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John Oliver Lays Into Dr. Oz

by Alicia Lu

Last June, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver dedicated a segment to Dr. Oz for what Oliver dubbed his "propensity for recommending dubious supplements." At that time, Dr. Oz had just been investigated by the Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance for making claims that certain dietary supplements were "miracles." Now, Dr. Oz is under scrutiny once again; 10 doctors have called for his resignation from Columbia University. Pegged to this update, Oliver dedicated another segment on Dr. Oz, and it's clear the comedian is no less angry this time around. In fact, Oliver likened the television personality to some pretty unsavory things. (Bustle has reached out to Dr. Oz's team for comment.)

While last year's segment may have used Dr. Oz to underscore the country's much larger problem with dietary supplements in general, Oliver has narrowed his focus this time. Specifically, he's responding to Dr. Oz's response to the doctors who have called him out.

If you're not be familiar with Dr. Oz, he has become known champion certain dietary supplements on his program, The Dr. Oz Show. Oliver opens his segment by playing a compilation of clips in which Dr. Oz recommends different supplements, telling viewers to "write this down." These supplements include Garcinia Cambogia, Raspberry Ketones, Yakon Syrup, and Sea Buckthorn.

Blueberry Elbows, Acorn Semen, Pricklebush Tickletush — write it down.

Oliver summarizes Dr. Oz's bad year, from the Senate committee hearing to medical researchers claiming that only 46 percent of the television personality's recommendations were backed by medical evidence, to frequent guest and "celebrity nutritionist" Lindsey Duncan's $9 million settlement to the Federal Trade Commission. However, the latter shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. Why?

Because the only job title more meaningless than celebrity nutritionist is sloth wrangler.

And now, Dr. Oz is under fire again, this time with the 10 physicians. But last Thursday, he finally responded on his show, an episode that was teased with intensely dramatic effect.

Holy shit. They make it sound like he's about to enter the Thunderdome. Two doctors enter, one doctor leaves because he... was... paged!

Dr. Oz spent much of his episode calling out the doctors who called for his resignation, claiming that their criticism of him was linked to industry ties.

But none of that answers the substance of the accusations that he's a quack who serves viewers horseshit dressed up as medicine, and his response to that has been pathetic.

Then Oliver plays a clip of Dr. Oz arguing that since the "Dr." in his show logo is small and at the top, that should indicate that his program is not a medical show.

If the size of a word in a logo designated its truth value, then this would be the logo for Pizza Hut. Because just cuz some bread, tomatoes, and cheese got black-out drunk and fucked each other in an abandoned dumpster doesn't mean you get to call the resulting abomination pizza.

But what Oliver considers Dr. Oz's weakest offense was when he used the first amendment to justify his medical recommendations. On his show, Dr. Oz said that the 10 doctors were trying to "silence" his freedom of speech.

Let's be clear: the First Amendment protects Americans from government censorship, and that's it. It does not guarantee you the right to simultaneously hold a faculty position at a prestigious private university and make misleading claims on a TV show.

However, Oliver did concede one point.

It absolutely protects your right to say whatever you want on it.

But then one-upped him.

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. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be worse than Katherine Heigl?

Oliver's rant doesn't stop there...

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.

Watch the entire segment below.

Images: Con Sumer/YouTube