Dr. Oz’s show will end in January as he seeks US Senate seat

By Oliver Darcy, CNN Business

Sony Pictures Television said Monday that “The Dr. Oz Show” will end in its thirteenth season on January 14, 2022.

Sony said that “The Good Dish,” a show co-hosted by Oz’s daughter that focuses on nutrition and recipes, will replace the long-running medical show.

The announcement comes as the show’s host, Dr. Mehmet Oz, runs as a Republican for the United States Senate in Pennsylvania.

Oz amassed television notoriety as Oprah Winfrey’s medical expert. In 2009, he parlayed the TV appearances on her show into “The Dr. Oz Show,” which has won several daytime Emmy awards. Reaching millions of viewers on his show, Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, has for years been one of the most well-known doctors in the country.

But during the pandemic, Oz has morphed into a more polarizing figure. His commentary on the coronavirus, which often took place on the right-wing channel Fox News, was applauded by Republicans. But it turned off others and, at times, was criticized by the medical community.

Early on in the pandemic, for instance, Oz talked up the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a way to treat the coronavirus — despite the lack of firm scientific evidence that it is an effective treatment.

In his opening campaign video, Oz said that politicians responded incorrectly to the pandemic. Oz argued that such politicians “took away our freedom without masking us safer.”

Oz, who is an advocate of alternative medicines and treatments, has been skewered by the medical community for years. In 2015, a group of physicians wrote Columbia University, saying they were “dismayed” Oz was a member of the school’s faculty. And in 2014, Oz was scolded by senators during a congressional hearing over his promotion of weight-loss products on his television show.

Each time, he has defended himself. In 2015, Oz said he provides the public “information that will help them on their path to be their best selves,” provides “multiple points of view,” and contended that “doesn’t sit well” sometimes “with certain agendas which distorts the facts.”

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