The popular Dr. Oz Show will feature Dr. Mehmet Oz on the defensive this week. Oz has decided to confront the claims of ten doctors who have written a letter to Columbia University asking for Oz’s resignation. The doctors claim that Oz promotes “quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.” It’s a problem, they claim, especially because Oz’s influence is so pervasive–2 million people a day watch The Dr. Oz Show. (Oz has previously been named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People.”)
Oz is no stranger to controversy. His Twitter feed is filled with frustrated doctors asking, for instance, “How do I get my patients to stop believing your bull? #OzsInbox?” Yet Oz is enormously confident. After ten years of promoting agave as a sugar substitute, he insouciantly changed his mind last fall–admitting he’d been wrong for a decade. What does that admission have in common with this week’s defense of his practices? That controversial agave reversal show occurred during “sweeps week” when TV ratings are most important. It set a record for Dr. Oz viewers with 3.4 million. This week’s show featuring Dr. Oz’s defending himself is scheduled for Thursday–the first day of another sweeps week.
