ENCORE: Dr. Oz: Supplement Spin Doctor

Scamfluencers

Wondery

Society & Culture

4.1 • 7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dr. Oz has been making headlines again – but not for a scam. Now that he’s been tapped to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, we’re revisiting how this former TV doctor survived scandal and shifted into politics.

In the mid-90s, Dr. Mehmet Oz is a rock star surgeon with a reputation for performing on high-profile clients. He eventually scores his own television show, and soon he becomes daytime television royalty. Oprah even dubs him “America’s doctor.” But his drive for stardom has him hawking questionable products, mostly related to weight loss. When his medical reputation is up in the air, he does what past-their-prime reality stars do best: he pivots to politics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to scam fluencers early and ad-free right now.
0:04.6	Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondry app or Apple Podcasts.
0:08.0	Sarah, one of our very own scammers has been making headlines recently,
0:11.7	and not because of a scam, technically.
0:14.8	It's Dr. Mehmet Oz.
0:17.2	Oh my gosh.
0:18.9	What could possibly be going on right now with him? Oh, only good news, my gosh. What could possibly be going on right now with him?
0:22.2	Oh, only good news, my friend.
0:25.0	President-elect Donald Trump, who supported Dr. Oz's unsuccessful bid for a Senate seat in 2022,
0:31.2	has picked him to be the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
0:36.4	So since Dr. Oz is back in the political game, I thought it was
0:39.5	a good time to revisit our episode on him, where we tell the story of this overachieving child of
0:44.7	immigrants who rose to prominence as a respected heart surgeon and then got caught up in the
0:49.9	allure of TV fame after appearing on Oprah. This scam has it all.
0:55.8	Questionable supplement claims, shady conflicts of interest, and a seriously embarrassing
1:00.5	session in front of the Senate.
1:02.4	And there's truly no telling what the next chapter will hold.
1:05.5	So enjoy this refresher and stay tuned.
1:22.6	Sarah, as you know, I have a lot of guilty pleasures, and today I wanted to tell you about one of them,
1:24.4	which is daytime TV.
1:30.7	Sachi, as someone who skipped an insane amount of school growing up,
1:35.1	I'm right there with you. Like, all I did was watch daytime TV. That's how I learned what everything was. Yeah. And I love it, but the truth is, we don't normally think of daytime TV
	...

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