OP-ED: Oz vs. Fetterman: Money or morality?

Dr. Mehmet Oz is a cardiothoracic surgeon, and thus, as a doctor, has sworn an oath to “first, do no harm.” However, throughout Oz’s television career, his medical advice has been widely criticized for lacking scientific credibility and harming consumers.
In 2013, The New Yorker ran a story about Oz titled, “Is the most trusted doctor in America doing more harm than good?” In 2014, the British Medical Journal concluded that less than half the claims made by “The Dr. Oz Show” were backed by “some” evidence. Also in 2014, Oz testified before a Senate subcommittee during a hearing on false advertising in the diet and weight-loss industry. In this hearing, Oz was grilled by numerous senators on the committee for his endorsement of questionable diet products. Sen. Claire McCaskill told Oz, “the scientific community is almost monolithic against you,” as he tried to defend his support of “miracle” weight-loss products.
In 2015, prominent physicians sent a letter to Columbia University calling for Oz to be removed from his faculty position because “he has manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.” In 2019, “Lies, fraud, conflicts of interest, and bogus science: The real Dr. Oz effect” was published in Science-Based Medicine. Science-Based Medicine previously stated that “no other show on television can top The Dr. Oz Show for the sheer magnitude of bad health advice it consistently offers, all while giving everything a veneer of credibility.”
Now Oz has embarked on a new career as a politician, running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately for the American public, politicians willing to sell their integrity for personal financial gain are not entirely uncommon, thus Oz is off to a great start as a politician.
Like Oz, John Fetterman is also a man with a Harvard education and comes from a privileged family. However, that is where the similarities between the two candidates end.
Oz used his education and privilege to enrich himself. Fetterman used his education and privilege to help others.
Following the death of a close friend, Fetterman left his lucrative career in the insurance industry to work with young people. Fetterman joined AmeriCorps, a government agency that utilizes volunteers to help communities address poverty, the environment, education, and other unmet human needs. His service with AmeriCorps led him to the Pittsburgh area, where he taught GED classes to young mothers and fathers.
Ultimately this work led him to start a GED program in the town of Braddock, one of the poorest and most challenged communities in the commonwealth. After two of his students were killed by gun violence, Fetterman decided to run for mayor of Braddock. In his 13 years as mayor, Fetterman worked to bring the once-booming steel town back from collapse and to create much-needed jobs. Braddock now has a community center, urban gardens, and a free store run by Fetterman’s wife, Gisele.
Fetterman is a man who sacrificed personal wealth to serve others, the complete opposite of Oz. There are numerous stories that illustrate Fetterman’s commitment to his community and his compassion for others. For example, the current mayor of Braddock, Delia Lennon-Winstead, met Fetterman while sitting on a bench during a rough patch in her life. He encouraged her to get a job and gave her a bicycle for transportation to her job. She said he put her on a path “out of the darkness” and toward a better life.
To encourage businesses to come to Braddock, he offered the owners of Brew Gentlemen to stay in a house he owned for free while they got their business running. He sold a house to a former GED student for $1.
This is not a man whose biggest concern in life is money and power. Rather, Fetterman truly cares about people, about making their lives better and about creating opportunities for all people regardless of their ZIP code.
So this November ask yourself, do you want to elect a man whose net worth is in the hundreds of millions, who owns numerous mansions, who doesn’t have the foggiest idea of the struggles of average Americans like you and me? Or do you want to elect a man who put morality over money and sacrificed his own personal wealth to work to improve other people’s lives?
Christina Proctor is chair of the Washington County Democratic Committee.