Dr. Mehmet Oz was slammed by his detractors during a Senate confirmation hearing Friday on Capitol Hill for promoting unproven alternative health treatments, and one Democrat called it the “most ludicrous wellness grifting” he’d ever seen.
Oz laid out his plans for the agency, including potential reforms he is considering, during a confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Committee on Finance. The committee will soon vote on whether to advance Oz’s nomination to become the next director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to the full Senate.
While Oz’s medical expertise was not widely challenged Friday, his motivations were. Dubbed “America’s Doctor” by Oprah Winfrey, Oz used his TV platform at times to promote alternative health remedies, endorsing questionable weight loss solutions like green coffee extract and raspberry ketones.
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Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., sought to get Oz to admit that his promotion of certain supplements for weight loss, such as green coffee extract, were fraudulent. While Oz admitted green coffee extract is not a miracle weight loss drug, he argued that he never promoted it as such.
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“There are many things I said on the show. I take great pride in the research we did at the time to identify which of these worked and which ones didn’t. Many of them are still being researched, like the green coffee bean extract you just mentioned,” Oz told Hassan. The senator then inquired how much he was paid to promote these products, and Oz responded that he got nothing.
But Oz’s claim he wasn’t getting paid to promote the products didn’t convince Hassan, who pointed out press reports chronicling the “Dr. Oz effect,” a phenomenon whereby sales of products he endorsed would skyrocket after being featured on his show.
“That was written about by the press,” Oz told Hassan. Hassan then argued Oz seemed “unwilling to take accountability for [his] promotion of snake oil remedies.”
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Oz’s financial ties to a litany of companies spanning many corners of the healthcare sector, including nutrition supplements, has been a point of scrutiny for his detractors. In an ethics filing submitted in advance of the hearing, Oz indicated he would divest his holdings in more than 70 companies and investment funds that could pose potential conflicts of interest.
One of those companies is iHerb, an online supplement retailer, which represents one of Oz’s largest financial holdings. According to his ethics filing, Oz’s holdings in iHerb are worth as much as $25 million.
As the administrator of CMS, Oz would make decisions related to how the government covers procedures, hospital stays and medication within the federal healthcare programs, as well as the reimbursement rates healthcare providers get paid for their services. Oz, if confirmed, could theoretically take action to get federal healthcare programs, like Medicaid and Medicare, to cover a greater number of supplements not already covered.
A committee vote to decide whether to send Oz to the full Senate has not yet been scheduled. He will need to garner at least 50 votes in the full Senate to be confirmed.
