Dr. Oz slammed over apple juice arsenic warning

Dr. Mehmet Oz accepts the Outstanding Talk Show Host award during the 38th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards at the Las Vegas Hilton, June 19, 2011. / Getty

Arsenic in apple juice! Fed to babies! And it probably came from China! Television's Dr. Mehmet Oz is under fire from the FDA and others for sounding what they say is a false alarm about the dangers of apple juice.

Oz, one of TV's most popular medical experts, said on his Fox show Wednesday that testing by a New Jersey lab had found what he suggested were troubling levels of arsenic in many brands of juice.

The Food and Drug Administration said its own tests show no such thing, even on one of the same juice batches Oz cited.

"There is no evidence of any public health risk from drinking these juices. And FDA has been testing them for years," the agency said in a statement.

The flap escalated Thursday, when Oz's former medical school classmate Dr. Richard Besser lambasted him on ABC's "Good Morning America" show for what Besser called an "extremely irresponsible" report that was akin to "yelling 'Fire!' in a movie theater."

Besser was acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before joining ABC news as health and medical editor several years ago.

Arsenic is naturally present in water, air, food and soil in two forms — organic and inorganic. According to the FDA, organic arsenic passes through the body quickly and is essentially harmless. Inorganic arsenic — the type found in pesticides — can be toxic and may pose a cancer risk if consumed at high levels or over a long period.

"The Dr. Oz Show" did not break down the type when it tested several dozen juice samples for total arsenic. As a result, the FDA said the results are misleading.

Furthermore, the agency's own tests found far lower total arsenic levels from one of the same juice batches the Oz show tested — 2 to 6 parts per billion of arsenic versus the 36 that Oz's show had claimed.

Tests of the same batch conducted by two different food testing labs for the juice's maker, Nestle USA, which sells Juicy Juice under the Gerber brand, also found levels consistent with the FDA results.

In a letter published on the Oz show's website, Nestle said it told the program's producer in advance that the method the show's lab used was intended for testing waste water, not fruit juice, and "therefore their results would be unreliable at best."

The FDA also sent a letter in advance to the show and threatened to post its findings and the letters online if the program proceeded.

Oz went ahead.

"American apple juice is made from apple concentrate, 60 percent of which is imported from China," the website version of his report says. "Other countries may use pesticides that contain arsenic, a heavy metal known to cause cancer."

The show tested three dozen samples from five brands, and Oz claimed that 10 had more arsenic than the limit allowed in drinking water — 10 parts per billion.

However, the FDA said the arsenic in water tends to be inorganic, justifying the strict limit. In contrast, organic arsenic is the form usually found in food and juices. Tests over the last 20 years show apple juice typically has fewer than 10 parts per billion total arsenic.

The mercurial Oz is a heart surgeon at Columbia University and heads an alternative medicine program at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He was a regular on Oprah Winfrey's show for many years before getting his own program two years ago.

This is the first week of a new TV season, the first in two decades without Winfrey dominating the talk show scene.

Tim Sullivan, a spokesman for Oz's show, said in an interview: "We don't think the show is irresponsible. We think the public has a right to know what's in their foods."

Sullivan said Oz does not agree that organic arsenic is as safe as authorities believe. The show will do further tests to distinguish organic from inorganic arsenic in juice samples, he said.

"The position of the show is that the total arsenic needs to be lower," he said. "We did the tests. We stand by the results and we think the standards should be different."

In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, even Oz said he wouldn't hesitate to keep giving his four children apple juice.

"There's no question in my mind folks can continue drinking apple juice. ... There have been no cases at all of kids being harmed by elevated levels of arsenic, and the kinds of numbers we are talking about are not high enough to cause acute injury," he said.

He said he was concerned instead about the possible ill effects from drinking apple juice for many years.

An independent lab agreed with the FDA's contention that the form of arsenic matters.

Oz's testing "certainly begs the question how much of that is inorganic," the type of arsenic that is of prime concern, said Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of ConsumerLab.com. The company tests dietary supplements and publishes ratings for subscribers, much as Consumer Reports does with household goods.

However, Cooperman and others have long called on the FDA to strengthen regulation of contaminants.

[walt9800]

What Dr. Oz has done is to be purposely deceptive and intellectually dishonest. This is a shame, because he has always come across as the doctor who educates. By not explaining the difference between organic and inorganic arsenic to his viewers, he committed a shameless act of dishonesty and deception, which will now forever taint his credibility. He has clearly eschewed his scientific objectivity in favor of entertainment and television ratings. This is serious. In fact, this type of ethical lapse is so serious that should Dr. Oz ever decide to return to the medical field as a researcher, he would not now be able to secure even a single dollar of research funding. He has forever painted himself into a corner - valuing sensationalism over science.

[Joe_Mama_509]

Dr. Oz and all of his partners are full of crap. They're a bunch of overpaid quacks who didn't study hard enough in medical school. I have a disease called Gastroparesis. It's Gastro (stomach) Paresis (paralysis.) My stomach is paralyzed, making it so that I can't eat like a normal person. One of his partners wrote an article stating that lazy people get Gastroparesis. WRONG! Don't put your lives in the hands of these uneducated morons.

[illcountryboy]

Well they probably do - but then so do industrious people and those in the middle. That is the problem with getting you information from TV and actors you get what you pay for.

