00:17:44.940 Even then, it would still like maybe kill you, probably make you super sick, right?

00:17:50.100 So do you want to know how he got this way, Aubrey?

00:17:53.340 How did he get this way?

00:17:54.980 What's his backstory?

00:17:56.380 It's kind of a fascinating and like tragic story.

00:18:00.080 So Mehmet Oz, he's born in 1960.

00:18:02.920 He grows up in Ohio.

00:18:05.180 His parents are Turkish.

00:18:06.360 so he spends summers in Turkey growing up. His father is also a surgeon and just seems to be

00:18:13.280 one of those dads that just wants you to be number one all the time. The story that Dr. Oz always

00:18:18.000 tells is that he tells his dad, you know, I'm one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people

00:18:24.280 in America. And his dad immediately says, what number are you? So he goes to Harvard for

00:18:29.200 undergraduate in 1985. This actually turns out to be a really important moment for him. He meets

00:18:35.840 his wife, who at the time is named Lisa Lemole. Her dad's a surgeon. And her mom is like kind of

00:18:42.340 a woo-woo new age person. And it seems like as soon as Dr. Oz marries Lisa, this is when he

00:18:50.500 starts dabbling in like alternative medicines. In 1986, this is wild, he got a dual MD-MBA from

00:18:59.760 the University of Pennsylvania. The dude works his ass off. Right. But also it feels like that's

00:19:05.440 some solid foreshadowing to be like, I'm going to be good at doctoring and businessing.

00:19:10.120 Businessing. Yeah. Then he immediately gets a post at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center

00:19:14.540 in New York. This is when like all the doctors, all his colleagues, everybody says that he's

00:19:19.280 a wildly talented surgeon. Julia Ballouz, this really great journalist for Vox,

00:19:23.580 goes and interviews a bunch of his colleagues. And most of them say,

00:19:26.900 I would let Dr. Oz do surgery on me. He wins like prestigious awards. He has 11 patents.

00:19:32.600 Wow. For various, you know, open heart aorta, valve, something, something stuff. But then

00:19:38.600 this is also when he gets more serious about the alternative therapies. So this is an excerpt from

00:19:46.080 an article that Julia Ballouz wrote about Dr. Oz, basically trying to answer the question,

00:19:49.600 like, how did he get this way? And this gets published in 2014. She says,

00:19:53.280 with his father-in-law's encouragement, he began to explore music therapy,

00:19:57.380 energy fields, and therapeutic touch, and began to offer them to his surgical patients.

00:20:02.600 Here too, Lisa played a major role. She is a reiki master and Oz soon became famous at New York

00:20:08.680 Presbyterian for encouraging the practice of reiki in the operating room. This is – are you familiar

00:20:13.760 with reiki? I am a queer lady from Portland, Oregon, so yes, I am. You're doing it right now.

00:20:21.080 Yeah. It's sort of like the idea is that you're doing this sort of laying on of hands,

00:20:25.020 but you're not actually touching someone, right? Yes.

00:20:27.200 And the idea is that you're manipulating their energy field.

00:20:30.260 Yes. I think this is a really big moment because on some level, the Reiki stuff seems fine to me.

00:20:37.380 If a surgeon is a little kooky and, you know, they think that playing classical music helps you recover faster or there's some things in sort of ancient Chinese medicine that might help surgical patients recover from a heart surgery, the placebo effect is a real thing.

00:20:51.040 And so if the doctor is convinced that these therapies work and the patients are convinced that these therapies work, they probably do actually have some beneficial effect.

00:20:58.380 Yeah, very truly couldn't hurt.

00:20:59.760 But then it seems like from this little seed, he then starts just expanding more and more and more.

00:21:08.320 So in 1994, he opens his own clinic, and then he starts doing sort of hypnosis and aromatherapy and prayer.

00:21:17.880 It just becomes like this weird grab bag.

00:21:20.640 Right. And it's not like he's not adopting whole cloth additional sort of like systems of medical thinking, right?

00:21:27.420 He's not going like, we're going to do a hybrid of Western surgery plus principles of Chinese medicine plus blah, blah, blah.

00:21:34.820 He's just going like, yeah, sure.

00:21:36.380 Sounds like a good idea.

00:21:37.480 Right.

00:21:37.600 There's no sort of theory behind it.

00:21:40.600 He's just vacuuming up whatever's around.

00:21:42.820 Whatever you got.

00:21:43.540 All right.

00:21:44.080 Yeah.

00:21:44.380 Another really important thing that starts happening in the mid-90s is he starts to get mainstream press attention.

00:21:50.060 So the surgical team that he's part of in New York does a bunch of sort of firsts, like a bunch of genuinely really innovative surgeries and gets press attention.

00:22:00.180 And once journalists start sniffing around and they realize there's this like charismatic, handsome doctor who does these sort of weird kooky things in the operating room but is also really effective, stories start trickling out of this clinic.

00:22:12.640 And so Julia Ballou interviews one of his former nurse practitioners.

00:22:17.360 she says it became about Oz not about the project not about the patients not about the work that all

00:22:24.180 became secondary to his rise to the top he was always acting he didn't know this patient he was

00:22:29.680 not connected to this patient we'd give him a two or three minute soundbite and he'd sit there in

00:22:34.100 front of cameras like he'd done this work and had this deep connection yeah it's it's so sad because

00:22:39.240 I'm like I can totally understand why people get irritated and I can also totally understand how

00:22:43.300 this would be so enticing for someone whose dad just always wanted them to be number one.

