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Braddock, PA -- Today Lt. Governor John Fetterman responded to the most recent damning report from USA Today and Gannet papers exposing the harm Dr. Oz has inflicted on regular Pennsylvanians by pushing dangerous ‘miracle cures’ for profit with firsthand accounts from several Pennsylvania doctors speaking out for the first time:
“I call it the Oz Rule: if he’s on TV, he’s lying – and regular people are paying the price. Thanks to these doctors, we now know how Oz has hurt so many Pennsylvanians dealing with health challenges. What kind of doctor would hurt a cancer survivor or convince someone on a fixed income to stop taking their blood pressure medicine? He’s just a fraud putting on a show for the cameras, saying whatever will benefit him personally, and it doesn’t matter who gets hurt. That’s the kind of Senator he would be, and Pennsylvania deserves so much better.”
- Dr. Belinda Birnbaum spoke out about a breast cancer survivor fighting an autoimmune disease who “was absolutely taken down and crushed” when she developed a severe rash after applying a fake miracle cure she heard about on ‘The Dr. Oz Show’ rather than medically advised treatment. The patient told Dr. Birnbaum, “I thought I could trust him because he’s a doctor.”
- Another of Dr. Birnbaum’s patients, a man on a fixed income, went without his prescribed blood pressure medication to afford a supplement he heard about on ‘The Dr. Oz Show.’ His blood pressure later destabilized and he ended up in the hospital.
- Dr. John Butler said the problem was constant. On top of the “stream of patients through the years who have asked him about ‘magic pills’ for weight loss,” he had patients who “could scarcely afford their regular prescriptions” come to him with expensive supplements they’d bought after hearing about them on Oz’s show. “They’re pills that they think are going to help them, and that's dollars that aren’t going into other care,” Dr. Butler lamented.
- Oz’s promotion of hydroxychloroquine, which he was financially invested in, led to shortages for chronically ill patients who had depended on the drug to treat their lupus or Rheumatoid arthritis and were unable to fill their prescriptions.
- Against FDA warnings, Oz promoted a 500 calories a day diet.and baselessly asserted that a diet of endive, red onion, and sea bass would dramatically decrease ovarian cancer risk.
Dr. Birnbaum and Dr. Butler are part of an uprising of PA doctors who – under the banner ‘Real Doctors Against Oz’ – have stood up an unprecedented organizing effort to sound the alarm against “Dr.” Oz. Real doctors are concerned that Oz has repeatedly violated his oath to “Do No Harm” by peddling and profiting off dangerous miracle cures, threatening abortion access, and mocking Fetterman’s stroke recovery.
Youtube link from the press conference can be found here.
Photos can be downloaded here and a full transcript can be found here.
Earlier this month, the ‘Real Doctors Against Oz’ group released a letter signed by over 150 Doctors across the commonwealth warning Pennsylvania voters about Oz’s “shameful disregard for medical science and the wellbeing of his audience while he enriched himself at the expense of our patients.” The group also launched a Twitter account with the handle @DrsAgainstOz to share their message online.
Gannett Media:
WHYY:
Pittsburgh City Paper:
City & State PA:
WESA:
NBC10 Philadelphia:
Insider:
Philadelphia Inquirer:
Insider:
Washington Post:
Philadelphia Inquirer:
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