Dr. Mehmet Oz (Photo : Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
Harvard-educated Dr. Mehmet Oz is defending himself against other medical professionals who have accused him of promoting various quack propositions on his TV show, USA Today reported.
A group of 10 medical professionals has sent a letter to Columbia University asking for the TV host's dismissal from the school's faculty. The letter said that Dr. Mehmet Oz is culpable of inaccurate judgments or outrageous conflicts of interest about what constitutes proper medical treatments. It further said that whatever the nature of his pathology, people are being misguided, which makes Dr. Oz's presence on the faculty of the medical school objectionable.
The letter also mentioned the Oz's endorsement of the raspberry ketones, pumpkin-like fruit garcinia cambogia and green coffee bean extract, according to New York Daily News. However, the 54-year-old Oz said that his TV show offers multiple points of view.
Among the physicians' issues with TV personality Mehmet Oz is his baseless opposition to genetically modified foods. Oz said that he does not claim that genetically modified foods are harmful, but thinks that these foods should be labeled like they are in other countries around the world.
In the past, the surgeon has come under fire for his support of weight-loss products that lack scientific evidence of their effectiveness. In 2014, Oz appeared before a Senate subcommittee on consumer protection. He was scolded for touting supplements as a magic weight-loss cure.
Dr. Mehmet Oz is vice chairman of Columbia's surgery department and sometimes teaches. Also, the surgeon performs heart surgery at Columbia's affiliated hospital.
