Long ago in another time that, as quack-happy and unreasonable as it seemed then, appears almost quaint today given the level of bonkers that now runs the federal health bureaucracy, thanks to President Donald Trump‘s having appointed antivax conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services, I sarcastically dubbed Dr. Mehmet Oz “America’s Quack.” Now, amazingly, America’s Quack is now the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the massive federal bureaucracy under the even more massive HHS bureaucracy that is responsible for running Medicare, Medicaid, and programs that fall under the Affordable Care Act. We thus have a former daytime medical talkshow host with a long history of promoting quackery (and even antivax nonsense) and no relevant experience running a large organization in charge of your mom and grandma’s Medicare. A recent interview given by Dr. Oz reminded me that I haven’t written as much about him now that he has real power and responsibility as I perhaps should have. That interview amplifies even more my view that Dr. Oz is fully down with the “soft eugenics” of RFK Jr.’s “make America healthy again” (MAHA) movement. In fact, the eugenics is not-so-soft, nor is his echoing of fascist authoritarian themes, as you will see.
The interview with Fox Business came about because of an op-ed co-authored by Dr. Oz and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary. Here’s the relevant part of the interview with Drs. Oz and Makary, in which they try to sell MAHA talking points, but do so in a rather disturbing way that reminded me of social Darwinism at best and eugenics at worst.
The full interview, which is only 3 minutes long, is here:
The funny thing is, the WSJ op-ed is entitled Cooperation is the key to MAHA and touts cooperating with industry to do all the things that—or so RFK Jr. claims—will make America healthy again. In contrast, this interview didn’t sound all that cooperative. Indeed, it sounded authoritarian and laced with eugenics, much like what Dr. Oz said when he was sworn in as CMS Administrator in April:
What are we going to do? First we’re going to reduce chronic disease. How do you do that? 70% of the health care expenditures of this country are driven by chronic disease. But, and it is your patriotic duty—I’ll say it again—the patriotic duty of all Americans to take care of themselves, because it’s important for serving in the military but it’s also important because healthy people don’t consume healthcare resources. The best way to reduce drug spending is to use less drugs because you don’t need them because you’re healthy. And it feels a lot better as well.
As I said at the time, one can’t help but hear echoes of “useless eaters” rhetoric in what Dr. Oz was saying, particularly the part about health being important for serving in the military and for not consuming healthcare resources. Moreover, that part about staying healthy being one’s “patriotic duty” echoed Nazi rhetoric about one’s patriotic duty to keep oneself healthy and thus contribute to keeping the volk healthy. (In fairness, authoritarian regimes, not just fascist ones, tend to emphasize its being a citizen’s “patriotic duty” to stay as healthy as possible, but this is a right wing administration.)
This time around, Dr. Oz doubled down. Indeed, he made it clear that the “cooperation” that RFK Jr. and he are asking of industry is of the protection racket variety, you know, “Nice business you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it.” The key quote that caught my attention shows up about halfway through the interview:
Part of what Marty and I are doing is reminding the industry why it got into the business. If that’s the case, what can you do working with us to fix the problems? Because if you don’t, do you know what the President is going to do? He’s coming down hard, and we’ll help him. The real goal here—and this editorial highlights it—is to make sure there’s room for the industry to do the right thing. Get out of the way if you’re part of the industry and don’t want to help. In the end, we’ll get to the place the American people expect us to be: making America healthy again.
See what I mean? The “cooperation” that RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz are demanding from industry is cooperation at the point of a gun, or in this case at the point of a regulatory pen: Do what we want, or we’re going to make you do it by changing the regulations and using them to come after you. Seriously, it amuses me to no end how Republicans claim to be against unnecessary regulation when here we have two high-ranking HHS officials threatening industry with regulation if it doesn’t toe the line and obey “cooperate.”
Next up comes the not-so-“soft” eugenics rhetoric. The hosts ask the not-so-dynamic duo of Drs. Makary and Oz about “overmedicalization” and the chronic disease epidemic among children:
It’s over-medicalization—not just medication. You’re diagnosing problems that probably should be dealt with by the parents, or by going outside and playing, or just dealing with issues and teaching kids mental resilience.
My wife and I formed a foundation 20 years ago. We’ve been in the school systems for 20 years, watching all four risk factors mature, grow, and ultimately cause an obesity epidemic that now prevents three-quarters of young men from entering the military. This is a crisis rolling up toward the older ages. There’s a reason we’re twice as obese as European countries and ten times more obese than Japan. We made it easy to be sick in America, and this President and Secretary of Health, Bobby Kennedy, aren’t tolerating it anymore. Marty and I are here to make sure we get industry to work with us, or we’ll be coming after them.