[sassalin31]

What a quack! He and "Dr." Phil should ban together. They deserve eachohter.

[dasilvak]

mmhh...i don't watch dr. oz...i also know that any form of government will lie to its people to get the results it wants. He may be saying it to promote his show...but i have this nagging doubt that the standards China uses aren't comparable. Check out the recent report where beef is contaminated but not recalled because there isn't a set list of contaminants...Beef containing harmful pesticides, veterinary antibiotics and heavy metals is being sold to the public because federal agencies have failed to set limits for the contaminants or adequately test for them, a federal audit finds.

[pbaird2]

How can any of these "experts" be taken seriously when they self-promote like a reallity TV show and make sensational claims to gain ratings. What is wrong with the American public that we make celebrities out of people who have no talent or skill and the only claim to fame is that a network took the cheap way out and put them on television?

[rusirius45]

Dr. Oz is to medicine what "Dr." Phil is to psychiatry. They preach to the same National Enquirer reading day-time crowd and pull them in with very questionable methods. Since these two were anointed by St. Oprah, the weak minded take everything they do and say as gospel. Very sad.

[sassalin31]

So true!

[bonzothemonkey]

I'm ordinarily 110% behind anything Dr Oz says. In fact, I'm such a fan I believe they need to create a new Nobel category for "Nutritional Science" and make him it's first awardee! You need only look around to see that people are fattening up, sickening and, as statistical data shows us, dying in America because of high calory/high salt foods laced with chemical additives which continue being served up to Americans. But, I also believe he needs to choose his battles and when he does be very, very careful that the facts he's presenting are "irrefutable". I'd hate to see him (or The Doctors, that other excellent public service program!) come under attack because of statements that can in any way be construed as rash or poorly researched. The impetus toward good health he's managing to generate across the country is far too valuable for him to be silenced!

[Transatlantique]

Another Celebri-quack, like Lisa Masterson and the rest on "The Doctors," makes false and alarmist statements. This isn't the only thing on which he has made a mistake, yet no one has publicly held him to them. When is the American public going to stop watching television for its vital information? Doctors are in business and are not scientists. They exist to make money, which is what is wrong with our health system and why insurance companies charge huge premiums. They are feeding these mental tyrants who sell more unnecessary procedures and pills to boost their bottom lines, and no one really questions them. The days of the trustworthy country doctor and less-is-best are gone. Bedside manner is virtually non-existant. They should revoke the licenses of doctors like this who become celebri-quacks.

[someonewhogivesasht]

The FDA is approached by lobbyists from the food industry who give them gifts and dinners. So if you think scientists and Dr Oz and the Doctors are just shows that have all this to gain by lying to us for the show, then go ahead, give your kids that juice box. I hope you let your children have as amny juice boxes as you can pour down their throats.

[orlandah]

I am willing to bet,the FDA is lying through their teeth.I found out a long time ago,the governmert will lie to you,quicker than a cat can lick it behind.

[credibility2]

One of Oprah's proteges, who have a rabid following of mindless individuals. There is arsenic present in minute quantities in virtually everything around us. This guy is an alarmist and those who believe him are lemmings. He apparently only used one source for testing. A real medical doctor would have multiple sources, independent of each other, test and use the same type of equipment and product for testing. Maybe we should just stop eating, drinking water and breathing altogether.

[someonewhogivesasht]

You stupid ostrich, I would like to take a box of Gerber juice and set it in front of you and have you feed it to you're little darling. I want to see you feed it to your kid as you recite Dr Oz is a quack over and over again. I worked at Sandoz in 1995 when they merged with Gerber. I taste tested their food for consistancy. Only when an FDA inspector came in, was anything ever caught and thrown away. I was never told what they found to discard the batch but it only happened when an inspector found it. Shortly before I quit, they had a bad batch of apple juice, gallons and gallons of concentrate marked not to be used : to be discarded or. They went ahead and dilutted into fresh batches so that the marked batch was not "wasted." I refused to test this batch when a worker only the line casually gossiped about this. Needless to say, my family have always bought organic, pressed our own juice, and we cook and grow our own vegatables. I know guys like Dr Oz and the Doctors are TV celebs, but I watch thier shows occassionally and I could not see anything Dr Oz or the other health show had to gain by reporting this. He was telling the truth, the arsenic was pesticidal, not naturally occuring, it was residual. Who ever is posting these anti Dr show rants I suspect may be from the apple juice industry. Or just plain idiots. I wouldn't want my child even getting a trace of poison in their food no matter how "safe" a government agency like the good ol' FDA who gets dinners and gifts from lobbyist says. So go ahead, pass that Motts juice box to your kiddo, it's not my child, why should I care?

[someonewhogivesasht]

Now pay attention: what he said was, we shouldn't accept food that is chemically enhanced for bigger crop yeild though pesticides. That is the reason to use pesticides. Countries like China can grow apples cheaply this way but heir water and sanitation is not the same as ours. They have more instances of DNA damaged babies because of the contaminants in their environment. Dr Oz simply is pointing out that companies like MOTTS and Gerber and Juicy Juice who import this "cheap" apple concentrate don't really care that pesticidal contaminants arsenic being the most hazourdous to developing bodies are in these imports. His point is simply tell these companies to not allow this crap in our food supply. FDA is lobbied very heavily by all manufacturers in the food industry and for you to take a "so what" attitude will only get you or your children sick.