00:22:47.360 Seriously.

00:22:48.220 Oh, I feel for you, bud. But also, this might not be the way.

00:22:51.960 Right. And also, he has the confidence of an evangelist. You know, I mean,

00:22:56.580 the guy's literally doing heart surgery on people. He's saving people's lives.

00:22:59.900 And so it's very easy after that to say it wasn't the heart surgery. It was the Reiki

00:23:03.420 that saved somebody's life. I know. This is also 2001 is when he gets his TV show for the first

00:23:09.940 time. So little known fact, Dr. Oz's roommate in college ended up becoming the president of

00:23:17.660 the Discovery Channel. So after them talking and him getting all this press attention and doing

00:23:22.540 this interesting surgical stuff, eventually he and his wife pitched the show to the Discovery

00:23:27.300 Channel called Second Opinion with Dr. Oz. They do a series of 13 episodes where every episode

00:23:34.040 is him interviewing a celebrity about some sort of health issue. So, fatefully, his first episode

00:23:41.860 is about obesity, and he interviews Oprah. So, this is how they come in contact. She really

00:23:48.720 likes him, and she starts thinking, hey, why don't I have this guy on my show? He's charismatic,

00:23:52.760 he's smart, he's interesting. Yeah, he's a super likable dude.

00:23:56.040 Yes, exactly. And he has a way of presenting information in a way that makes it really easy

00:24:01.420 for people. So one of his first appearances on Oprah famously, he comes on with like a heart,

00:24:06.800 like an actual heart. And he's like, this is a healthy heart. And then he pulls out like a big,

00:24:11.280 gross, sort of white marbled heart. And he's like, this is a heart if you have obesity and like, 0.96

00:24:16.000 look how bad it is. But this sort of this, this showmanship, this way of having visual aids,

00:24:22.160 this becomes his trademark. Yeah, I absolutely as you were describing that I was like, Oh,

00:24:26.260 I absolutely remember both watching that show and then hearing the way that people talked to me

00:24:33.580 afterwards. Yeah. It was this wild moment of supercharging the like, don't you care about

00:24:39.480 your health? I know. I also remember from Prop World that he had one episode that I saw at one

00:24:44.780 point, I think I might have been getting my nails done or something, where he was like,

00:24:48.700 let's talk about your colon. And he had this big fabric tube set up that would like have people

00:24:54.240 like walk through yeah the inside of their colon there's a lot of pooping stuff that i cut out of 0.58

00:25:00.560 this episode honestly he's like obsessed with bombers and like the way that your poo is supposed

00:25:07.020 to look and how it's supposed to sound and like this sort of demystification of these kinds of

00:25:11.480 things that you're quote-unquote not supposed to talk about is actually a big part of his brand 0.58

00:25:14.820 are you happy now dad i'm the number one poop doctor i can't believe you brought up the poop

00:25:19.640 stuff i really wanted to skip the poop stuff i'm so sorry i'm so sorry it was like watching

00:25:26.580 one of those like dystopian future things where i'm like in the future people laugh at a doctor

00:25:31.640 talking about pooping i know what is this the hunger games so in 2009 is when he finally gets

00:25:39.880 his own show so it's been 11 years yes oh one of the most interesting studies i found was a bmj

00:25:46.480 study that did a systematic content analysis of what he presents on his show. So they watched

00:25:53.480 40 episodes. They got 479 health recommendations from those 40 episodes. And then they picked 80

00:26:01.380 of them at random to look at the evidence. What they found is that only 46% of them had any

00:26:08.700 evidence to support them. And 15% had evidence against them, like evidence that they don't work.

00:26:14.240 wow so nestled among the sort of the bullshit weight loss intermittent fasting take a green

00:26:21.820 coffee bean pill you'll find things like how to get a better night's sleep how to get more fruit 0.99

00:26:27.460 into your diet here's tips for how to quit smoking so it's not all bullshit but the fact 0.98

00:26:33.460 that it's half bullshit and half not and he's toggling between them without necessarily like 0.97

00:26:40.620 good road signs for this has evidence and this doesn't? Like, that's the central problem. 0.98

00:26:45.480 Right. I would actually argue that that is more destructive than the like straight up like

00:26:49.540 medicine show pitch of just like, I've got your miracle cure right here, right? Like,

00:26:54.020 it just sort of fortifies this soup that we're all living in all the time, which is when it comes to

00:27:00.460 health and wellness and weight loss and nutrition and all of that kind of stuff. We're like, in this

00:27:06.920 mucky combination of real verified information and marketing and wishful thinking.

00:27:16.120 Right. So for the rest of the episode, I want to walk through the way that he defends what he's

00:27:22.920 doing. Oh, interesting.

00:27:24.280 Most of this comes from his 2014 congressional testimony, which I think is like a rich text.

