President-elect Donald Trump introduced Tuesday he plans to appoint Mehmet Oz, a star coronary heart surgeon and former daytime tv host, as administrator for the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers.
Oz, a 64-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon, has no expertise working a authorities company, and has been accused by many U.S. physicians and different well being consultants of peddling pseudoscience.
For the file:
4:29 p.m. Nov. 19, 2024An earlier model of this text referred to the nominee as OuncesMehmet. His identify is Mehmet Oz.
If his nomination is accredited by the Senate, Ounceswill head a federal company that gives well being protection to greater than 160 million individuals and oversees important applications akin to Medicare, Medicaid and the Youngsters’s Well being Insurance coverage Program.
“I’ve recognized Dr. Ouncesfor a few years, and I’m assured he’ll combat to make sure everybody in America receives the absolute best Healthcare, so our Nation might be Nice and Wholesome Once more!” Trump stated in an announcement on his Reality Social platform.
Trump stated Ounceswould work intently with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom the previous president nominated final week to guide the Division of Well being and Human Providers. Collectively, Trump stated in his assertion, the 2 males would tackle “the sickness industrial advanced, and all of the horrible continual illnesses left in its wake.”
“Our damaged Healthcare System harms on a regular basis People, and crushes our Nation’s finances,” Trump stated. “Dr. Ouncescan be a pacesetter in incentivizing Illness Prevention. He may also lower waste and fraud inside our Nation’s most costly Authorities Company.”
The son of Turkish dad and mom, Ouncesgraduated from Harvard earlier than getting his medical diploma and grasp’s of enterprise at College of Pennsylvania. He went on to function a professor of surgical procedure at Columbia College. After rising to fame as a star doctor on Oprah Winfrey’s speak present, Ounceshosted “The Dr. OuncesShow” from 2009 to 2022. In 2008, Time journal included Ounceson its record of “100 Most Influential Folks.”
However Ouncesis a controversial determine within the medical world whose tv appearances have drawn criticism from fellow physicians who say he backs questionable different drugs and unproven weight reduction merchandise. In 2012, Ouncesinvited a lady onto his present who claimed she was a psychic and will talk with the lifeless. In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ouncespromoted hydroxychloroquine as a remedy regardless of a scarcity of scientific proof.
At a 2014 congressional listening to, then-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) scolded Ouncesfor his hype of weight reduction merchandise. “I don’t get why you must say these items, as a result of it’s not true,” she advised Oz. “So why — when you have got this superb megaphone and this superb potential to speak — why would you cheapen your present by saying issues like that?”
After Trump’s announcement Tuesday, many public well being consultants took to social media to denounce Oz.
Lawrence Gostin, a legislation professor at Georgetown College who makes a speciality of public well being legislation and directs the World Well being Group’s Middle on World Well being Regulation, stated Ounceswas unfit to guide the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers.
“He peddles conspiracy theories on vaccines & faux cures,” Gostin posted. “He income from fringe medical concepts. By nominating RFK Jr & Mehmet Oz, Trump is giving his center finger to science. Having labored for 40 years in public well being, it’s completely disheartening.”
“Insanity,” wrote Timothy Caulfield, a professor of well being legislation and science coverage on the College of Alberta. “One other anti-science quack given energy over a science-informed establishment.”
In 2022, Ouncesran an unsuccessful marketing campaign to symbolize Pennsylvania within the Senate. Backed by Trump, he solid himself as a average Republican who wished to chop inflation and crime, however he was in the end defeated by Democrat John Fetterman.
In choosing Oz, Trump continues his technique of nominating unorthodox TV personalities to his administration for his second time period.
Final week, he nominated Pete Hegseth, a Nationwide Guard veteran and “Fox & Buddies” host, as secretary of Protection. On Monday, he nominated former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy, often known as co-host of “The Backside Line” on Fox Enterprise and a onetime actuality TV star, to move the Division of Transportation.
