The California Armenian Legislative Caucus Foundation condemns Dr. Oz’s targeting of Armenian Americans
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Armenian Legislative Caucus Foundation condemns Dr. Oz for targeting Armenian American-owned businesses in California with accusations of fraud. In a recent video clip, Dr. Oz is seen cruising through Los Angeles and implying that Armenian-owned businesses are connected to organized crime and so-called “Armenian mafia “fraud schemes.
Assemblymember John Harabedian (D-Pasadena), chair of the California Armenian Legislative Caucus Foundation, said Oz’s remarks were both misleading and inflammatory.
“Dr. Oz knows a thing or two about fraud. He’s made millions promoting magic pills and miracle cures, betraying the Americans who trusted him. The Trump Administration is stripping healthcare benefits from millions of Americans while Dr. Oz is cruising around Los Angeles demonizing the Armenian community. Healthcare fraud is a real problem, and it starts from the top.”
California is home to the largest Armenian American population in the United States. For more than a century, Armenian Americans have enriched the state through leadership and innovation in business, agriculture, academia, government, medicine, technology, the arts and beyond.
The California Armenian Legislative Caucus Foundation serves as a forum for members from the California Senate and Assembly to identify key issues affecting Armenian Americans and develop and empower the Armenian American community throughout California. The Foundation encourages advocacy and participation in cultural, educational, and community efforts in California. Through advocacy, the Foundation strives to ensure that California Armenian American’s voices are heard and given a platform.
Dr. Mehmet Oz is a modern-day snake oil salesman, witch doctor, charlatan, conspiracy theorist and fraudster rolled into one, and of course an Armenophobe and Armenian Genocide denier (the two are of course not mutually exclusive).
This guy made millions by promoting pseudoscience and marketing fake new-age “treatments”, with his net worth estimated at $100 million, making him one of the richest doctors in the United States and certainly in Turkey.
With powerful friends in U.S. government, including his most powerful friend President Trump, this fraudster thinks that he has carte blanche to start a witch hunt against the Armenian community in California, under the pretext of combatting “fraud”. Being a charlatan is not enough, he now relishes becoming a grand inquisitor of Armenian Americans.
The presence and rise of Turkish-Americans in politics and the financial sector would be very detrimental to Armenian-Americans. Prominent Turkish Americans like him are overwhelmingly Armenophobic and Armenian Genocide deniers, like the vast majority of Turkish Americans. Fortunately, Turkish-Americans are not as numerous as Armenian-Americans, they are more dispersed, and they do not have a powerful lobby of their own. Otherwise, they would have made things unpleasant for Armenian Americans, just like Jewish lobbies make against Arab Americans and Somali Americans. The example of Mehmet Oz’s persecution attempts against Armenian Americans, should be a warning sign.
Oprah Winfrey regrets discovering him and making him famous through her show. She inadvertently launched his entertainment, business and political career, and created a monster. I really hope this guy’s downfall comes soon.
Steve beat me to it. Oz is a snake oil salesman/genocide denying piece of garbage.
Mehmet Cengiz Oz, a dual citizen of Türkiye and USA, is a medical doctor who is best known for The Dr. Oz Show where he promoted dangerous chemicals as miraculous drugs and made a fortune based on that. He has been heavily criticized for promoting unproven “miracle” supplements and weight-loss products. Oz’s promotion of pseudoscience and various paranormal beliefs has earned him criticism from medical publications and physicians. This is guy who is more interested in media attention and money making than doing his professional job to help people. Those tendencies have led to trouble between Oz and his colleagues, more honest and modest people, like Eric Rose and Jerry Whitworth. In 2003, Oz was banned for two years from presentations to the American Association for Thoracic Surgery or publishing work in the association’s medical journal for academic dishonesty.
In 2012, Oz entered into an arrangement with Usana Health Sciences, a dietary supplement manufacturer, which has been accused of being a pyramid scheme. Oz was paid over $50 million over a five year period to promote Usana products on his show.
Oz owns at least $630,000 of stock in two companies that manufacture or distribute hydroxychloroquine, a drug that Oz heavily promoted in early 2020’s a anti Covid-19 agent, an incorrect recommendation that somehow was picked up by president Trump.
In April 2020, he declared at Fox News that reopening schools might be worth the increased number of deaths it would cause as it “may only cost us 2–3% in terms of total mortality.”
In 2022, the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons terminated Oz’s affiliation with the institution and removed his presence from their website. In 2024, he was accused of not disclosing his role in food supplement company iHerb, whose products he recommends on his various channels.