00:27:29.440 Yeah. The sort of the clips from that testimony that go viral are the back and forth between him

00:27:34.100 and the senators. And I mostly think those are bullshit because the senators are just kind of 0.99

00:27:38.340 playing to the cameras. Sure. But when you give congressional testimony, you have to give a long 1.00

00:27:42.620 detailed statement. And Dr. Oz's statement is actually very interesting because it's the first

00:27:47.860 time that he's ever in detail had to defend the impact that his show has on the health of

00:27:55.060 Americans. That's so fascinating. I realized, like, as you're saying this, I'm realizing that

00:27:59.180 I don't think I've ever heard him answer for any of this sort of on his own terms. Like you,

00:28:06.220 I watched the sort of like Claire McCaskill and Dr. Oz back and forth, which was, I will say,

00:28:12.400 totally playing to the cameras, totally political theater. Don't care. Very compelling political

00:28:17.180 theater. It's fun to watch. We're gonna do it later in the show.

00:28:20.060 Yes. He makes four claims in defending his show,

00:28:24.260 and we're gonna walk through them one by one. Great.

00:28:25.800 The first claim that he makes is that he's educating viewers about their health.

00:28:30.580 So this is what he says in his congressional testimony.

00:28:33.520 When we write a script, we need to generate enthusiasm and engage the viewer.

00:28:37.540 Viewers don't watch the show because they're seeking dry clinical language.

00:28:40.820 They watch because we use language that's familiar to them, which they would use when

00:28:44.240 speaking to friends and loved ones.

00:28:45.860 Which is a laudable goal.

00:28:47.940 If he was actually doing that, yes, that would be great.

00:28:50.840 Totally.

00:28:51.140 this is i feel like this is gonna be like probably how this testimony all plays out where i'm like

00:28:57.100 that sounds good and reasonable and you're gonna be like but it's not what he was doing exactly 0.95

00:29:00.520 because yeah so okay i should not have done this this was like the biggest waste of my fucking time 0.79

00:29:04.480 but i read one of his books no mike it's called you the user's manual it was actually really easy 0.94

00:29:10.740 because it's mostly like recipes and shit like there's very little actual content in his book

00:29:15.880 But there's a difference between boiling scientific information down for a lay audience 0.99

00:29:21.280 and fucking lying to them. 0.99

00:29:23.420 And he consistently lies. 1.00

00:29:25.460 Give me a flavor of some of those lies.

00:29:26.880 Like, what are some of the things that are just like categorically untrue?

00:29:30.540 Okay, so I'm going to read to you from his from his miserable book.

00:29:32.860 Okay. 0.91

00:29:33.040 Oh, God.

00:29:33.740 You don't need to be a Rhodes Scholar to stay mentally strong.

00:29:36.640 Simple changes can do the trick.

00:29:38.100 Take another study, one that measured brain function of retirees who frequented a Starbucks

00:29:42.860 in Illinois.

00:29:43.440 The half who just sat and drank their coffee got no smarter, while the half who drank their coffee while walking for 45 minutes at least three days a week actually improved their IQs.

00:29:53.920 Parentheses, no word on how many bathroom breaks they needed.

00:29:57.220 Oh, Lord.

00:29:57.900 The explanation? Physical activity improves arterial function, and better arterial function improves brain function.

00:30:04.180 I feel like I'm going to go into the methodology flaws of this study.

00:30:07.820 Dude.

00:30:08.080 And be like, right, but these kinds of people have access to these kinds of spaces to do walking and blah, blah, blah.

00:30:13.960 And then you're just going to be like, it wasn't a study.

00:30:16.440 Look, I could start to pick it apart, but I also know that I'm going to be like too generous with how I pick it apart.

00:30:23.320 This is exactly what I was expecting.

00:30:26.420 You would find some sort of specific things to nitpick at.

00:30:29.880 And then the twist, I'm like, the study does not exist, Aubrey, which is true. 0.54

00:30:33.780 And I spent half a fucking day looking for this actual study.

00:30:39.240 I put it out on Twitter. 0.93

00:30:40.140 I was like, if you have any background in neuroscience, cognitive function, anything,

00:30:43.780 have you ever heard of this study?

00:30:45.280 I looked at literature reviews.

00:30:46.800 I could not find a study that found people in Starbucks and some of them drank coffee

00:30:52.100 and some of them walked and drank their coffee.

00:30:54.080 This study does not exist.

00:30:55.560 And I want to be clear, this is the first study in his book that I looked for.

00:31:01.580 It's not like I went through his book and I wrote down all the studies and I looked

00:31:05.180 for it.

00:31:05.380 It's like, oh, that one's real and that one's real.

00:31:07.140 Oh, this one's fake. 0.98

00:31:08.120 This is the first one I looked into and it's not a fucking real study. 0.94

00:31:11.500 There is no study that measured the effect of walking on IQ and what actual cognitive 0.91

00:31:16.740 neuro people say.

00:31:18.420 They don't use IQ as a variable in studies like this because IQ does not change like

00:31:22.140 that.

00:31:22.360 That's not how these studies work.

00:31:23.660 And it didn't even happen.

00:31:24.600 It's not even making you smarter because it didn't even happen.

00:31:26.520 That study doesn't exist.

