Matt Rourke/AP
- Columbia University quietly scrubbed Dr. Mehmet Oz from its website, The Daily Beast first reported.
- Some in the medical community have previously accused Oz of "promoting quack treatments and cures."
- Oz formerly held top positions at the Ivy League school, such as Vice Chair of Surgery.
Columbia University Irving Medical Center has quietly scrubbed Dr. Oz, the celebrity doctor who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania, from its website.
Columbia removed personal pages for Oz, The Daily Beast first reported, noting that he had previously held top positions at the Ivy League school, such as Vice Chair of Surgery and Director of Integrated Medicine. He is still listed in the surgery faculty directory.
The university received criticism for years from physicians who accused Oz of "an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain."
Spokespersons for Columbia and for Oz did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Saturday.
HuffPost reported in January that Columbia previously changed Oz's title to "professor emeritus of surgery." The university later told the outlet that Oz became a professor emeritus and special lecturer in 2018.
Oz has long been embattled with questions about the legitimacy of his medical advice, concerns that have been amplified amid his Senate run. The British Medical Journal previously analyzed dozens of Oz's medical recommendations and found less than half were supported by evidence.
In December, Oz accused the Philadelphia Inquirer of trying to "cancel" him by referring to him by his given name, Mehmet Oz, as opposed to his celebrity name while covering the 2022 elections.
"This morning [the Inquirer] just announced, 'No more doctor,' even though I'm a practicing physician. I've taken care of patients. I've done thousands of heart surgeries," Oz said in a December campaign video on his Twitter account. "They don't want to call me doctor anymore. I won't be canceled."
source https://www.businessinsider.com/columbia-university-cut-ties-dr-oz-amid-gop-senate-run-2022-4