I don’t know much about Dr. Mehmet Oz (b. 1960), except that he’s been the subject of much criticism for his nonscientific “remedies”, and, like “Dr. Phil,” became famous by appearing on Oprah’s show—always a bad thing on the c.v. (for credibility, not for wealth!).

A physician I know told me that he considers at least 50% of Dr. Oz’s advice either useless or worthless, and Wikipedia notes that, despite Oz having won many awards, he touts stuff like reiki, faith healing, and—get this—homeopathy. His endorsement of homeopathy alone brands him as a dangerous quack-y person, for homeopathy is not only useless, but keeps sick people from seeking genuine medical advice. If you want a summary of the Case Against Dr. Oz, you can consult the many pieces debunking his advice posted by Orac on his site Respectful Insolence (don’t miss this one!).

While maintaining his position and wealth as a quackly t.v. doctor, Oz also holds two respectable jobs: professor at the Department of Surgery at Columbia University and director of the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. (Complementary Medicine? Seriously?) And now a “group of top doctors” have asked for the university to fire him. It has not complied. As the Associated Press reports,

Columbia University has not removed TV celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz from his faculty position as a group of top doctors has demanded, citing his “egregious lack of integrity” for promoting what they call “quack treatments.”

“Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine,” said a letter the 10 physicians sent to a Columbia dean earlier this week. They say he’s pushing “miracle” weight-loss supplements with no scientific proof that they work.

The New York Ivy League school responded Thursday, issuing a statement to The Associated Press saying only that the school “is committed to the principle of academic freedom and to upholding faculty members’ freedom of expression for statements they make in public discussion.”

Oz first came to public attention as a frequent television guest of Oprah Winfrey. For the past five years, he’s been the host of “The Dr. Oz Show.”

Oz was not reachable Thursday night at his Columbia office number, which played a recorded message explaining how callers could get tickets to his TV show.

Led by Dr. Henry Miller of California’s Stanford University, the doctors sent the letter to Lee Goldman, dean of Columbia’s Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine. The nine other doctors from across the country included Dr. Joel Tepper, a cancer researcher from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and Dr. Gilbert Ross of the American Council on Science and Health in New York City.

The doctors wrote that Oz, for years a world-class Columbia cardiothoracic surgeon, “has manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.” They said he has “misled and endangered” the public.

Here’s the letter, from Yahoo News:

Lee Goldman, M.D.

Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine
Columbia University

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, CA

Scott W. Atlas, M.D.
David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Jack Fisher, M.D.
Professor of Surgery (emeritus)
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA

Shelley Fleet, M.D.
Anesthesiologist
Longwood, FL

Gordon N. Gill, M.D.
Dean (emeritus) of Translational Medicine
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA

Michael H. Mellon, M.D.
Pediatric Allergist
San Diego, CA

GIlbert Ross, M.D.
President (Acting) and Executive Director
American Council on Science and Health
New York, NY

Samuel Schneider, M.D.
Psychiatrist
Princeton, NJ

Glenn Swogger Jr. M.D.
Director of the Will Menninger Center for Applied Behavioral Sciences (retired)
The Menninger Foundation
Topeka, KS

Joel 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

Well, I don’t know if all of these are “top doctors”: there’s a psychiatrist in there (yes, I know they’re “physicians” in name), and some signatories appear to be bureaucrats rather than practicing physicians. It would be far more efficacious if Oz’s Columbia colleagues expressed similar concerns.

But the main issue is whether Oz’s recommendations or public statements constitute, as Columbia maintains, an expression of “academic freedom and. . . freedom of expression for statements [faculty] make in public discussion.” Normally I’d say “yes,” but it’s problematic since Oz’s public statements are sometimes dangerous, as any endorsements of homeopathy or spiritual heaing. If he does this while flaunting his Columbia credentials, then it’s dereliction of his professional duties as a physician. However, he certainly doesn’t say this crap while he’s teaching or treating anyone at Columbia.

I’m sure Columbia would be delighted if Dr. Oz were to leave, but they claim they can’t get rid of him. What do readers think? Does this dangerous quackery constitute free speech that must be protected by a university?

h/t: The several readers who called this to my attention.

If you’re a complete n00b here, we’ve been following the story of Makayla Sault, a Canadian First Nations girl who died of leukemia at the age of 11 because her parents decided to abandon the live-saving chemotherapy and try “traditional” cures, including the traditional Aboriginal cure of visiting the Hippocrates Quack Health Institute in Florida for a vegetarian diet, vitamin injections, and “cold laser therapy.” It didn’t work, of course, and Makayla recently died.

“J. J.,” another First Nations girl, also afflicted with leukemia at age 11, has similarly given up chemo for “alternative” (i.e., ineffectual) medicine with her parent’s support; she will die soon, too.

Last week I reported that Makayla’s mother, Sonya Sault, gave a self-serving and exculpatory lecture at McMaster University under the aegis of McMaster’s Indigenous Studies program. As the Globe and Mail reported, “Ms. Sault spoke at an event organized by McMaster University’s Indigenous Studies Program in an effort to understand the problems between First Nation peoples and the health-care system.” Ms. Sault reported that her daughter had pleaded for the cessation of chemotherapy, implicitly pinning Makayla’s death on the child’s own wishes. That’s reprehensible, for the parents’ job is to ensure that the child understood that any sickness from chemotherapy was a necessary side effect to save her life (and now there are drugs to alleviate those side effects). Their job was not to cave in to the child’s request, or to pressure from their tribe.

