Please don't elect Dr. Oz. He's a disgrace to our profession.

It’s been obvious for years that Oz is more than happy to leverage his reputation as a cardiothoracic surgeon and medical scientist in service to his own celebrity and advancement, and isn’t one to let quaint little things like facts stand in his way. Stroll down a checkout aisle in your local grocery store, and chances are strong you’ll see his smiling face on the cover of a magazine touting some wildly unhealthy weight-loss claim. He’s been promoting pseudoscience on his show for years, from obesity “remedies” like green coffee and garcinia cambogia to hawking “homeopathy starter kits,” so this is nothing new.

What’s been even more troubling during the pandemic is his willingness to speak in favor of treatments like hydroxychloroquine that have no merit for the care of COVID patients, going as far as touting the drug on Fox & Friends. As I’ve previously written, he even appeared on Fox and “suggested that the mere 2-3 percent increase in COVID-19 mortality that would come from reopening schools nationwide might be a worthwhile trade-off.” Medical misinformation is literally killing people, and it is unconscionable that anyone who should know better would contribute to it. And Oz most certainly should and does know better.