Dr. Oz Used ‘Ex-Gay Therapy’ To Spike Ratings — His Own Blog Proves It
var addthis_config = {“data_track_addressbar”:true};Dr. Oz – the TV doctor whose show is produced by Oprah Winfrey’s HARPO Productions company — apparently is not above using a known and medically-denounced practice to gin up controversy — and ratings. Oz may be against so-called “ex-gay therapy,” aka, “pray-away-the-gay,” but he had no moral compunction against using it to drive up ratings yesterday.
For the record, “ex-gay therapy,” which claims to be able to “cure” people of homosexuality, is dangerous, harmful, fraudulent, and has been denounced by practically every reputable major medical organization.
Oz even used his show yesterday to host a representative from NARTH, a discredited “ex-gay” organization.
The folks at GLAAD tell the story well:
One day after the airing of a show in which Dr. Oz discussed “both sides†of a debunked and dangerous practice, often called “reparative therapyâ€, he has now written a blog post distancing himself from the practice.
In a joint statement issued following the show, GLAAD, PFLAG, and GLSEN roundly condemned the show’s placement of so-called “reparative therapy†practitioners alongside doctors and people who have been harmed by their experience in such programs.
In his blog, Dr. Oz has taken a less neutral position, pointing out that  the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association, and other respected medical organizations completely oppose such programs. He continues to maintain that conversations about such practices need to be had, but finally weighs in with his own position.
His position?
On today’s controversial show, we discussed forms of therapy that are designed to turn a gay person straight. Currently, there are still a handful of therapists who still perform this on teenagers and adults who are uncomfortable with their sexual orientation – despite the fact that the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association, and other respected medical organizations oppose this therapy, claiming that it doesn’t work and that it may be potentially harmful.
I felt that we needed to include all parties who have considered reparative therapy to hear the stories of people who have tried these treatments. Although some viewers may disagree with this tactic, if we want to reach everyone who might benefit from understanding the risks of this therapy, you have to present multiple perspectives.
It’s good to know that Dr.Oz considers his approach a “tactic,” but, “you have to present multiple perspectives,” is false.
Dr. Oz bills himself as a cardiac surgeon and “Vice-Chair and Professor of Surgery at Columbia University.” Would he present a shaman, a witchdoctor, a faith healer among the “multiple perspectives” he’d present to a patient whom he knows needs a heart transplant or surgery?
Oz continues:
Some guests argued that they have been changed through these treatments, but I was overwhelmed by the pain of individuals hurt by the experience. After listening to both sides of the issue and after reviewing the available medical data, I agree with the established medical consensus. I have not found enough published data supporting positive results with gay reparative therapy, and I have concerns about the potentially dangerous effects when the therapy fails, especially when minors are forced into treatments.
Meanwhile, GLAAD offers this excellent bit of detective work:
Even with this statement, it seems as though Dr. Oz is attempting to be more neutral than he really is. The time stamp for his blog is 11/28/2012 at 8:47 AM, well before the program aired. Additionally, if you look at the URL, you can see that the blog post was originally titled something like, “The gay cure: shame masquerading as medicine.” That is certainly quite different than the more innocuous sounding “The Reparative Therapy Controversy,” which still implies that this is an ongoing debate, which it is not.
GLAAD sums up their report with this important statement:
It is a positive step that Dr. Oz has finally publicly stated that he is not neutral on such a dangerous practice. However, issuing a blog statement does not negate the fact that millions of people watched his program and potentially walked away hoping to find a way to hide or repress a part of themselves, or worse, their children. As a new lawsuit against JONAH, a Jewish “ex-gay†program is demonstrating, anyone who felt for the promises of change from Dr. Oz’s guests may be at best disappointed, and at worst severely damaged. The media must handle this topic responsibly, or risk spreading dangerous, unchallenged misinformation to audiences.
Even though GLAAD is too generous to state it, I’m not.
This thoroughly indicts Dr. Oz as nothing more than a Jerry Springer wannabe, and who pays for it? Vulnerable people brainwashed by religious fanatics.
Shame on Dr. Oz — whose Hippocratic oath seems to me to be a little flexible — and HARPO for using people in pain to attract ratings.
We’ll do our best to get video of this when it becomes available.
For now, while I’m loath to send him traffic, you can see clips from the show at Dr. Oz’s website, where GLAAD and GLSEN did a great job refuting the notions of “ex-gay therapy.”
Shame on Dr. Oz.