00:31:27.560 Oh my God, Mike. 0.99

00:31:28.420 Also, can I just be a total dick? 0.99

00:31:30.020 yes of course all of his thing is like oh we need to use colloquial language we just like to talk 0.99

00:31:35.060 to folks how they're folks and then listen to this fucking sentence physical activity improves 0.99

00:31:39.840 arterial function and better arterial function improves brain function yeah that's a shitty 0.99

00:31:44.160 sentence like exercise increases your blood flow and your brain needs blood to function yes oh

00:31:50.880 jesus this is why science communication is hard is because you don't want to misrepresent anything

00:31:55.460 but you do want to get it across in a way that people can absorb it and that's something

00:31:59.540 that dr oz like instead of doing the difficult work of coming up with like metaphors that can

00:32:04.020 help people understand complex phenomena or whatever he's just like this is a breakthrough

00:32:08.100 revolutionary thing walking and coffee iq you're like well you're not actually simplifying anything

00:32:13.260 you're making stuff up those are two different things he's like coming up with these sort of

00:32:17.760 like studies that like don't exist or if they do he's not citing them or whatever and then he's

00:32:24.520 building giant fabric colons for a tv set and like flames of green coffee beams and whatever

00:32:31.400 right like oh it's not science yes so okay second second defense that dr oz offers for himself

00:32:39.320 he is giving people an alternative to western medicine no he's not i know i know stop spoiling

00:32:46.600 the episode so for this one we're gonna do a little table read oh my god okay are you sending

00:32:53.900 me a link? Yes. I was going to play the clip of his exchange with Claire McCaskill in the

00:33:00.000 congressional hearing, but it's just really long and really boring. So I took the transcript and

00:33:04.480 I condensed it down. So we're going to do a sort of distilled version of this. Okay. Do you want

00:33:10.380 to play Dr. Oz or do you want to play Claire McCaskill? I'll be Claire McCaskill. That sounds

00:33:14.520 fun. Okay. So this is from the 2014 congressional hearing. Congress was looking into false weight

00:33:19.680 loss claims. Oh, dang. All right. It is. It's long. It's serious business. I know. Okay.

00:33:24.960 All right. Your motivation is that you're mad at Dr. Oz and need viral moments for your Twitter

00:33:30.500 feed later today. All right. All right. Grill me. Now, here are three statements you made on your

00:33:34.580 show. Quote, you may think magic is make believe, but this little bean has scientists saying they

00:33:40.260 found the magic weight loss cure for every body type. Quote, I've got the number one miracle in

00:33:46.380 a bottle to burn your body fat. It's raspberry ketone. Sorry, I just got, it sounds like a

00:33:53.540 delicious salad dressing. You're breaking character already. This is deeply unprofessional, Aubrey.

00:33:58.260 Very disappointed. Quote, Garcinia cambogia. It may be the simple solution you've been looking

00:34:05.120 for to bust your body fat for good. I don't care why you need to say this stuff, because you know

00:34:10.040 it's not true. With regards to whether they work or not, take the green coffee bean extract as an

00:34:14.320 example. I'm not going to argue that it would pass FDA muster if it was a pharmaceutical drug

00:34:18.340 seeking approval, but among the natural products that are out there, this is a product that has

00:34:22.360 several clinical trials. I mean, I've tried to really do a lot of research in preparation for

00:34:26.160 this hearing, and the scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the

00:34:31.040 efficacy of the three products that you call miracles. And when you call a product a miracle,

00:34:36.460 and it's something that you can buy, and it's something that gives people false hope,

00:34:39.980 I just don't understand why you needed to go there.

00:34:42.000 My job, I feel, on the show is to be a cheerleader for the audience.

00:34:45.600 And when they don't think they have hope, or when they don't think they can make it happen,

00:34:48.720 I want to look, and I do look, everywhere, including in alternative healing traditions,

00:34:53.360 for any evidence that might be supportive to them.

00:34:55.680 So you pick on green coffee bean extract.

00:34:58.060 With the amount of information that I have on that, I'm still comfortable telling folks

00:35:01.400 that if you can buy a reputable version of it, and I say this all the time,

00:35:04.540 I don't sell it, and these are not for long-term use.

00:35:09.200 And then it's over.

00:35:09.920 oh god what do you think it is total political theater because he doesn't say anything substantive

00:35:16.620 no it's a satisfying exchange but there's nothing in there where she goes no these are the studies 0.87

00:35:22.920 how do you respond to all these studies that say this doesn't do shit right so the thing that jumps

00:35:28.640 out at me about this and i think because i've read so many interviews with him and he does this all 0.95

00:35:32.380 the fucking time and it drives me nuts he does this three-step move first of all he says green 0.88

00:35:39.300 coffee bean extract is good because look at the studies that show how much weight you can lose 0.99

00:35:45.100 by taking this extract, right? And then somebody pushes back on him and they say, well, uh, that

00:35:50.300 study was only of 16 people. That study wasn't very high quality. And then instead of responding

00:35:55.700 to those points, he then says, well, it's alternative medicine. I don't know if it would

00:36:00.100 necessarily pass FDA muster, but you know, there's different healing traditions around the world and

00:36:05.000 we couldn't possibly apply those standards. And it's like, if we can't apply those standards,

00:36:08.720 then why were you saying that you should take it because of a study?

00:36:11.640 Right.

00:36:12.040 No, pick one.

00:36:13.480 This is an alternative treatment.

00:36:15.080 And the way that we know that is because of Western studies.

00:36:18.140 Yes.

00:36:18.440 And it isn't doing right by those medical traditions either.

00:36:21.760 Well, that's the thing. 0.99

00:36:22.540 Green coffee bean extract is a fucking pill that is made by like a multinational corporation. 0.99

00:36:27.960 And then you're saying it's alternative. 0.99

00:36:29.620 You know, in a lot of ways, it mimics the like medicine show stuff that we talked about

00:36:34.080 during our snake oil conversation, right?

