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:

USANA Doctors Peddling Product To Their Patients - Violation of Ethics

Many associates in USANA Health Sciences, Inc. try to recruit doctors into their downline. However, most doctors turn down the USANA distributor due to ethical reasons. Most doctors are familiar with something known as Code of Medical Ethics. So what ethical issue do doctors have with becoming a USANA distributor? They are the following:

The following links are from the American Medical Association's (AMA) Code of Medical Ethics:
- Opinion 8.063 - Sale of Health-Related Products From Physicians' Offices

and

- Opinion 8.06 - Prescribing and Dispensing Drugs and Devices

Here are a couple quotes from the Code of Medical Ethics:

"In-office sale of health-related products by physicians presents a financial conflict of interest, risks placing undue pressure on the patient, and threatens to erode patient trust and undermine the primary obligation of physicians to serve the interests of their patients before their own."

"Physicians may not accept any kind of payment or compensation from a drug company or device manufacturer for prescribing its products."

"Physicians should not urge patients to fill prescriptions from an establishment which has entered into a business or other preferential arrangement with the physician with respect to the filling of the physician’s prescriptions."

Doctors who choose to peddle USANA products to their patients break the Code of Medical Ethics. Because these doctors choose to put the interest of their personal business before the patient's own medical interest, it ruins the trust between the patient and the doctor. This becomes even a bigger violation of ethics when the doctor recruits their patients as distributors into their downline. It is all out of the financial interest of the doctor and not the interest of the patient.

How do doctors that sell USANA products to their patients keep their medical license?

Unless the doctor's patients file a complaint within their state, the practice of peddling will continue. Personally, if I go to a doctor for something and their recommended treatment is to purchase a specific brand of vitamins that the doctor is a distributor for, I would never go back to that doctor again. Would you? Most people would not go through the enormous hassle of filing a complaint. So the doctors peddling their own product never get in trouble. Ethical doctors do not place their own personal financial gain ahead of their patient's health.


Is there a way doctors can prescribe USANA products in an ethical manner?

Doctor's who want to recommend USANA product can do so ethically. This ethical option is for the doctor not to become a distributor, and to simply tell their patient to go to USANA's website and order the recommended product directly from USANA. By doing this, it removes the "conflict of interest" out of the equation. By doing this, it removes the "undue pressure" that would be placed on the patient. There are ethical ways for doctors to recommend USANA product, but the doctor cannot be financially connected, otherwise their would be a conflict of interest and violate the code of ethics.