So, here is someone who has used his MD degree to make money not by curing people but by marketing or helping market suspicious agents, by TV shows, and by turning from a physician to a politician. His recent attacks on the Armenian community of LA area raise suspicion that he might be paid by certain Armenophobic circles to undermine Armenian-Americans in general. Filming himself and spreading fake news has always been his favorite activity. Standing in front of a bakery and claiming that it’s a headquarter of the “Russian-Armenian Mafia” is pathetic, so cheap and pitiful. He must be brought to justice for racist activities and offending a group of people based on ethnicity, mixing them for some reason with “the Russians” obviously trying to exploit the recently strengthened worldwide anti-Russian sentiments.
This make-believe doctor investigating fraud is like a bank robber turned bank manager assuring bank customers who lost all their savings to trust him to identify the bank robbers and restore their losses. He himself is a well-known fraudster who practically gave up his medical career at his prime to enrich himself as a TV host pushing fake new treatment drugs. Financial disclosures indicate that Dr. Oz held significant investments as a shareholder in several large pharmaceutical and healthcare companies some of which manufacture or supply the very drug treatments he has publicly promoted.
People committing fraud should be held responsible for such acts regardless of whom they are but this man targeting Armenians primarily shows he has ulterior motives. For the sake of argument, even if we assume such fraud does exist, to say some criminal elements committing such crimes is one thing but to target a city or a location where Armenians form the majority population and make such claims attempting to paint all Armenians with the same brush clearly shows his intentions go far beyond what he is preaching and it is more about denigrating the Armenian population where they are the strongest in this country. Making such claims while pinpointing locations and buildings where such things occur shows his premeditated malice of forethought. Clearly his intentions are to try to tarnish the Armenian image abroad in the United States in a country where the Armenian Genocide, which he denies, has officially been acknowledged. A coincidence? I think not! He is also a close friend and ally of Turkish terrorist and genocide denier president Er-dog-an whose government controls a significant stake (49%) in Turkish Airlines which this “snake oil salesman” masquerading as a doctor helped promote!
As the old saying goes, those who live in glass houses should not throw stones!
+💯 to all of the above comments.
Dr Oz’s witch hunt and smear campaigns against Californian Armenian businesses, is already hurting some of them, especially the bakery he showed in his video. California governor Gavin Newsom has filed a civil rights complaint against Dr. Oz. I am sure the bakery and the other local Armenian businesses he has slandered in his video, will sue him for the reputational and financial damage he is causing, and Armenian American organizations will likewise file lawsuits against him.
Remember when the MAGA conspiracy theorist Alex Jones alleged that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 20 children and six teachers in 2012, was (directly quoting his words) a “false flag” operation perpetrated by gun control advocates, and that it never occurred, claiming that “no one died”, that it was “staged”, “a giant hoax” and “completely fake with actors”? He alleged that the victims’ families were “crisis actors”, meaning paid liars.
Six parents of the victims filed a defamation suit against Jones. He was found guilty and convicted in Connecticut for his provocative statements, and the United States Supreme Court upheld the Connecticut verdict. On top of that, the Connecticut court ordered him to pay a record $965 million to eight victims’ families. Since he couldn’t pay this astronomic sum, he filed for bankruptcy, and the courts ordered the liquidation of all his businesses and assets. Although Jones has not shown any remorse or repentance as usual, the hefty sum ruined him financially, and he has become hesitant to slander people out of fear of being sued and convicted with a hefty sum again.
Dr. Oz will no doubt be sued by many more individuals, businesses and organizations for his slander and hate campaign against Armenians, drowned with lawsuits, dragged from court to court, and hopefully convicted and ordered to pay a huge sum to the Armenian businesses he has slandered and is damaging. This charlatan and agent provocateur deserves and needs to be reputationally and financially ruined.
DR.OZ has probably been send by Erdogan of Turkey to destroy the Armenian
communities in the US. Just like Erdogan and Aliev are using Pashinyan to destroy Armenia .
Many immigrants contribute greatly to their societies regardless of race or creed in this nation.
Regardless of what Mehmet Cengiz thinks about Turkish politics, he already tanked his own reputation selling fake cures and bragging about drinking his own pee (in spite of the fact he was actually a good surgeon prior to his Hollywood career, like why the fudge do you want to parading yourselves selling magic beans on TV lmao).
Enes Kanter is a hypocrtical and opportunistic Gulenist who incessantly whines about the monster his cult created and a dogshit basketball player.
Cenk Uygur’s nephew (Hasan Piker) once bragged about celebrating the 9-11.
I am a Turkish-American and there might be frequent disagreements between TR-ARM, but seeing this pattern makes me think, hmm maybe people should be suspicious of immigrants from Turkiye doing politics (regardless of what they think about politics where there parents are from).