Dr. Oz, a White House health adviser, is still peddling pseudoscience.
We’re used to Dr. Oz broadcasting outrageous, pseudoscientific ideas on his hugely popular daytime TV show, The Dr. Oz Show. The cardiac surgeon has for years devoted large amounts of airtime to peddling all sorts of suspect detoxes, diets, and other health misinformation. (He does sometimes offer good health information too.)
Now, because 2018 is weird, Oz is a member of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition — an advisory board devoted to promoting healthy lifestyles across the nation. One might wonder if he’d clean up his act. But it’s not happening.
On Wednesday, he (or someone running the Twitter account in his name) tweeted out this doozy to 4.3 million followers.
For centuries, we have used astrological signs to examine our personality and how we interact with those around us, however, these signs may reveal a great deal about our health as well. Discover what your astrological sign can tell you about your health: https://t.co/fPCAK7nd48 pic.twitter.com/6p6VYe4sJz
— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) June 6, 2018
First off, astrology isn’t real. Repeat after me: “Astrology isn’t real.” Sing it aloud: “Astrology isn’t real!”
It’s a pseudoscientific parlor game that tends to make a big deal out of insignificant coincidences. For example, Mercury in retrograde. Every few months, from our vantage point here on Earth, it looks like the planet Mercury is drawing loop-de-loops in the sky. It’s an illusion that this occurs because the Earth and Mercury are orbiting around the sun at different rates. But yet astrologers take it to mean there’s an increased chance of miscommunication, among other maladies.
Also, do you really believe that everyone born in the same month could possibly share the same cosmic destiny? What hooey!
Anyway, if you click on the link in the Dr. Oz tweet above, it sends you to a slideshow of content explaining things like “when an Aries feels blocked, this pent-up energy may appear in the form of migraines, sinus issues, or even jaw tension.”
This is drawn from a 2017 episode of The Dr. Oz Show in which he invites astrologer Rebecca Gordon to explain the connection between horoscope and health. Gordon has been featured on the show several times several times. And it seems Gordon is returning to the show this week to discuss the same topic.
In 2017, Oz asked her to explain the link between horoscope and health, and she brought up Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, saying the “human body is actually shaped like a 5-pointed star.” (Does she mean that because our bodies have some star-like qualities, we’re influenced by stars? Who knows!)
The tweet is silly, and so is the astrology segment on the Dr. Oz show. And largely, yes, astrology is harmless.
It’s just always disappointing to see someone with such a big audience peddle such bunk — especially because a showman like Oz is exactly the type of person who could influence a showman like President Donald Trump.
Oz often touts alternative medicines and beliefs as ways to empower his viewers and give them hope.
In 2014, he testified before a Senate subcommittee about his role promoting “green coffee extract,” which he claimed aided in weight loss. “My job, I feel on the show, is to be a cheerleader for the audience,” he said. “And when they don’t think they have hope, when they don’t think they can make it happen, I want to look ... for any evidence that might be supportive to them.”
Hope can be helpful. But it’s often a lie.
Further reading: Dr. Oz, Goop, and the false promise of health gurus
- Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop posted a defense of its jade eggs for vaginas. It’s a mess.
- Donald Trump’s appearance on Dr. Oz was surreal — and disturbing
- Dr. Oz is a quack. Now Trump’s appointing him to be a health adviser.
- The making of Dr. Oz: how an award-winning doctor turned away from science and embraced fame
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