Dr. Oz Isn’t Fit to Serve on Fitness Council

President Trump has nominated another fox to guard the henhouse.

TIME: Dr. Oz testifies in front of Senate Committee in defense of advice he has given

Public health advocates and environmentalists have at least two things in common: both groups’ messages are only effective when there is a strong bridge of trust between scientists and the public, and both of these groups’ bridges have suffered siege by profit-hungry corporations for whom degradation of scientific trust would be lucrative.

As a University of Illinois dietetics student and an environmental activist, I take the welfare of these bridges of trust very seriously. That’s why I was heartbroken to hear that President Trump had nominated Dr. Oz, a well-known bridge-breaker, to the President’s Council on Sport, Fitness, and Nutrition.

In the eyes of many health professionals, Dr. Mehmet Oz is nothing short of a scam artist. He won his fortune on the backs of lies and deceit, hornswoggling the public with impossibly magical products that provide little or none of the benefits Dr. Oz promises. In fact, a 2014 study in the BMJ found that only 46% of the claims Dr. Oz made were supported by evidence, with the rest either contradicted or lacking sufficient support.

Oz is a fraud. A loveable fraud, but a fraud nonetheless.

President Trump’s nomination of Dr. Oz was not surprising. My environmentalist friends and I are quite familiar with President Trump’s fetish for foxes guarding the henhouse. Scott Pruitt’s current tenure as EPA Administrator is example enough.

Corporate campaigns to discredit climate science have been in action for years, and they have long drawn the ire of pro-science movements. However, the science of nutrition has suffered similar, if not greater, defamation, with far less popular awareness or political pushback from the scientific community. Why?

Compared to nutrition, climate science is technical and impersonal. A CO2 molecule in Nigeria functions equivalently to a CO2 molecule in Texas. The rules of physics, are, for the overwhelming majority of practical cases, universal.

But with nutrition, personal variation abounds. Due to genetics, medical status, physical activity levels, or any other of a profusion of factors, the same dietary practices might have completely different effects on different people. Compounded upon this are religious beliefs, cultural considerations, and gustatory preferences, all of which affect how someone personally relates to food and nutrition. As a result, when lay people discuss nutrition or food, the discussion is not scientific. Rather, it is a conglomeration of personal opinion and conjecture. This fosters a public perception that nutrition science is fluid and uncertain, and that so-called nutrition experts (such as dietitians) can’t be trusted. Always eager to catalyze this sentiment are junk food retailers and snake oil salesmen who stand to gain financially if their magical claims are perceived as equivalently credible to the claims of experts.

Just as it is in the interest of companies who pollute to foster doubt in established climate science, it is in the financial interest of companies who peddle junk food or snake oil to foster doubt in established nutritional science.

So why don’t health professionals fight back?

Unfortunately, in the health field, many professionals’ hands are tied. Healthcare professionals are instinctively apolitical, and for good reason. The injection of anything resembling partisanship into vital discussions of personal health would serve only to foster distrust in the patient-provider relationship. And in healthcare, trust is essential.

However, the healthcare bridge of trust is under political attack whether we like it or not. If we permit Dr. Oz to wantonly tarnish truth and objectivity, then the trust that is so necessary to the provision of care to patients will slip from our grasp.

It’s time for healthcare professionals, along with anyone who believes in science-based healthcare, to stand up for truth. Americans deserve facts, and Dr. Oz has no record of providing them.

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Ben Chapman, May 2018