Besides the authoritarian bent here—”Marty and I are here to make sure we get industry to work with us, or we’ll be coming after them”—notice the judgmental component. While there is a case to be made that we sometimes overmedicalize conditions, Dr. Oz vastly exaggerates the phenomenon in order to use it to do what MAHA does best: Paint health not as a matter of environment, access to resources, and, yes, a bit of luck. Rather, he paints health as virtue and lack of health as being due to lack of virtue; in the case of children, this lack of virtue is in the parents, who according to him don’t teach their children “resilience” or make them go out and play. Also note how, once again, Dr. Oz harps on the obesity epidemic as being a problem for the military because so many young people can’t meet the physical requirements to serve in the military as being among the most important reasons that obesity is a problem, rather than, you know, because obesity predisposes young people to long term health problems and early mortality. Sure, he does mention that latter part, but he leads with the problem obesity presents for the military, and that tells you all you need to know in the same way that RFK Jr.’s emphasis on how people with severe autism will never pay taxes or hold a job tells you all your need to know.
Dr. Oz then uses the obesity epidemic and the level of chronic disease in the US as an excuse to go all authoritarian: “We made it easy to be sick in America” and we’re not “tolerating it anymore.” As for those statistics, I say: “Citation(s) needed.” For one thing, if you look at world obesity rates, the US isn’t even at #1. According to the Global Obesity Observatory, for adults the US ranks #19 in obesity rates at 42.7% For childhood obesity, the US ranks #22 at 20.5%. Don’t get me wrong. These are not good numbers. I also know I’m looking at a decent source, because I can see where he gets statistic that we are “10 times” more obese compared to Japan, where 5.7% of adults and 4.3% of children are obese. Oh, wait. that’s only 7.5 times the obesity rate for adults and 4.8 times the obesity rate among children. Again, no one’s saying that’s good, but Dr. Oz likes to play fast and loose with statistics. Unfortunately, the Global Obesity Observatory doesn’t lump together all EU countries; so I couldn’t fact check Dr. Oz’s other claim as easily. However, I believe that the EU probably has half the obesity rate compared to the US now, based on these earlier statistics.
The funny thing is that Dr. Oz (sort of) has a point. It is easy to become sick in America and stay that way, but it has little to do with food dyes or the use of high fructose corn syrup instead of cane sugar in soft drinks. Rather, it has a lot more to do with the existence of food deserts, “medicine deserts” where hospitals, doctors, and medical facilities are few and far between. It also has a lot to do with the simple fact that the US is the only wealthy industrialized nation that doesn’t provide government-subsidized universal health insurance.
Of course, if the above interview wasn’t eugenicist enough, Dr. Oz has been saying some rather disturbing things this summer. For instance, last month Dr. Oz emphasized that the policy of the administration was to make sure that the “right people” would “earn the right” to be on Medicaid:
“Earn the right to be on Medicaid”? Yup:
In a nationalistic plea, Dr. Oz, on Tuesday, standing with Senate Republicans, told people using the service to “demonstrate that you are trying your hardest to help this country be greater, by at least trying to fill some of the jobs that we have open.”
America has a near-historically low unemployment rate of 4.2%.
“By doing that, you earn the right to be on Medicaid,” Oz added.
Dr. Oz also praised the Republicans’ legislation that would gut at least $800 billion from Medicaid, saying it is “the most ambitious health reform bill ever” and will “curb the growth of Medicaid.”
During his confirmation hearing, Dr. Oz said, “I think it is our patriotic duty to be healthy.”
I mentioned that part when Dr. Oz was sworn in. At least he’s consistent, I guess.
It didn’t take me too long to realize that the alternative medicine movement in general has long been ruled by a philosophy that is basically a repackaged version of The Secret, wherein if you simply wish hard enough for something the universe will “manifest” it for you, combined with a view as health as a result of virtue. In other words, if you wish hard enough and want hard enough, you’ll do the “right things” to make yourself healthy and will be healthy. This views health as nearly 100% under individual control, with social determinants of health rarely, if ever mentioned, and, if they are mentioned, never seriously acted upon. Of course, the dark side of that idea is that, if fore some reason you aren’t healthy, it must mean a failure of will and/or virtue. You either don’t want it badly enough, or you are somehow not “doing the right things.” Never mind that so much sickness is caused, again, by factors not under individual control or that are very, very difficult to control.
