Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated Mehmet Oz, the quack tv physician who swindles his viewers out of their hard-earned money for his bullshit weight-loss dietary supplements, to function the administrator for the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies.
Sure, Trump desires Dr. Oz—whom voters resoundingly rejected in 2022 for a Pennsylvania Senate seat as a result of they have been repelled by his smarmy persona and fountain of lies—to be in command of among the largest and most important applications the federal authorities runs.
If confirmed, Oz may work alongside Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—one other unqualified quack whose harmful concepts round vaccines, uncooked milk, and prescription drugs have scientists terrified for the way forward for America’s well being. Trump nominated RFK Jr. to run the Division of Well being and Human Companies.
“America is facing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump stated in a information launch. “He is an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades. Dr. Oz will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake.”
Throughout Oz’s failed 2022 Senate bid, docs slammed Oz for pushing junk science and profiting from viewers of his tv program by promoting them ineffective health-tracking units and dietary supplements promising to assist them shed pounds quick.
In 2015, the Federal Commerce Fee compelled one of many complement makers that Oz promoted to pay $9 million to shoppers for making “deceptive and unsubstantiated claims about weight loss products,” Vox reported on the time.
In reality, that very same 12 months, docs wrote a letter to Columbia College, the place Oz had a college place, saying that Oz had “an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.”
And a 2014 examine from the British Medical Journal discovered that half of the suggestions Oz made on his now defunct program “The Dr. Oz Show” both weren’t based mostly on medical proof, or have been flat out unsuitable.
“Recommendations made on medical talk shows often lack adequate information on specific benefits or the magnitude of the effects of these benefits,” the examine concluded. “Approximately half of the recommendations have either no evidence or are contradicted by the best available evidence. Potential conflicts of interest are rarely addressed. The public should be skeptical about recommendations made on medical talk shows.”
Much more disconcerting is that nestled within the launch asserting Oz’s nomination is a touch that Trump is seeking to make cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, which offer medical health insurance to hundreds of thousands of aged and low-income People, respectively.
“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,” Trump wrote, once more making ridiculous capitalizations for no cause.
Finally, Trump seems to love Oz as a result of he’s a TV determine.
“‘The Dr. Oz Show,’ where he taught millions of Americans how to make healthier lifestyle choices, and gave a strong voice to the key pillars of the [Make America Healthy Again] Movement,” Trump wrote within the assertion asserting Oz’s nomination.
Oz isn’t the one tv determine Trump nominated to his cupboard.
Trump picked Pete Hegseth, a Fox Information host accused of sexual assault, to guide the Division of Protection. And he picked former “Real World” and “Road Rules” contestant Sean Duffy to function the top of the Division of Transportation.
Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of workers to Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Beyer, raised an attention-grabbing level.
“What would Trump’s nominations look like if he watched cartoons instead of talk news shows?” Fritschner wrote in a publish on X. “Infrastructure czar Bob the Builder.”
Trump’s solid of freaks makes the film “Idiocracy” appear to be nonfiction.