I don’t watch the Dr. Oz show nor do I follow his advice since rave reviews always set off my skepticism meter & he clearly derives commercial benefits from recommending products. That’s the way capitalism works, including capitalist medicine–& certainly commercial, corporate-sponsored television. I haven’t vetted the ten doctors demanding Columbia University sever ties with him. But I recognize a lynching party when I see one. It’s certain a little vetting would turn up commercial ties to questionable sources.

For several years, drug medicine has been going after natural medicine modalities, including Chinese medicine, homeopathy, Ayurvedic medicine, naturopathy, & supplements–attempting to vilify, criminalize, & restrict them. Whether people like it or not or think us fools, we should have a right to decide which health modalities work best for us. Even the National Health Institutes include some of these modalities.

Ridiculing natural health practices is one thing. Those of us who use them don’t give a rat’s ass what others think as long as they work for us. But it is an outrage that people who think themselves progressive would endorse these lynching parties. Leave us to our follies.

You can quote the Hippocratic Oath against Dr. Oz till the cows come home (& this post is not a defense of him) but we can point to the barrage of TV ads appealing to victims of pharmaceutical drugs to join class action suits.