Science journalist mocks Dr. Oz’s ironic war on ‘scammers’ who misuse his good name

Science journalist Phil Plait attacked alternative-medicine proponent Dr. Mehmet Oz for being "absolutely fed up with scammers using my name and likeness to sell my audience questionable products."

Plait's complaint came after he learned that Dr. Oz was devoting an episode of his television show "to tak[ing] back my name from...unscrupulous people out there using my name, my face, and this show from selling you products I have nothing to do with. As you know," he continued, "I don't sell any of the products we talk about on this show."

As Plait pointed out, while Dr. Oz might not directly sell any of the products he features on his show, "he promotes all manner of anti-science nonsense," including homeopathic remedies, faith healing, 'curing' gay people of their homosexuality, and spiritual communion with the dead.

In this video, for example, he discusses how viewers can defeat "thousands of years of evolution" to "erase five years off your face":

At 3:12 in that video, the show announces that next week Dr. Oz will share his "revolutionary plan to blast your butt."

About the episode in which Dr. Oz confronts "the scammers" who use his name, Plait wrote "[t]he Facebook page has a promo clip for the show, and as I watched it, I could feel my irony meter overheating...Oz apparently defines “scammers” as someone who sells his audience 'questionable products.' If only there were an apt phrase for this situation."

Segments of the episode in which "Dr. Oz Takes Down the Scammers Using His Name to Dupe You" can be found here.

[Image via Dr. Oz's official Facebook page]