 "Who is Dr Mehmet Oz, Trump’s pick to run Medicare, Medicaid? Why is he so controversial?")
Ahead of his January 20 inauguration, US President-elect Donald Trump is putting his team together and in that effort nominated Mehmet Oz, best known globally as Dr Oz, to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator.
In a statement, Trump said on Oz’s nomination, “America is facing a healthcare crisis, and there may be no physician more qualified and capable than Dr Oz to Make America Healthy Again.”
“He is an eminent physician, heart surgeon, inventor and world-class communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades,” said Trump in his statement, adding, “Dr Oz will be a leader in incentivising disease prevention, so we get the best results in the world for every dollar we spend on healthcare in our great country. He will also cut waste and fraud within our country’s most expensive government agency, which is a third of our nation’s healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire national budget.”
Oz is the latest of Trump’s eye-catching nominations to key positions, including Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be defence secretary, vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary and billionaire Elon Musk to head a government cost-cutting unit.
For many, Dr Oz is a controversial choice. But why? We have the answers for you.
Who exactly is Dr Oz?
Mehmet Oz, a son of Turkish immigrants, received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and later completed his surgical training in cardiothoracic surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital (Columbia Campus).
Medicine “was my calling,” Oz said in a Wharton Magazine profile from 2010. “I knew it from a very early age. I played a lot of sports growing up, and like a lot of other athletes, I really enjoyed the challenge of using my hands. I just loved the idea of being in a field where you could [do that].”
By 2004, he gained national prominence when he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and began dishing out medical advice on the talk show. Oz in an interview estimated that he’d been on Oprah’s TV show 88 times.
Following that, in 2009, he got his talk show — The Dr Oz Show — with the help of Oprah’s Harpo Productions. The show ran for more than 12 years, airing its final episode in January of 2022. The show came to an end when he announced his desire to run for the US Senate in Pennsylvania. At the time, he even received Trump’s backing, but he was defeated by Democrat John Fetterman.
But why is Dr Oz controversial?
While Dr Oz achieved a lot of popularity and success through his appearances on Oprah and later on his own show, he also began receiving a lot of criticism for some of his unscientific and controversial views on medicine. For instance, in 2010, he said that sleeping with a bar of lavender soap could help combat restless leg syndrome.
The following year, on his show, Dr Oz told viewers that apple juice contains dangerous levels of the cancer-causing chemical arsenic. The FDA intervened and set the record straight. Proper tests conducted by the FDA on the same batches of juice revealed a significantly lower arsenic count that they deemed “no cause for concern”.
He also came under fire for recommending HCG, a hormone produced by the placenta during pregnancy, for weight loss. In his show, he advised people to take a dietary supplement containing human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone produced during pregnancy, and limit their food intake to 500 calories a day. The FDA once again slammed this move, calling it reckless.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, he shared many controversial treatments and statements. He promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, as a COVID-19 treatment. Trump later touted the drug as a “game changer,” although medical researchers warned more study was needed.
He has also endorsed spacing out childhood vaccines and expressed ambivalence towards a discredited theory that vaccines cause autism, according to a 2022 study. In later episodes of his TV show, Oz would go on to endorse the measles, mumps, rubella shot.
During his Senate bid, he also argued that the government had “patronised and misled” the public during the COVID pandemic. “COVID-19 became an excuse for the government and elite thinkers who controlled the means of communication to suspend debate,” he said.
Notably, his medical advice has been so controversial that a 2014 British Medical Journal study found that of 40 randomly selected episodes from Oz’s television show, his health recommendations were based on evidence just 46 per cent of the time.
In 2015, a sizable group of doctors wrote to Columbia’s dean of medicine, criticising the school’s partnership with him and calling it “unacceptable”.
What would Oz’s new role entail?
As the head of CMS, Dr Oz will be in charge of a federal agency that provides health coverage to more than 160 million Americans — almost half the country’s population. It employs about 6,700 people, had outlays of $1.48 trillion last year and is one the largest purchasers of healthcare services in the world.
This makes Dr Oz’s appointment significant. He would be in control over two major federal health programs, Medicare and Medicaid. However, Dr Oz is a supporter of Medicare Advantage, which is run by commercial insurers and has been promoted by Trump.
Experts have said this could privatise the programme and prevent people from receiving care from doctors and hospitals that don’t accept Medicare Advantage.
How have others reacted to Oz’s nomination?
Trump’s selection of Oz has not been welcomed by all. Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, wrote on X that Oz is “unfit” to run CMS. “He peddles conspiracy theories on vaccines and fake cures. He profits from fringe medical ideas. By nominating RFK Jr & Mehmet Oz, Trump is giving his middle finger to science,” wrote Gostin.
House representative Frank Pallone, Jr, also criticised the nomination of Oz. “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is a workhorse agency. It helps ensure access to health care for millions of Americans, including our nation’s seniors, our children, and the poorest Americans,” he said. “Given the crucial importance of this agency, I am alarmed that President-elect Trump has chosen a TV celebrity without the experience or background to lead it.”
Accountable US, which is a government watchdog, has also expressed concern over Dr Oz’s selection. “Nominating a person who has promoted unproven medical treatments for personal gain, opposed the Affordable Care Act, and supports the further privatisation of Medicare to oversee the health care for millions of people, including seniors, will have devastating consequences,” said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable US in a statement.
With inputs from agencies
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