It's Time for Oprah to Renounce Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz Over Their Dangerous Coronavirus Propaganda [View all]

[tenderfoot]

Dr. Daniel Summers writes about the harm these two TV personalities are causing amid the pandemic (on Fox News, naturally), and how one person could put them in their place.

There’s a simple concept I try to teach my kids: If you make a mess, you should be responsible for cleaning it up. It’s a work in progress with them, but we’re hoping sooner or later it sticks.

Of course, this rule doesn’t just apply to small children. All of us should work to remedy problems that are in some part the result of our own actions. Even if we happen to be one of the most famous people on the planet.

Especially if we happen to be one of the most famous people on the planet. The bigger the audience we’ve created for our mess, the greater the obligation to mop it back up.

This means you, Oprah.

Oprah’s role in creating the dual fame of Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Phil McGraw, better known as celebrities without their first and last names respectively, is not a new topic for me. Neither of them would be household names were it not for her. And it’s a problem of increasing seriousness that they are.

While only Oz is an actual medical doctor, the “Dr.” in their professional monikers confers an aura of authority, and it is as authorities that they have been appearing on television to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic is being handled and how patients are being treated.

Unfortunately, there is a widening gap between the perception of their authority and their genuine credibility. In the setting of a public health crisis that can get better or worse depending on how closely people adhere to recommendations for keeping it under control, undermining those recommendations poses a threat to everyone’s safety.

The problem of Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz is not a new one. Both have prioritized their fame over professional ethics for some time. Dr. Oz is a particular source of ire for me as a fellow physician, because I have to believe that somewhere inside himself he must know that the pseudoscience he all too frequently promotes is wrong.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-time-for-oprah-to-renounce-dr-phil-and-dr-oz-over-their-dangerous-coronavirus-propoganda

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I never got the appeal of Oprah Winfrey. She's another media personality foisted upon us during 1980s as direct competition to Phil Donahue and helped dumb down the medium. To think that people thought she'd make a good political leader... really?