00:36:36.440 People like have been rightfully disappointed by Western medicine.

00:36:41.000 People have had bad experiences. 0.65

00:36:42.600 I'm a fat lady.

00:36:43.700 You don't need to tell me about bad experiences in doctor's offices.

00:36:47.340 And what he's doing is sort of like glomming on to this sort of vague but not totally founded idea that there is like someone else is doing it better somewhere.

00:36:59.900 where it's sort of riding the coattails of the genuine mistrust that folks have for

00:37:05.920 understandable reasons often.

00:37:08.460 Yes. Also, another really interesting thing, there's a lot of really good articles by doctors,

00:37:12.740 like people who literally practice Western medicine. They say that it's also kind of

00:37:17.780 bullshit to be saying, you know, these are alternative medicines. We couldn't possibly 0.99

00:37:22.100 measure them with Western medicine. And what these doctors point out is that, you know,

00:37:25.380 if you talk about something like yoga, that's like a alternative medicine, you know, seen as

00:37:29.120 very woo-woo 20 years ago the medical benefits of yoga are extremely well documented that's not

00:37:36.140 some woo-woo thing like we couldn't possibly say that yoga is good using our techniques of western

00:37:41.360 medicine it's like there are hundreds of studies showing that yoga improves people's lives yeah

00:37:47.240 things like meditation and getting a good night's sleep and eating a balanced diet we can measure

00:37:52.240 the effects of those things those are not somehow alternative i don't know why we're acting as if

00:37:57.200 these are somehow these like mystical practices that we couldn't possibly assess no right and not

00:38:02.620 every treatment from every corner of the world has been sort of like tested or studied right there

00:38:08.120 has to be money behind that there has to be all of this different kind of stuff so we're not saying

00:38:11.280 like if it's good western medicine quote unquote will have validated it right like but in this case

00:38:18.780 like so if we take green coffee extract we have an incredibly moneyed supplement company that stands

00:38:26.960 to gain astonishing levels of wealth. This stuff has the money and the systems to be sort of

00:38:34.640 studied and to see if its effects are what we think they are. And that hasn't happened. So at

00:38:40.240 the very least, that's like a red flag, dudes. That's a red flag. There's this like weird fake

00:38:45.720 dichotomy between alternative and Western medicine and neither one of those terms are remotely

00:38:50.880 defined. Right. It's sort of this like floating signifier, right? Yeah. And it also it feels to

00:38:55.540 me like it prevents change too. Because if what you're against is Western medicine, you're just

00:38:59.980 going to do all this like naturopath random stuff. You're not going to try to get better policies for

00:39:05.300 universal healthcare, or maybe doctors should be able to spend more than seven minutes with their

00:39:10.440 patients. I mean, there's specific changes that we can make to the American healthcare system

00:39:15.180 to make it more responsive to people. Right. If you have a critique of that system,

00:39:19.620 listen, I'm an organizer. I am fucking on board. This is not how that happens. 0.99

00:39:25.100 I mean, I do think the fact that Dr. Oz is a lifelong Republican is under discussed.

00:39:30.920 Oh, no.

00:39:31.960 This is a very Republican worldview, right? That it's like the free market is going to solve these problems.

00:39:37.540 Yeah, there's nothing we can do to change our medical system except for the many massive things that we have done to change our medical system.

00:39:46.020 Yes. 1.00

00:39:46.640 I just hate that shit. I mean, this is like one of my like extreme pet peeves is like you can't change the world. 1.00

00:39:52.860 You can only change yourself kind of thing.

00:39:55.100 Well, Western medicine is going to be what Western medicine is going to be.

00:39:58.340 But listen, what you got to get on board with is this green coffee extract or raspberry 0.95

00:40:03.140 ketones or what the fuck ever.

00:40:05.500 So his next claim is that he never endorses specific products.

00:40:11.300 So this is an excerpt from his opening statement at the Congressional Hearing.

00:40:15.120 I started as a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2004 and had my first experiences

00:40:19.440 with scam advertising at that time.

00:40:21.340 When we discussed supplements like acai berry and resveratrol, there wasn't anything special about my description of them.

00:40:28.000 But immediately, the internet ads began springing up using pictures of us showing quotes claiming that Miss Winfrey and I were supporting these products and selling them.

00:40:37.760 This is basically his main claim that, you know, look, did we mention something called resveratrol on our shows?

00:40:45.980 I guess we mentioned it.

00:40:47.400 sure, all of a sudden these random internet con artists start selling it and saying that we're

00:40:53.820 endorsing it. How dare they? Yeah. But also like you are fucking endorsing it, dude. Dude, do you

00:40:59.480 want to hear the actual transcript of what he said about resveratrol on Oprah? Oh God. Okay.