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President Donald Trump is reportedly suing Rupert Murdoch and Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, over the publication of a story alleging he sent a “bawdy” birthday letter in 2003 to Jeffrey Epstein, the now-notorious convicted sex offender who died in 2019.
“Court records show that Trump filed a lawsuit alleging libel against Murdoch, the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones, and the reporters who wrote the article in federal court for the Southern District of Florida,” CNBC reported late Friday afternoon.
Trump vehemently denied the Journal’s report and publicly threatened to sue after it was published. The Journal had reported in its story that Trump had warned he would take legal action if the story ran.
“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Thursday night. “These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his a– off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJT”
READ MORE: FBI Told to Flag Mentions of Trump in Epstein Files, Dem Says in Scathing Letter to Bondi
Image via Reuters
One thousand employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation sifting through thousands of pages of the Epstein files were instructed to flag any mentions of President Donald Trump, according to Democratic U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee.
“According to information my office received,” Senator Durbin wrote in a letter (below) to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday, “you…pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel…on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline.”
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned,” Durbin charged.
The files are from the criminal investigation into the notorious Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of child sex offenses.
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In his letter, Senator Durbin also posed a series of more than a dozen questions to Bondi. Among them:
“Have you personally reviewed all files in DOJ’s possession related to Jeffrey Epstein?”
“The records DOJ released on February 27 did not include a client list. Why did you
publicly claim on February 21 that the client list was ‘sitting on my desk right now to review’?”
“Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?”
“Please list all political appointees and senior DOJ officials involved in the decision to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned.”
“What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?”
CNBC reported that “Durbin asked the Justice Department and FBI to explain what his office called ‘apparent discrepancies’ regarding handling of the Epstein files and findings from a Justice Department memo.”
In his four-page letter, Durbin also wrote, “in 2002, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Epstein, ‘I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy, He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.’ Just yesterday, it was reported that the Department previously reviewed a ‘leather-bound album’ comprised of dozens of letters from Mr. Epstein’s friends in celebration of his 50th birthday in 2003.”
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“The letters were collected by Mr. Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell and included one from President Trump that allegedly ‘contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker … and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist.'”
“Despite tens of thousands of personnel hours reviewing and re-reviewing these Epstein- related records over the course of two weeks in March, it took DOJ more than three additional months to officially find there is ‘no incriminating ‘client list,’ and the memorandum with this finding includes no mention of the whistleblower or additional documents, the existence of which you publicly claimed on February 27.”
Read a copy of Senator Durbin’s letter below or at this link.
Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino have made a mess of the Epstein files.
It’s time to clear it up once and for all for the American people. pic.twitter.com/WQw13gmf1F
— Senate Judiciary Democrats 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryDems) July 18, 2025
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Image via Reuters
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after cutting 1,300 employees last week, is now ordering diplomats to not comment on foreign elections and internal affairs—limiting official communications to congratulating the declared winner.
“Rubio has instructed U.S. diplomats not to comment on the legitimacy or fairness of foreign elections, breaking with decades of American diplomatic practice,” The Daily Beast reports. In a memo, the Secretary stated that U.S. missions will no longer issue election-related statements unless there is a “clear and compelling” foreign policy reason for doing so.
“Diplomatic personnel writing official messages are instead instructed to ask themselves: ‘Would the President say this?'”
The memo, seen by Reuters, says the messages “should be brief, focused on congratulating the winning candidate and, when appropriate, noting shared foreign policy interests.”
READ MORE: ‘He’s So Frustrated’: Johnson Defends Trump Over Explosive Epstein Birthday Letter
The memo makes clear, based on President Trump’s remarks, that the U.S. will “pursue partnerships with countries wherever our strategic interests align,” regardless of democratic values.
U.S. promotion of human rights, democracy, and press freedoms has traditionally been a “core foreign policy objective,” Reuters reported.
“Under Trump, the administration has increasingly moved away from the promotion of democracy and human rights, largely seeing it as interference in another country’s affairs.”
The Washington Post adds that for “decades, the United States has offered judgments on whether elections were conducted in a free or fair matter [sic], a judgment that can have significant impact in countries.”
“Scholars have accused the United States of democratic backsliding since Trump, who refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, returned to office this year.
President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have defended right-wing and far-right political groups, including Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which reportedly has ties to right-wing extremists.
Secretary Rubio in May ignited a “spat” with Germany’s foreign ministry when it “hit back…after he criticized the decision to classify the Alternative for Germany party as a ‘right-wing extremist’ organization,” the Associated Press reported at the time.
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Image via Reuters
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