Snake

TV personality turned U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz was once considered a serious doctor. Indeed, in the mid-1990s Dr. Oz was a practicing heart surgeon ...

[energy independence](https://doctoroz.com/issue/energy-independence/),” stopping “ [illegal immigration](https://doctoroz.com/issue/energy-independence/),” and supporting [law enforcement](https://doctoroz.com/issue/energy-independence/). Now, Oz has made quite a shift in his thinking about fracking, tweeting in March that President Biden needed to “back off” and “give us the freedom to frack!” As Brian Schwartz of CNBC pointed out in August, Oz’s has been lucratively [boosted](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/26/dr-oz-sides-with-energy-after-he-received-donations-from-heads-of-oil-gas-business.html) by the fossil fuel industry. It is pathetically easy to imagine Senator Oz being anointed by his party and the credulous political press as a national leader on health policy. He has proposed comprehensive policies designed to strengthen union power and de-tilt influence away from employers and is in turn overwhelmingly [backed](https://www.cityandstatepa.com/politics/2022/09/here-are-endorsements-pennsylvanias-us-senate-race/376717/) by Pennsylvanian labor unions. [experienced](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-thinks-dr-oz-lose-pennsylvania-senate-race-1234577978/) buyer’s remorse, worrying over the summer that Oz was going to “fucking lose.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee is [skeptical](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/29/alarm-bell-gop-donors-oz-00048747) of Oz’s chances, according to [Politico](https://www.yahoo.com/video/dr-oz-weirdest-explanation-why-074535612.html), and private GOP Donors have been remarkably reluctant to give to his campaign. It was [reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/07/dr-oz-has-ties-to-hydroxychloroquine-companies-as-he-backs-covid-treatment.html) in early September that Dr. Oz backed off a bit from that statement in late August [stating](https://twitter.com/retripp/status/1562907451909095426) that, “I’m pro-life with the 3 usual exceptions, especially the health of the mother, but incest and rape as well.” Still, he has [celebrated](https://twitter.com/DrOz/status/1540390818162302976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1540390818162302976%7Ctwgr%5E8bdc797d6ee604453fa839b1faa069ba74429e80%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.penncapital-star.com%2Fgovernment-politics%2Fheres-how-pa-politicians-reacted-to-the-u-s-supreme-courts-abortion-decision%2F) the Dobbs v. As recently as 2019, Oz [stated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkw8Du6grzA&feature=emb_title) that as concerns the right to make reproductive healthcare decisions, that he did not “want to interfere with everyone else’s stuff, because it’s hard enough getting through life as it is.” Yet only three years later, while on the campaign trail, Oz has moved towards positions much further to the right than his previous beliefs. Until the latter years of the Trump presidency, he was publicly [pro-choice](https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-dr-ozs-shameless-flip-flop-on-abortion), [supported](https://reason.com/2022/08/24/senate-candidate-dr-oz-who-once-sang-pots-praises-now-thinks-supporting-legalization-is-clearly-crazy/) marijuana legalization, [supported](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/13/politics/dr-oz-health-care-policy-mandates-obamacare/index.html) universal health care, [supported](https://www.ocala.com/story/news/2014/07/08/why-gun-violence-is-a-public-health-issue/31940697007/) gun-control measures, and, however tepidly, acknowledged some of the potential [horrors](https://www.onlineathens.com/story/lifestyle/health-fitness/2017/04/03/drs-oz-roizen-climate-change-creating-public-health-issues/15428606007/) to be inflicted from the climate crisis. [Scholarship](https://www.aats.org/about-the-foundation/the-reach-of-our-programs/aats-research-scholarship-awardees), was the author of peer-reviewed papers, [conducted](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/magazine/18Oz-t.html) complex organ transplants, and even invented medical equipment and developed innovative methodologies. Belluz’s article notes that as early as 1998 some of Oz’s colleagues were disturbed by his propensity for spectacle and his attraction towards the “media circus,” as phrased by Jerry Whitworth, the co-founded the Cardiac Complementary Care Center at Columbia-Presbyterian. During that time Oz was a recipient of the Gross Surgical Research