Category Archives: Ethics

Dr. Mehmet Oz Vs. Mainstream Medicine

So he often advocates what a Vox.com writer terms derisively “simple tricks and natural remedies.” (Come to think about it, isn’t good health about some very simple things?) But has Dr. Mehmet Oz ever killed anyone with his friendly advice or during cardiac and thoracic surgery? Members of the medical establishment certainly have with their Food and Drug Administration approved remedies and interventions, their phony food pyramid, not to mention the many bans and shortages the FDA creates.

I don’t watch Dr. Oz’s show, but in the odd segment I’ve seen, he appears genuine, humble, likeable; someone who loves people (especially the ladies) and does his best to make them happier and healthier. He also makes a bundle in the process. Wicked, I know. At least so the medical establishment thinks. Via CNN:

Earlier this week, a group of 10 physicians from across the country emailed a letter to Columbia University expressing disapproval that Oz is on the faculty. The email sent to Columbia’s faculty dean for Health Sciences and Medicine, Dr. Lee Goldman, said the group is “surprised and dismayed” that Oz is on faculty and that he holds a senior administrative position. Oz is vice chair of the Department of Surgery, at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The email was sent by Dr. Henry Miller, a fellow in scientific philosophy and public policy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute. It was signed by nine other physicians from across the country, none of whom are affiliated with Columbia. They accuse Oz of, what they call, “manifesting an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.”

Dr. Richard Green, the associate chief of cardiac, thoracic, and vascular surgery at New York–Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center disagrees:

Oz has achieved some of the greatest scientific accomplishments of his career at Columbia. While a resident there, he was the four-time winner of the prestigious Blakemore research prize, which goes to the most outstanding surgery resident. He now holds 11 patents for inventing methods and devices involved in heart surgeries and transplants. This includes helping to research and develop the left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, which helps keep people alive while they’re awaiting a heart transplant. Oz had a hand in turning the hospital’s LVAD program into one of the biggest and most active in the world.

Dr. Green greeted me in a beige hospital hallway, a compact man with worn skin and white hair, dressed in blue scrubs. In his office, which was decorated with family pictures, diplomas, and medical textbooks, he alternately praised and defended his colleague. He said the following things about Oz: “He’s a brilliant mind.” “He’s a very charming person.” “He has great energy.” “He’s uniformly respected and admired here.” “Maybe he should be president. I would vote for him.” “He’s a talent. He’s multidirectional.” “As for the other doctors who are on TV, I don’t put them in [Oz’s] league. Not even close.”

Green also suggested that the leveling off we’re seeing in obesity rates in the US may be thanks to the awareness Oz has raised about the importance of eating more healthfully and exercising.

MORE.

Leftists Are ILLIBERAL

Classical Liberalism, Ethics, Hillary Clinton, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Reason

Hillary Clinton and the things she says should be properly dubbed illiberal. Clinton’s express “inspiration” as a future president is to “ensure that granddaughter Charlotte and her generation are provided equal opportunities to live up to their potential.”

How do you think that will be achieved, if not by the use of every illiberal power-tool in the leftist toolbox? Taking by force from some to give to others, creating new, unelected, oppressive agencies to carry out the new potentate’s plans, raising armies to march on uncompliant nations, on and on.

Clinton and the things she aspires to should be properly dubbed illiberal. Leftists, after all, stole the “liberal” label from us classical liberals.

CNN bimbos and beaus fawn over every irrational, idiotic utterance made by leftists. Why, one particular CNN tart called Poppy Harlow referred to Clinton’s putative inspiration for a presidential bid—her infant granddaughter—as a “rationale” for running.

To say you want to be president for the good of your granddaughter’s generations is of a peace with the standard statement made by the low IQ beauty queen: “I want to make the world a better place.” Except that a peaceful, pretty girl, with no ship-of-state to steer, is much more likely to make people happy than a power-hungry, illiberal, murderous statist like Hillary Clinton.

Poppy Harlow’s slobbering act and name reminded me, for some reason, of the wicked wit of Margot Asquith, “Scottish-born socialite and author, married to the British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith.” .

Mrs. Asquith corrected American actress Jean Harlow’s pronunciation of Margot, with this quick retort: “The t is silent, as in Harlow.”

Motherf-cker Mugabe’s Menu

Africa, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, Race, South-Africa

Question: What do you call a “person” who butchers and barbeques baby elephant?
Answer: A motherf-cker.

Lowbrow Robert Mugabe, as Foreign Policy has reported, “celebrated his 91st birthday followed by a lavish party with an exotic menu, reportedly including barbequed baby elephant. The brazen celebration was yet another reminder of the stark contrast between the increasingly venal lifestyles of the country’s politically-connected nouveau riche and regular Zimbabweans, who are now poorer than they were when Mugabe came to power nearly 35 years ago.”

A much better analysis of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, in general, and the significance of the unqualified support Mandela and his predecessors have lent to Mugabe over the decades, in particular, can be found in “Mandela, Mbeki, And Mugabe Sitting In A Baobab Tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” the title of Chapter 4 in “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa.”

Read “Just A Girl With A Gun; Not A Gratuitous Killer,” for the origins of the quiz in the post’s lead.

Presstitutes & Politicians: Seamlessly Unseemly

Democrats, Ethics, Media, Morality

As was noted in “Brian Williams: Member Of Media Circle Jerk,” America’s presstitutes are “no better than the lobbyists and the politicians they petition, they move seamlessly between their roles as activists, experts and anchors; publishers and authors; talkers and product peddlers; pinups and pontificators.”

And their wives follow the gravy train.

In the tradition of keeping you in the loop of the corrupt conflict-of-interest unseemliness that typifies the American media—I’m glad to report that Chris Matthews’ “queen” (no, it’s not Barack Obama) is running for office. The anchor promised that if Kathleen Matthews “runs for office her campaign will be covered fairly by the network.”

That’s not the point, pinhead: The point is that the male Matthews’ access has likely facilitated his wife’s access.

The queen of conflict on interest is Hillary Clinton (and the subject of this week’s column). Just one of her infractions had to do with enabling Anthony Weiner’s long-suffering wife, Huma Abedin, to get “status in June 2012 as a “Special Government Employee,” enabling her to hold down multiple jobs in the private sector while she also collected a State Department paycheck.”