00:41:04.980 Keep in mind, he is saying, how would anyone get the impression from this that I'm endorsing this

00:41:09.560 product? Right? Here's the actual words that he said. Resveratrol does one other thing. It turns

00:41:15.060 on a system in your body that prevents your cells from aging. Now think about it. Where do they grow

00:41:20.500 these grapes? On trees on hillsides, right? It's not a very hospitable environment. So these grapes

00:41:26.000 are sending a signal to us that life might not be so good. So why not turn on that cellular

00:41:31.880 chemistry that you have that allows you to live longer and better? What? It's like, oh yeah,

00:41:36.780 how could anybody get the impression that you're endorsing this product? Also, how does any plant

00:41:42.100 survive on a hill i know so inhospitable what it's also not very convincing things grow everywhere

00:41:50.280 what are you talking about so i mean on some level like i have a teaspoon of sympathy for

00:41:56.480 dr oz because of course after this show airs all these scam companies appear out of nowhere and

00:42:02.400 apparently they started selling you know 30 day supply of resveratrol and people would sign up

00:42:09.260 for it, but then they would make it impossible to cancel. And at the same time, they're saying

00:42:13.560 it's endorsed by Dr. Oz and Oprah. So a lot of people end up getting mad at Dr. Oz and Oprah.

00:42:18.160 It's totally shitty. And also at some point, he has to acknowledge and the show has to acknowledge 0.90

00:42:23.740 that that is an ecosystem that has sprung up around their show.

00:42:26.960 Well, this is the thing is that if he had said on his show, eat avocados, avocados are good,

00:42:31.840 you know, avocado sales probably would have spiked or whatever. But you wouldn't have all

00:42:36.000 these fucking grifters coming out of the woodwork because that's not like a grifty sector. 0.99

00:42:40.920 Right. 1.00

00:42:41.040 Anytime you're sending people to essentially a used car dealership, they're going to get

00:42:46.840 scammed because you're sending them into this extremely grifty sector of the economy.

00:42:51.460 Yeah.

00:42:51.820 And you can't just say like, I bought a Honda Civic and I love my Honda Civic and it's a

00:42:55.800 handsome car and then be like, I can't believe all these people bought Honda Civics.

00:42:58.860 It's like, well, 4 million people watch your show.

00:43:01.280 He's not even meeting the Instagram threshold where you have to be like, hashtag ad.

00:43:06.420 So this is actually, I think, the biggest flaw in the congressional testimony is that over and over again, the senators will press him on selling these scam products.

00:43:18.320 And then he will push back and say, the problem is that they weren't really selling the product.

00:43:22.920 So this is what he says. I once confronted an egregious advertiser of Garcinia Cambogia on my show, in part because we found not only was he stealing my name, he was also only providing 10% of the active ingredient. And it's like, you don't get it, do you? McCaskill, nobody follows up on this. It doesn't matter. The active ingredient is bullshit. It doesn't matter if it's 10% or 100%.

00:43:47.360 There's like a darkly hilarious section of the congressional testimony where he's going back and forth with one of the male senators and they're like, so what are your policy ideas for, you know, fixing these like scammy weight loss grifty sector of the economy?

00:43:59.180 Dr. Oz's main policy idea, like how to fix it.

00:44:02.840 He's like, we need a database of products that are really endorsed by celebrities.

00:44:09.320 That's for you.

00:44:10.920 Like that's to protect you, Dr. Oz.

00:44:12.940 That's not to protect other people.

00:44:14.240 Look, I need to know that Kim Kardashian really endorsed black tummy tea.

00:44:21.060 Okay, so last claim we're going to talk about.

00:44:23.540 This one is really mean.

00:44:25.440 Like I've been mean.

00:44:26.560 I've been like not charitable in this episode.

00:44:28.080 And this is like the least charitable.

00:44:29.900 So the final claim that Dr. Oz makes is that he's gotten better.

00:44:35.920 One of the last things that he says in his congressional testimony is he's talking about

00:44:40.620 the green coffee bean extract thing.

00:44:42.700 he never says i'm sorry but like the closest thing he ever does to saying i'm sorry he's like you

00:44:46.900 know we made some mistakes there and you know as an example of how i've learned we recently had a

00:44:55.320 product on our show called yakon syrup have you heard of this aubrey not ever it's basically an

00:45:01.140 extract from like uh sweet potatoes like the syrupy stuff that comes out of sweet potatoes

00:45:04.800 sure when you bake a sweet potato there's like that little goo that sort of puddle of goo yes

00:45:09.900 He says like, look, we recently did a segment on this on the show.

00:45:15.060 We didn't call it a miracle.

00:45:16.440 We didn't call it magical.

00:45:17.940 We were really responsible.

00:45:19.340 And so, of course, as soon as I was reading this, I was like, I need to see this segment.

00:45:23.580 Yeah.

00:45:23.800 Like, let's see the new and improved Dr. Oz.

00:45:26.840 So we are going to watch this clip.

00:45:29.420 Oh, my God.

00:45:30.220 This is the new and improved Dr. Oz.

00:45:32.920 This is Dr. Oz on his best behavior.

00:45:35.160 Oh, God. 1.00

00:45:36.900 Two women up here, right? 1.00

00:45:38.400 I've got a woman that's a little bit on the big side, right? 1.00

00:45:41.700 You come next to me. 1.00

00:45:42.320 I'll come next to you.

00:45:43.040 You won't bite me.

00:45:43.800 I won't bite at all, all right? 0.99

00:45:45.000 And on this side, I've got a little bit of a thinner woman. 0.97

00:45:47.020 So researchers think that the first way this syrup works is to speed up your metabolism. 0.74

00:45:51.260 So if you do have excess fat, one of the reasons we think that's happening,

00:45:55.080 and a lot of you don't want to look like that.

00:45:57.140 Do I have that right?