As far as “understanding the problems between First Nation peoples and the health-care system” goes, it’s clear from both the lecture and the smarmy letter below that what McMaster means is that the health-care people need to allow First Nations people to abandon scientific medicine for their own ineffectual but indigenous cures. The understanding is meant to be one-way, not mutual.

This letter, which I found on McMaster University’s Indigenous Studies Program website, is an exercise in political correctness, using the excuse of expressing sorrow for Makayla’s death to push the program’s own agenda.

Now it’s admirable to try to preserve traditional cultures and prevent discrimination against First Nations people, but this letter implies more: the “culture” that should be preserved includes the right of First Nations people to kill their children by withholding modern medicine. Although couched as a plea for mutual tolerance, the letter is really about everybody else respecting the wishes of First Nations people:

This letter positive drips with disingenuousness.  Let’s deconstruct it:

They expressed their support for a decision that would surely kill the girl, for the survival rate for untreated lymphoblastic leukemia is 0%. And really, to say that the young girl was “wiser” than all of us? That’s ridiculous and patronizing, for unless Makayla was completely irrational or unwise (and she did have a vision 0f Jesus), she would have endured the chemotherapy to stay alive. And if she wanted to reject it, her parents should have insisted otherwise. And since her parents didn’t, the Canadian government should have stepped in. In what sense it it “wise” to allow a child to die when she had a substantial chance—72%, according to her doctors—of being alive. And really, were the Indigenous Studies (IS) folks “optimistic” about her survival? Her doctors sure weren’t, for, unlike the IS people, they knew the prognosis was terminal without treatment.

What they mean here, which is clear from the rest of the letter, is that they want the doctors and public to learn, not the First Nations people or those who supported the Saults’ decision to kill their child. They are more interested in preserving the sensitivities of First Nations cultures than in saving the lives of First Nations children. As far as I can know, Makayla wasn’t mistreated or bullied (although the parents, probably ridden with guilt, might claim so), and the “stress” experienced by her family and community came largely from the public who objected to their callous decision. If they were “stressed,” well, that’s just too damn bad. The child’s life was at stake.

What this whole letter boils down to is this lesson: “Our goal is to ensure that First Nations people don’t get offended or upset when dealing with the healthcare system. If we must allow children to die preserve the equanimity of the parents and tribe, we will.”

I suggest you read that disgusting editorial in CMAJ, “Caring for Aboriginal patients requires trust and respect, not courtrooms.” In its call for doctors to respect the feelings of “Aboriginals” (which of course they should—up to the point that that respect is fatal), the physician-authors basically put the imprimatur on the court’s decision to allow J. J. (the still-surviving child) to forego therapy, thus sentencing her to death. From their paper:

Had the court forced J.J. to undergo such treatment, the mistrust, anger and resistance that might have ensued within her community could have greatly compromised any future ability to provide optimal care not only to her, but to all Aboriginal people. For the state to remove a child from her parents and enforce medical treatment would pose serious, possibly lifelong, repercussions for any family, but such action holds a unique horror for Aboriginal people given the legacy of residential schools.

I’m sorry about those horrible residential schools, which have thankfully been eliminated, but children’s lives are at stake now.  If courts must force children to take life-saving treatment, and that angers Aboriginal people, I’m sorry, but life trumps feelings. And perhaps those people will eventually learn that the doctors know best in cases like this.

While there is perhaps a hidden message here that First Nations people should also work with the doctors (i.e.,  accept medical care), it’s not very obvious. And, as you see from the first sentence above, the IS people affix the blame for the situation on the “insensitive” health care providers. But really, would an increased “sensitivity” have changed the Saults’ minds? I doubt it, for, according to them, they acceded to Makayla’s own wishes to avoid a treatment that made her sick. That has nothing to do with cultural insensitivity. And I seriously doubt that the doctors treated Makayla and her parents badly; at least there is no evidence of it from the news.

The root cause of “this case”, if by that we mean Makayla’s death, is the inability of her and her parents to either understand the odds, or their insistence on ineffectual traditional medicine (i.e., cold-laser treatments). Another root cause the murderous sensitivity of the IS people and the Canadian government in “respecting” the parents’ decision. “Indigenous medicine” deserves respect and support only insofar as it works, which in this case didn’t—and couldn’t.

This whole letter is an exercise in exculpation, couched in the terms of political correctness: “mutual respect,” “cultural safety,” “respect and support of indigenous medicine,” and so on.  What it leaves out is that the course of action recommended by McMaster’s Indigenous Studies program led to the death of this child:

I am not suggesting, of course, that doctors be insensitive to the backgrounds and feelings of their patients, whoever they be. But I’m suggesting that if parents try to force a religiously- or ethnically-motivated “treatment” on their children, a treatment guaranteed to hurt or kill them, then that’s where the sensitivity must stop and the coercion must begin. By supporting Makayla’s refusal of scientific treatment, McMaster’s Indigenous Studies Program is complicit in her death. They sense this. In response, they blame the doctors for their insensitivity. The letter sent by the IS program is doubly repugnant because it’s an attempt to exculpate their participation in the Sault Charade by chastising doctors and the public. The Indigenous Studies Program should have kept their noses out of this case, and recognized that their politically-correct academic stance is deadly to a child with leukemia. I am particularly offended by the letter’s supposed intention of “honouring Makayla.” It’s better to honour a child by saving her life than to engage in postmortem recriminations and breast-beating.

If you want to voice your opinion about this (and I’m sure emails from Canadians will carry the most weight, but I urge anybody who feels strongly about this to write in), this address, of the director of the Indigenous Studies Program, seems to be the most appropriate address from see the “contact” page for other officials):

Dr. Rick Monture

Hamilton Hall 103/H

Email: indigenous.director@mcmaster.ca