The president-elect Donald Trump announced the appointment of Dr Mehmet Oz, known as Doctor Oz in his television programs, as administrator of the service centers of Medicare and Medicaid, health social assistance programs aimed at elderly and low-income people.
“The United States is facing a health care crisis and there is perhaps no more qualified and capable physician than Dr. Oz to make America healthy again,” said l former president in a statement about the controversial surgeon who championed the cause throughout his career. various pseudosciences.
He is, among other things, a defender of alternative medicine, faith healing and diversified paranormal beliefsa situation that has sparked criticism in many medical publications.
According to Trump, Oz is “a distinguished physician, heart surgeon, inventor and world-class communicator who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades.”
Oz will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former presidential candidate known for his conspiracy theories about vaccines, who was named last week as the future Secretary of Health.
In the statement, Trump said that the health system is “broken”“hurts ordinary Americans and crushes the budget” of the country.
Oz will thus devote himself, he declared, to reduce “waste” and “fraud”, within “the most expensive government agency” in the United States, which represents “a third of health spending” in the country and “a quarter” of the national budget, he said.
Son of Turkish immigrants, Oz grew up in Wilmington, Delaware and graduated from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. He started his television career in the Discovery Channel series. Second opinion with Dr. Oz and was a regular guest at The Oprah Winfrey Show.
In 2009, he created The Dr. Oz Show, a daily television show on medical and health topics that ran for 13 seasons.
Oz recently attempted to enter politics and ran for the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania. He lost the race to John Fetterman, even though Trump had publicly shown his support for him.