00:45:58.460 Yes.

00:45:59.060 All right.

00:45:59.460 So if we believe, as more and more of us in the science field are,

00:46:03.440 that the bacteria in your gut are what's making you heavy,

00:46:06.640 then the question becomes can we change that that gut the bacteria you have is very different it's

00:46:13.500 caused by having too many processed foods you know poor diet you don't want those kinds of bacteria

00:46:17.440 those are fat bacteria this thin person's gut however is filled with more of the good bacteria

00:46:22.680 i like to call it skinny bacteria that's one of the reasons that people who are thin can this day

00:46:28.160 thin that's the first way that scientists believe that this yacon syrup works the next way that we

00:46:34.120 believe that yacon syrup may work weight loss is that it makes you feel full yeah so in order to

00:46:39.700 demonstrate this i have to put you at a little bit of risk so come on up here i'll help you up 0.98

00:46:44.740 all right we're stopping now it's a fucking nightmare from here on 0.99

00:46:48.560 i don't need to know why he's hooking her into a sex swing he ends up doing this thing where he 0.99

00:46:55.040 talks about how yacon syrup affects your hunger and satiety hormones and it's like it lifts up

00:47:01.900 the level of satiety hormones and then he like lifts her off the ground what it's like him it's

00:47:07.380 him trying to do like make a fun explanation out of an extremely simple scientific concept

00:47:12.680 so when they step onto the stage there is this sort of wall of screens at the back of the stage

00:47:17.600 that has a profile of a thin white woman in a bra and panties and i would say a pretty small fat

00:47:25.000 white woman also in a bra and panties that's what he's referring to when he goes most of you don't 0.99

00:47:29.820 want to look like this right the woman that he has brought up from the audience absolutely looks

00:47:36.020 like that yeah i know like she is the size and shape that he is talking about while he's asking

00:47:42.280 the audience you don't want to look like that do you i know she seems nice she seems lovely i guess

00:47:48.840 he's careful to say that it's not a miracle and it's not magic i mean he doesn't technically use

00:47:53.100 the words that he used in the green bean extract clip right but he straightforwardly says that it

00:47:58.080 speeds up your metabolism. He straightforwardly says that it gives you skinny stomach bacteria.

00:48:02.920 He straightforwardly says that it makes you feel full for longer. Like he's still making

00:48:06.980 a bunch of claims, like specific claims that are not true.

00:48:11.920 And at this point, he doesn't need to say that it's a miracle cure. He has the miracle cure show.

00:48:18.500 Yes.

00:48:18.880 That's what people tune in for.

00:48:20.680 Right. He's basically making the argument that it is this miracle thing without saying the word

00:48:25.560 miracle but there's not a meaningful difference between those two things telling people that

00:48:29.720 switching from sugar to yacon syrup is going to lower their blood pressure ease their constipation

00:48:35.180 of course he mentions constipation speeds up your metabolism and makes you feel full for longer

00:48:39.460 that's what people want from a miracle weight loss cure is for those four things uh i have to say now

00:48:44.440 that i know your aversion to the poop stuff i very much want to find a poop center this is our poop

00:48:52.840 episode this is as close as we're getting no this and olestra oh yeah huh poop episodes i mean of 0.96

00:48:58.420 course i looked up the science on yacon syrup it's a bunch of fucking mice studies it's a real 0.77

00:49:03.320 thing it appears that there's actually some use of yacon syrup for diabetics because it's a way 0.95

00:49:07.980 of sweetening foods but it's much less sweet than sugar so like okay is like is it a completely

00:49:13.880 useless thing in the world no it seems fine but also it has side effects if you eat too much of

00:49:19.240 And also, most people that switch from sugar to yacone syrup just end up using more yacone

00:49:24.160 syrup because they want the sweetness.

00:49:25.920 Yeah, totally.

00:49:26.380 I just think it's incredible.

00:49:27.500 Does he not think that we can see him?

00:49:29.200 Like, he goes in front of Congress and he's like, look how much better I am now.

00:49:32.160 Is this you better?

00:49:33.400 Right.

00:49:33.820 No, I don't think it's that he thinks we can't see him.

00:49:36.040 I think, look, if we're looking at this through a strategic communications perspective, right?

00:49:41.920 He knows that his audience is not watching his congressional hearings. 0.99

00:49:45.260 The people who watch Dr. Oz and the people who watch fucking C-SPAN. 0.99

00:49:49.320 Yeah, no kidding. 0.98

00:49:49.880 Like, there's not a lot of overlap, guys.

00:49:52.660 So he's aware that he just has to give quotes that sound reasonable and get out of there.

00:49:58.680 Yeah.

00:49:58.920 Yeah.

00:49:59.500 The whole thing is just like a whole mess.

00:50:01.940 There's a huge, like, elite accountability story here, too.

00:50:06.000 Yeah.

00:50:06.740 There was an open letter from 10 prominent physicians to Columbia saying that Columbia

00:50:12.400 should no longer have him working there.

00:50:14.180 Oh, wow.

00:50:14.480 There's been attempts at the American Medical Association, but the American Medical Association

00:50:18.240 can't really do anything because all the licensing is done at the state level.

