(Newswire.net — April 17, 2015) — New York, DC. — Columbia University has no intention of removing TV celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz from his position after a group of top doctors has demanded it. In a letter to the Columbia Medical Faculty, physicians said Dr. Oz has a “egregious lack of integrity
“Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine,” said a letter the 10 physicians sent to the Columbia dean earlier this week, AP reported. In a letter, the physicians claim Dr. Oz is pushing “miracle” weight-loss supplements with no scientific proof that they work. The Columbia dean, however, disputed allegations and said in a respond that the New York Ivy League school “is committed to the principle of academic freedom and to upholding faculty members’ freedom of expression for statements they make in public discussion.”
Oz became a frequent guest in Oprah Winfrey show since 2004, which boosted his popularity. For the past five years, he’s been the host of his own TV show, “The Dr. Oz Show.”
In a letter to Lee Goldman, dean of Columbia’s Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine, nine distinguished US doctors, amongst them Dr. Henry Miller of California’s Stanford University and Dr. Joel Tepper, a cancer researcher from the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine, and Dr. Gilbert Ross of the American Council on Science and Health in New York City, called Dr. Oz a charlatan.
The doctors agree that Dr. Oz is an excellent Columbia cardiothoracic surgeon; however, they believe he has deliberately misled viewers to gain a profit.
“He’s a quack and a fake and a charlatan,” said Dr. Henry Miller of Stanford, the first person to sign the letter.
Dr. Oz “has manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain,” the doctors wrote in a letter. They said he has “misled and endangered” the public.
In a letter, Doctors’ are referring to last year’s Dr. Oz appearance before a US Senate panel that accused him of endorsing products that were medically unsound. At the time, Oz acknowledged that some of the products he advised his viewers to use “don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact.”
According to AP, the show representative did not immediately return a call Thursday.