Add to that the nakedly authoritarian assertion that it’s a citizen’s “patriotic duty” to be healthy and that they have to “earn” healthcare or be left to fend for themselves in terms of getting it because they are “unworthy,” and you have at least social Darwinism, if not outright eugenics. That’s MAHA in a nutshell. It’s a toxic combination of wishful thinking, health as virtue, and social Darwinism and/or eugenics masked as “wellness.”
7 replies on “America’s Quack (now CMS Administrator) Dr. Oz goes authoritarian quack…again”
Dr. Oz: “It’s over-medicalization—not just medication. You’re diagnosing problems that probably should be dealt with by the parents, or by going outside and playing, or just dealing with issues and teaching kids mental resilience.”
I’m guessing here he’s referring largely to anxiety, depression, ADHD, and gender dysphoria, all mental health matters in which I have heard people worry about “drugging kids” and “overdiagnosing” – the latter term, as I understand it, referring to a condition that actually exists but is deemed not worth treating medically. Well…even if some of these things could be managed without diagnosis and treatment, you need to give the parents the support needed to help their kids, by, say, not denying healthcare to any of their family members.
“Rather, it has a lot more to do with the existence of food deserts, “medicine deserts” where hospitals, doctors, and medical facilities are few and far between. It also has a lot to do with the simple fact that the US is the only wealthy industrialized nation that doesn’t provide government-subsidized universal health insurance.”
I think that second point is really key. Dr. Oz’s claims that it’s “too easy” to be sick in the U.S. carry the clear implication – and it’s barely even implicit – that it’s too easy in the U.S. to be lazy and weak and to seek out government benefits and medical care when you just need to toughen up and get a job.
In fact, of course, it’s exactly the opposite. It’s “too easy” to be sick in the U.S. because it’s too hard for too many Americans to access quality medical care. And the high cost bar is a BIG element of that. And even if you have good insurance, it’s often an overwhelming hassle to try to deal with (and God forbid you have an emergency which requires transport to a hospital emergency room which might be out of network for you, and/or that has doctors who are independent contractors who have to be paid separately and who might be out of network for you even if the hospital itself is in-network). Making routine access to quality preventative care cheap and available to all Americans (including dealing with practical issues like being able to obtain cheap, reliable transport to see your provider) would make it a LOT easier to be healthy in America. Making it harder to access Medicare benefits is the opposite of what we should be doing to make it easier to be healthy in America.
And, yeah, there are also cultural issues at play, and I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that Americans on average eat far too much ultra-processed, fat-rich but otherwise nutrient-poor foods. But of course, cutting back on access to free school lunches and SNAP benefits is also exactly the opposite of what we should be doing if we want Americans to eat – and be – healthier.
Going to middle school I had PE every day of the week. I had a PE coach who made you run a mile at the start before you could do whatever activity was scheduled for the rest of the period. That was where I found out I had asthma as I’d be coughing wheezing and sometimes throwing up at the 1/2 mile point (and walking the rest as you didn’t get out of that mile unless I guess you died). I was overweight but it was because I couldn’t exercise due to my undiagnosed asthma (who wants to exercise when it makes you cough your head off?). But I was fortunate I could see my pediatrician and then an allergist/immunologist who diagnosed my asthma (and allergies) and treated it. By high school I could run that mile, bike 20 miles and not have my asthma hold me back.
I can’t help be wonder how many kids who are overweight have undiagnosed asthma nowadays. Plus schools don’t have PE as often as they used to. And if they are taking away access to health care, these kids will have a much harder time staying healthy.
Oz could care less. His way or the highway. Only the fit survive and the rest deserve to perish is the MAHA way.
I am loath to argue with or correct a paediatrician, and I’m not sure this holds true for children, but weight management is about 95% about food, not exercise (no, I’m not saying exercise is not important). Kids just eat too damn much– day and night they are having “snacks”–what is a snack anyway–never had them when I was a kid (back in the Eocene). This is, of course, aside from asthma. I also wonder why Oz or Kennedy seem to think kids will slim down with “natural’ food colours and calorically equal sweeteners in their soda! A 70 lb child would burn about 450 calories running for an hour and there are 180 or so calories in a soda–what kid runs for an hour? Soda is the problem not the sweetener, but Oz and Bobby don’t get logic.
Oh yes, they do get logic — neo-capitalist logic!
Reading this and from his past I get the feeling that a lot of what he whats to put through will be involving who is willing to pay him more for his recommendations. He has always been n it for the money and I don’t see him changing his ways for the overall good of the country.
I’m astounded.
The wretched hive of scum and quackery just called out RFK Jr.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rfk-jr-black-vaccine-schedule-misinformation_l_68893137e4b07dfa117e4b98/amp