“Ethically, it’s completely dubious”
“Mountain of a conflict of interest”
PENNSYLVANIA — In the latest scandal for his floundering campaign, new reporting from the Daily Beast highlights New Jersey fraud Mehmet Oz’s history of promoting medical products while hiding his personal stake in the companies:
Viewers may have surmised that Oz’s video plugging TruBiotics was, essentially, an ad. What they were not aware of, however, is that Oz was a member of the board of directors of the brand’s parent company, PanTheryx. He holds a stake in the business worth as much as $1 million.
The full extent of Oz’s financial relationship with PanTheryx—along with several other health supplement companies—has been revealed for the first time thanks to personal financial disclosure forms he was required to file as a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.
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Oz has long used his platform—and the trust of his audience—to hawk specific products, though he has claimed in the past that he has never personally profited from that activity. Under oath at a U.S. Senate committee hearing in 2014, Oz testified that he “never” endorses “one specific brand” and that “doctors shouldn’t endorse.”
But according to Arthur Caplan, a leading medical ethics expert at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Oz’s actions in this case represent a “mountain of a conflict of interest.”
“It’s one thing to say, ‘I have commercials on my show that advertise products and I’m going to flag that.’ It’s very different to say, ‘Take this, and I’m not going to tell you, I own it,” Caplan said. “You simply cannot do what he’s disclosing he did.”
“It’s not illegal,” Caplan continued, “but certainly, ethically, it’s completely dubious.”
This story comes the week after it was revealed that New Jersey fraud Mehmet Oz owns a secret New Jersey condo he did not release in his financial disclosure.
Additionally, Oz was officially nominated for the New Jersey Hall of Fame by his hometown congressman, which came after news broke that Oz had participated in a New Jersey Hall of Fame induction. A GOP county leader even said “Oz fits in better in Manhattan than in Pennsylvania.” It was also reported that Oz has never had a hunting license in Florida, despite bragging about hunting in the Sunshine State during the primary.
As if that all wasn’t enough, Oz spent the first days of the general election in Florida delivering “keynote remarks at a meeting for a lobbying group that supports multi-level marketing — a haven for pyramid schemes” and it was revealed he owns properties around the world, while his residency in Pennsylvania is unclear.
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