Newsweek pans Oprah’s health advice
In this week’s cover story, Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert devote about seven pages to the health information Oprah Winfrey and her guests have imparted. Much like the Vital Signs column written by Rahul K. Parikh, M.D., at Salon.com last month, the reporters point out the lack of medical evidence for many of the claims about bioidentical hormones, thyroid disease, plastic surgery, vaccines and autism.
The article points out that, during a show featuring Suzanne Somers promoting bio-identical hormones, doctors who appeared on the show had to sit in the audience and had to be called on to dispute Somers’ claims. Kosova and Wingert say that Mehmet Oz, M.D., a frequent guest, usually sticks to the facts but sometimes doesn’t speak up when Winfrey’s “out-there experts are spouting their questionable theories. There seems to be an unwritten rule that one Oprah expert may not criticize or correct another.”
She has the power to summon the most learned authorities on any subject; who would refuse her? Instead, all too often Oprah winds up putting herself and her trusting audience in the hands of celebrity authors and pop-science artists pitching wonder cures and miracle treatments that are questionable or flat-out wrong, and sometimes dangerous.
On a lighter note, Stephen Colbert discussed Winfrey’s health shows.
Comments
One Comment on Newsweek pans Oprah’s health advice
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Andrew Holtz on
Fri, 5th Jun 2009 11:56 am
Oprah is an entertainer. But think how often reporters are assigned to do follow-up stories on the topics she highlights… especially at the TV stations that carry her show as a lead-in to the local news.
This article might come in handy the next time an editor says “Cover this. It was on Oprah.” Storing a few of Colbert’s jabs in your quiver might also come in handy. The Oprah comments start at about 4:20 into this clip: http://is.gd/PicQ
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