John Oliver has a problem with the wisdom and insight of television scrub-wearer Dr. Oz, and it's because that wisdom and insight tends to be, well, factually questionable and sometimes just wrong.
Last year Oliver tore Emmy-winner Mehmet Oz to shreds with this rant about his dubious medical recommendations.
Harsh. And necessary.
But recently, after a scientific survey found that less than half of Oz's medical claims could be backed by science, a group of 10 doctors made a formal complaint to Columbia University asking for Oz to be kicked off their faculty. Oz responded on his show with this: “No matter our disagreements, freedom of speech is the most fundamental right we have as Americans, and these ten doctors are trying to silence that right.”
That set John Oliver off. Here's what he has to say about “the freedom of speech” and what it should mean for Dr. Oz.
“No. You are scientifically wrong about that as you are about so many things. Let”s be clear: The First Amendment protects Americans against government censorship, and that”s it. It does not guarantee you to simultaneously hold a faculty position at a prestigious private university and make misleading claims on a TV show. It absolutely protects you to say whatever you like on it, just as it protects my right to say what I think about you on mine, which is this: You are the worst person in scrubs who has ever been on television-and I”m including Katherine Heigl in that. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be worse than Katherine Heigl? You are also the admittedly handsome ringmaster of a middling mid-afternoon snake-oil dispensary and it says something that even when you do a show with seven fake models of human feces, the biggest piece of shit on the stage has his name in the title.”
Bold of John Oliver to make a “Grey's Anatomy” joke when we're still coping with the death of McDreamy over here. Now I'm crying again.
[via Salon]