Finally, someone stands up to Oprah

The following is an email I wrote to my dad that I thought might be interesting to release to the public. Enjoy.

Dad-

Finally someone stands up to Oprah.
In a recent Newsweek article written entitled Live Your Best Life Ever!, Weston Kosova. digs into some of the scams and dangerous practices prescribed by Oprah and her guests on her show. Here's a snippet:

"Oprah's audience admires her as much for her failings as her successes. In real life, she has almost nothing in common with most of her viewers. She is an unapproachable billionaire with a private jet and homes around the country who hangs out with movie stars. She is not married and has no children. But television Oprah is a different person. She somehow manages to make herself believable as a down-to-earth everywoman. She is your girlfriend who struggles to control her weight and balance her work and personal life, just like you."

Of course, this was a pretty scathing article, but the late Martin Gardner, author of Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, and the father of the modern skeptical movement, wrote a more complimentary article entitled Oprah Winfrey: Bright (but Gullible) Billionaire. He's a little lighter on the scathe and focuses more on the quackery:

"McCarthy is in the Newsweek article because of her vigorous efforts to convince the world that autism is caused by vaccinations. She has an autistic son, Evan, who she insists became autistic after he was vaccinated for measles and other diseases. In her book Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing, she claims that chelation therapy has helped her son. This therapy, considered quackery by almost all doctors, blames autism on mercury that was once used in vaccines."

Both are interesting, and (hopefully) expose the side of Oprah that's been obscured by her reputation for so many years. I'm concerned that Oprah has been poisoning the minds of millions of people all over the world, including mom's, grandma's and countless other women in our family.
I showed this article to Elena, who has watched Oprah's shows, and even bought into some of her ridiculous claims because she has experts on her show. After reading the Gardner article, Elena was more skeptical that these experts truly had any validity to their claims. Quacks are quacks, regardless of their title or educational pedigree. This shows that there's some hope for the future. After discussing the article with her, I was comforted by the fact that this nonsense will have a hard time propagating into the next generation of Brewingtons.
I don't know how these articles will impact the minds of the committed core of Oprah's viewership. However, I'm glad that there is a voice out there that speaks for reason, science-based medicine, and the rigorous search for truth in a confusing info-saturated world. I'm glad that someone in the mainstream media is able to criticize mainstream figures who are seemingly bulletproof. It's a great gasp of fresh air after being smothered by pseudoscience and new-age BS.


-Derek