Mehmet Oz endorsed products without noting financial ties, watchdog says

Antonia Mufarech, Bloomberg News on Dec 3, 2024

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Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor named to oversee Medicare in the Trump administration, posted online endorsements of herbal products that threaten to run afoul of U.S. marketing rules, according to a health watchdog.

Oz regularly touted products from iHerb, a supplement company, in posts on X and other social media sites, without prominently noting his position as a paid adviser, according to a letter from Public Citizen. The nonprofit consumer advocacy group urged the Bureau of Consumer Protection to investigate whether Oz violated Federal Trade Commission rules for influencer marketing.

Oz didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

President-elect Donald Trump’s appointees to run the nation’s health agencies have been assailed by Democratic lawmakers for their embrace of unproven medical theories, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine skepticism. With 3.7 million followers on X and 1.1 million on Instagram, Oz has already come under fire for his enthusiastic endorsements of products such as green coffee bean extract and raspberry ketone.

Running the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, “is a position of trust which, among other things, requires protecting taxpayers from fraudsters and scammers,” Robert Weissman, Public Citizen’s co-president, said in a statement. “If Dr. Oz is careless about fair advertising rules himself, can we expect him to crack down on those who would bilk Medicare?”

In frequent posts that mention iHerb, Oz failed to note that they were advertisements and that he’s a stakeholder in the company, according to Public Citizen. According to FTC rules, endorsement disclosures should be made with every promotion.

As head of the CMS, Oz would oversee an agency that manages health care for more than one-third of Americans with $1.7 trillion in annual spending. Oz has also promoted private versions of Medicare, the government program for seniors, and invested in companies that sell them.

Oz and his wife, Lisa, have disclosed holdings in UnitedHealth Group Inc., the biggest U.S. health insurer, of at least $250,001. The holdings were disclosed in a form that Oz filed as part of his candidacy for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania in 2022.

The couple also held smaller stakes in CVS Health Corp. stock, the parent company of insurer Aetna, and Cigna Group, according to the disclosure.

Those stocks suffered in recent months as the Biden administration moved to restrict payments, stiffening rules that limit reimbursement. Stocks including Humana and CVS also fell as CMS reduced quality ratings, called stars, that determine future payments.