Trade Group Sues 'Dr. Oz' for Statements About Imported Olive Oil

Summary

Dr. Oz has been sued by the NAOOA for falsely claim­ing that 80 per­cent of extra vir­gin olive oil in U.S. super­mar­kets isn’t ​“real,” prompt­ing the trade group to chal­lenge his ​“false attacks” on imported olive oils in a law­suit filed in Georgia. The NAOOA accuses Oz of mak­ing unsourced claims, rely­ing on sub­jec­tive tests, and fail­ing to dis­close con­flicts of inter­est, while also high­light­ing the health ben­e­fits of olive oil that Oz’s state­ments may have dis­cour­aged con­sumers from uti­liz­ing.

The tele­vi­sion physi­cian known as Dr. Oz, who falsely declared to his mil­lions of view­ers that the best way to tell if olive oil was good or not was to see if it con­gealed in the refrig­er­a­tor has been sued by the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA) for claim­ing dur­ing a show that aired last May that 80 per­cent of the extra vir­gin olive oil sold in U. S. super­mar­kets isn’t ​“real.”

The suit filed today in Georgia by the trade group that rep­re­sents the largest American importers and bot­tlers chal­lenges Oz on what it calls ​“false attacks” he made on the show that sin­gled out imported olive oils, accord­ing to a press release. Specifically, the NAOOA said, the prob­lems with Oz’s state­ments were:

• His 80 per­cent claim is patently false and com­pletely unsourced;
• He relies on a sub­jec­tive, taste-dri­ven sen­sory test when only a sci­en­tific chem­i­cal lab­o­ra­tory test can deter­mine if olive oil is pure; and
• Oz failed to dis­close that his ​“expert,” Maia Hirschbein, was on the pay­roll of California Olive Ranch, which has a finan­cial inter­est in pro­mot­ing California olive oil and dis­parag­ing olive oil orig­i­nat­ing out­side the state.

“Rigorous, peer-reviewed sci­en­tific research has con­sis­tently shown that all types of olive oil have sig­nif­i­cant health ben­e­fits, includ­ing reduc­ing heart dis­ease,” said Eryn Balch, exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of the NAOOA. ​“This case is par­tic­u­larly trou­bling because in many pre­vi­ous con­tro­ver­sies Dr. Oz has rec­om­mended prod­ucts with no proven ben­e­fits, but in this case his false and care­less words have dis­cour­aged mil­lions of peo­ple from using a prod­uct with sci­en­tif­i­cally demon­strated advan­tages.” In 2013, Oz told view­ers to test the qual­ity of their olive oil by putting it in the refrig­er­a­tor to see if it con­gealed. The method was soon debunked as a myth by researchers at the University of California at Davis Olive Center. Oz has fre­quently come under fire from his peers in the med­ical pro­fes­sion. A study pub­lished in the British Medical Journal on Oz’s med­ical advice found that more than half of his rec­om­men­da­tions had no sci­en­tific sup­port, or con­tra­dicted sci­en­tific evi­dence out­right. In April 2015, a group of ten physi­cians from across the United States, includ­ing Henry Miller, a fel­low in sci­en­tific phi­los­o­phy and pub­lic pol­icy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, sent a let­ter to Columbia University call­ing Oz’s fac­ulty posi­tion unac­cept­able. They accused Oz of ​“an egre­gious lack of integrity by pro­mot­ing quack treat­ments and cures in the inter­est of per­sonal finan­cial gain.” Georgia has food libel laws with a lower legal bur­den than tra­di­tional libel laws of other states mak­ing it eas­ier for food com­pa­nies to sue peo­ple who make dis­parag­ing remarks about their prod­ucts. The law­suit was filed in Fulton County Superior Court by the NAOOA. Additional named defen­dants include Entertainment Media Ventures Inc. d/b/a Oz Media and Zoco Productions LLC.