00:50:22.460 And then the state level says that they can't do anything because it would be setting a

00:50:25.800 bad precedent, et cetera, et cetera. 0.78

00:50:27.080 I mean, it's very white collar crime. 0.84

00:50:29.240 Over and over again, every form of accountability that would ever impose any minor tiny consequences 0.90

00:50:35.640 on Dr. Oz finds an excuse not to do it.

00:50:38.680 Yeah.

00:50:39.160 Like one of the defenses of him in Inside Higher Ed, which is doing this like panic

00:50:43.460 thing about free speech, doctors, professors, tenure, etc. They say, the real reason these

00:50:48.720 writers are seeking to fire Oz from Columbia is a form of public shaming. And it's like, yes,

00:50:55.220 people should be shamed for constantly lying.

00:50:59.820 Right. Or at the very least, you shouldn't be continually provided with the tools to continue

00:51:04.400 to lie to people. You have an ethical obligation to your patients and to people who think they are

00:51:11.020 your patients yeah you can't just keep doing everything as you have been doing it if it's

00:51:15.500 actively hurting people stop being bad yes stop being bad dude stop being bad and also since the

00:51:21.260 congressional hearing if anything he's gotten worse so in 2016 he does a physical exam on trump

00:51:28.620 what sort of live on tv yeah he had trump on and trump you know he's like uh why didn't you release

00:51:34.760 your medical records and trump is like i did release my medical records and dr oz is like

00:51:38.440 sounds good what and then he does this like theatrical fake physical exam which like he

00:51:44.120 doesn't in any way touch like it's not a real physical exam but he just asks trump a bunch of

00:51:49.180 these questions and trump is able to answer yes or no and then he's like you seem like you're in

00:51:52.280 good physical health jesus christ and then this is amazing synergy convergence for our show in 2018

00:52:00.200 trump appoints him to the president's council on youth fitness oh god that old chestnut

00:52:08.260 I know. So it's just like all the bullshit fads coming together. 0.99

00:52:12.500 The last thing I googled on Dr. Oz's website was what he's been doing this year during COVID. 0.97

00:52:19.040 And I'm going to read you some headlines.

00:52:21.280 Oh, God. Okay.

00:52:22.660 COVID-19 and immunity, the vitamin and mineral prescription plan recommended by experts.

00:52:28.520 This shopping list will help you choose foods for COVID-19 immunity.

00:52:32.880 This is my favorite one.

00:52:33.720 Should zinc be added to treatment protocols for COVID-19 patients?

00:52:37.500 in his defense he has not been a covid anti-vaxxer he's been very clear about like you should get

00:52:43.400 vaccinated for covid so that's like the one saving grace but he spent a lot of 2020 spreading

00:52:48.680 basically some like pretty bad information about covid covid immunity is not going to come from 0.82

00:52:53.600 the fucking grocery store dude all of those headlines sounded to me like troy mcclure 0.93

00:53:00.660 educational films yes as an actor i need my eyeballs to be their whitest yes again like 0.99

00:53:06.360 If we're talking about playing on folks' anxiety about mortality, I don't know if there's any clearer way to do that than say, oh, you got to take zinc, otherwise you're going to get COVID. 0.99

00:53:16.040 Fucking zinc, dude. 0.99

00:53:17.680 I mean. 0.99

00:53:19.480 This is the kind of stuff that makes me feel sort of like not hopeless, but despairing.

00:53:25.180 Dude, yeah.

00:53:25.640 All of this stuff makes it seem like weight loss is super simple.

00:53:29.960 All you need to do is buy this supplement.

00:53:31.900 All you need to do is have the right gut bacteria.

00:53:34.000 All you need to do is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:53:36.360 The idea that you could spend this much time talking about how terrible it is to be fat and all the ways that you don't have to be fat and that that would not sort of impact the way that people think about and treat fat people or disabled people or chronically ill people or what have you is fully bananas.

00:53:54.520 So it's also like, not only is he playing real fast and loose with the truth and sometimes just making it up, he's also sort of feeding these fires, right?

00:54:06.740 So we should let Dr. Oz have the last word on this show.

00:54:10.660 So this is how he – this is toward the end of his congressional testimony.

00:54:15.800 You're not going to believe this.

00:54:17.240 He says, you know what the biggest disservice I've done for my audience?

00:54:20.880 it's not the flowery language that senator mccaskill is criticizing me for

00:54:24.660 it's that i never told them where to buy the products

00:54:27.580 but how dare they think i'm trying to sell something this is what he sees as his central

00:54:35.800 sin that he was not selling them reliable versions of raspberry ketones or whatever

00:54:41.540 i love the idea that he's like how dare people think i was selling them things that's actually

00:54:46.460 my biggest mistake is that i wasn't i know no sir so that's it that's our that's our tour through

00:54:53.140 the yellow brick road of dr oz's bullshit i have to tell you i was kind of excited coming into this 0.83

00:55:00.200 to just be like yeah that guy seems like garbage and this is significantly darker and then i made 0.98

00:55:07.980 it really sad and horrible i'm sorry no no it's not sad and horrible it's just like it is like 0.91

00:55:13.460 way more sort of sinister it's sinister dude i know systemically sinister but actually you know

00:55:19.780 what's really good if you're reeling tell me take a little bit of your cone syrup 0.55

00:55:23.000 get out of here one teaspoon gut bacteria i'm gonna hang up on you

00:55:43.460 Thank you. 0.96

Maintenance Phase - February 16, 2021

Dr. Oz

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