Ten Doctors Ask Columbia University To Drop Dr. Mehmet Oz From Their Faculty For Promoting Quack Treatments.

Dr. Mehmet Oz partnered up with USANA a while back and has now recently promoted USANA's products on his Doctor Oz Show. According to USANA's president Kevin Guest, USANA pays Dr. Oz an annual fee to advertise USANA products on the show. I believe this is akin to Oz being a paid spokesman for USANA. Dr. Oz uses his stature in the medical industry as a means to get his audience to trust him and the products advertised on his program, whether the products are effective or not. Since he's paid by the manufacturers of product he promotes on his show, it might as well be considered peddling.

USANA is required to put on the label of their supplements "This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease", so it makes it against the law for USANA (or its distributors) to advertise as such. The way around this is to have someone other than USANA or its distributors make all the health claims. That is where Dr. Oz fits in (as well as The Comparitive Guide To Nutritional Supplements).

Interestingly enough, I am not the only one who thinks Dr. Oz is a quack. On April 15, 2015, ten doctors from around the country have signed a letter to Columbia University demanding Oz be removed from their faculty. The letter reads as follows:

Lee Goldman, M.D. Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine Columbia University Dear Dr. Goldman: I am writing to you on behalf of myself and the undersigned colleagues below, all of whom are distinguished physicians. We are surprised and dismayed that Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons would permit Dr. Mehmet Oz to occupy a faculty appointment, let alone a senior administrative position in the Department of Surgery. As described here and here, as well as in other publications, Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine, as well as baseless and relentless opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops.  Worst of all, he has manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain. Thus, Dr. Oz is guilty of either outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgements about what constitutes appropriate medical treatments, or both.  Whatever the nature of his pathology, members of the public are being misled and endangered, which makes Dr. Oz's presence on the faculty of a prestigious medical institution unacceptable. Sincerely yours, Henry I. Miller, M.D. Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy & Public Policy Hoover Institution Stanford University Stanford, CA Scott W. Atlas, M.D. David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow Hoover Institution Stanford University Stanford, CA Jack Fisher, M.D. Professor of Surgery (emeritus) University of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA Shelley Fleet, M.D. Anesthesiologist Longwood, FL Gordon N. Gill, M.D. Dean (emeritus) of Translational Medicine University of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA Michael H. Mellon, M.D. Pediatric Allergist San Diego, CA GIlbert Ross, M.D. President (Acting) and Executive Director American Council on Science and Health New York, NY Samuel Schneider, M.D. Psychiatrist Princeton, NJ Glenn Swogger Jr. M.D. Director of the Will Menninger Center for Applied Behavioral Sciences (retired)The Menninger Foundation Topeka, KS Joel E. Tepper, M.D. Hector MacLean Distinguished Professor of Cancer Research Dept of Radiation Oncology University of North Carolina School of Medicine Chapel Hill, NC

Dr. Oz plans to rebuttal this claim about being a quack on one of his upcoming shows, likely this Thursday April 23. Once the show airs, I'll update this posting with his official response.

Here is Dr. Oz's response given on a news program:

Finally, USANA Receives FDA certification for Pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing Practices.

 I have criticized USANA for many years for not seeking certification to back their claim that they adhere to "Pharmaceutical GMP". But after 19 years, USANA finally gets the certification and can now use this fact to bolster their product's manufacturing quality. The certification was done by none other than the United States Food and Drugs Administration. Finally, USANA does something right.

Now if they can fix their compensation plan to eliminate the pyramid scheme in which 99% of associates who joined the business opportunity with the intent to make money actually end up losing money. Those with no intent to make money sign up as preferred customers. All associates are required to continually purchase over $100 worth of product every 28 days in order to participate in the business venture. Those mandatory purchases pay out commission to the upline associates. However, the associate making those purchases receive no commission even if they retail the product. This is why I believe USANA is a pyramid scheme.

The FTC made the following statement regarding pyramid schemes:

"...a multi-level compensation system funded primarily by payments made for the right to participate in the venture is an illegal pyramid scheme." - Staff Advisory Opinion - Pyramid Scheme Analysis

Now one of USANA's very top associates who claims to have made over $4 million as a USANA distributor recently made the following statement when explaining to team members whether they should join as distributors or non-distributors:

"Our recommendation, unless you plan to make a lot of retail sales (which most Associates don’t, because of the USANA PC Program), would be to enroll as a non-Distributor Associate, since you would be charged sales tax on the lower, Wholesale, rather than Retail, prices of taxable items for your location." - Distributor or Non-Distributor Associate - by Pete and Dora Zdanis

So like I have pointed out many times, USANA's distributors cannot retail the product because the preferred customers get it at the same price the distributors do. Here we have a top USANA distributor who has been with the company for 18 years (since the beginning) admitting that most associates don't make a lot of retail sales because of the preferred customer program. USANA has 213,000 ACTIVE associates and 70,000 ACTIVE preferred customers. Since there are 3 associates for every 1 preferred customer, it doesn't take a genius to come to the conclusion that very little marketing of USANA products goes on beyond the associates.

I bring this up to make my point that USANA's commissions are funded primarily by their associates' required 4 week purchases which are made for the right to participate in the venture and be commission eligible. The FTC stated that commissions funded primarily by these required payments is illegal pyramid scheme. I believe USANA can do it legitimately by doing one of two things.

1) Either stop FORCING associates to purchase over $100 worth of products every 4 weeks in order to be commission eligible (you lose any sales points built by preferred customers or downline associates if you fail to make these purchases)

OR

2) Stop paying commission to upline distributors from the FORCED purchases made by their downline distributors in order to fulfill business obligations. The associates are buying product from USANA, not each and every upline distributor above them.

Of Course, USANA will never consider doing either one of my suggestions because it would collapse the pyramid scheme and the company would go out of business in less than 3 months. This is because the only distributors who would continue to make product purchases would be those who actually want to product and not because it is a required business obligation.

So how about it USANA, would you like to make the next step in the right direction?