Quack to be Trump's health care chief

Published 20 November 2024 at 07.17

Foreign. Donald Trump has appointed Mehmet Oz, better known as the controversial TV personality “Dr. Oz,” to lead the federal health care programs Medicare and Medicaid.

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The appointment was announced on Tuesday on Trump's social media platform Truth.

Mehmet Oz is a trained doctor but best known from his time as host of “The Dr. Oz Show”. His career has been controversial and he has often been singled out as a quack.

He has often promoted products and treatments without scientific support. During his time as host, he repeatedly recommended weight loss products such as “miracle beans” and other dietary supplements, despite a lack of evidence for their effectiveness. These claims led to criticism from medical experts and authorities.

In 2014, Oz was called to a US Senate hearing where Senator Claire McCaskill expressed concern that he “intertwines medical advice, news and entertainment in a way that harms consumers”. Studies have also shown that a significant percentage of the medical recommendations in his program lacked scientific support.

Two years ago, Oz entered politics as a Republican candidate for one of Pennsylvania's Senate seats, but lost the election.< /p>

Trump announces that Oz will work closely with another person accused of quackery – Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Trump nominated for health secretary. Together, they will, according to Trump, “get the right side of our broken health care system that hurts ordinary Americans and crushes our state budget”.

Kennedy gained influence over the Trump campaign after dropping out of the presidential race, in which he ran as an independent candidate, and has given his support to Trump. It is against this background that he is now retaliated in this way.