oz experiments on animals

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Dr. Mehmet Oz, the 2022 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, campaigns in Malvern, Pa., on Oct. 15, 2022. (AP)

Fact-checking Democrats’ claim about dog deaths in Mehmet Oz’s heart research lab

If your time is short.

Dr. Mehmet Oz’s campaign does not dispute a report that more than 300 dogs were euthanized in a heart research lab he supervised.

We did not find evidence of widespread pain and suffering among the dogs in the Columbia University lab.

The ad’s focus on a dog known as 6313 is misleading. An internal investigation by Columbia said "appropriate veterinary care" was given to this animal.

An ad from a Democratic super PAC accuses Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee in Pennsylvania’s pivotal U.S. Senate race, of animal cruelty.

The 30-second spot is from Senate Majority PAC, which is supporting the Democratic nominee, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. The Nov. 8 contest, which rates as a toss-up, could decide which party controls the Senate, which is split 50-50.

The ad uses video clips, labeled as generic footage of animal testing, that show dogs in cages, and clips of Oz in a lab coat and what appear to be notes from a log.

"She wasn’t given a name, only a number — 6313," the narrator says. "For 29 days, she suffered in Mehmet Oz’s lab, leaking blood, not eating, struggling to breathe. Twenty-nine days of unimaginable pain and suffering, until Oz took her for the last experiment. Just one of 300 dogs killed in Oz’s lab. Mehmet Oz is unfit to be Pennsylvania’s senator."

The words "Dr. Oz’s killing over 300 dogs" appear on the screen, attributed to NBC News. But the words are not from a news report; they are part of a headline on an opinion column written by a professor that was published on NBC’s website.

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Another Senate Majority PAC TV ad made the same claim against Oz. 

Oz’s campaign did not dispute a report that more than 300 dogs were euthanized during experiments between 1989 and 2010 in a Columbia University research lab Oz supervised. "The operations in the research lab were carried out by Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows, and the animals were cared for by veterinarians," Oz campaign spokesperson Brittany Yanick said.

We did not find evidence that dogs were routinely subjected to "unimaginable pain and suffering." An internal investigation by Columbia found that the dog highlighted in the ad, known as 6313, received "adequate veterinary care."

The allegations date back 20 years to lab experiments at Columbia involving dogs and other animals that Oz, a heart surgeon, and other cardiac researchers supervised. 

News reports about the allegations against Oz were published in September and October.  

On Sept. 13, the Philadelphia news outlet Billy Penn reported that Oz was directing a research program at Columbia when it agreed in 2004 to a settlement with the U.S. Agriculture Department to resolve animal abuse claims. 

The three-page settlement agreement , which did not mention Oz, fined Columbia $2,000. 

The agreement was based on an internal investigation by Columbia that was spurred by allegations from a whistleblower in the lab, Catherine Dell’Orto. 

Dell’Orto told PolitiFact she does not know whether the 300 figure is accurate, but that the number of dogs euthanized does not signal animal abuse. 

Dell’Orto said Oz was responsible for the tests conducted in his lab. She said dogs suffering pain is part of lab testing, but that the lab Oz oversaw did not design tests to limit suffering and caused suffering by waiting unnecessarily long to euthanize some dogs.

Dell’Orto told Billy Penn the experiments were meant to "model human cardiac failure" and to assess treatments. 

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Logs showed that puppies were not properly sedated before being euthanized and that an outdated euthanasia solution was used. Also, paperwork did not show that a dog exercise plan was approved by the attending veterinarian.

Oz’s campaign provided to PolitiFact the 22-page internal investigation report from Columbia, which covered Oz and other researchers. The report said that under Oz’s supervision,"appropriate veterinary care" was given to dog 6313, and that "inadequate or questionable veterinary care" was given to two other dogs. The report said lab records did not say why the two other dogs were kept alive — one for two days and the other for nearly a month — after being paralyzed. 

The references in the ad to dog 6313 leaking blood and struggling to breathe were from a summary published by the advocacy group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Billy Penn reported that before the settlement, PETA had complained of abuse of baboons and dogs at Columbia after being contacted by Dell’Orto.

In October, the news and cultural commentary website Jezebel reported that, based on studies in academic journals Oz published  from 1989 to 2010, experiments Oz supervised resulted in the deaths of at least 329 dogs. 

Oz’s campaign said Oz "never abused any animals" and noted that the whistleblower said Oz was not involved in euthanizing dogs.

Senate Majority PAC said a dog endured "unimaginable pain and suffering" during heart research experiments, "just one of 300 killed in (Dr. Mehmet) Oz’s lab." 

The ad’s focus on a dog known as 6313 is misleading. An internal investigation by Columbia University said "appropriate veterinary care" was given to this animal, which suffered loss of blood and difficulty breathing. The investigation said lab records did not say why two other dogs in Oz’s experiments were kept alive, one for two days and one for three weeks, after being paralyzed. 

On the bigger issue of dog deaths, Oz’s campaign did not dispute a published report that more than 300 dogs were euthanized during experiments in a Columbia research lab Oz supervised from 1989 to 2010. The campaign said other researchers conducted the tests and provided veterinary care in the lab.

The ad’s claim is partially accurate but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True.

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Our Sources

Twitter, Jacob Rubashkin tweet , Oct. 11, 2022 

Email, Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Veronica Yoo, Oct. 14, 2022

Email, Mehmet Oz campaign spokesperson Brittany Yanick, Oct. 14, 2022

Interview, Catherine Dell’Orto, Oct. 17, 2022

Columbia University, letter to U.S. Agriculture Department, April 22, 2003

Politico, "New ads attack Mehmet Oz for animal abuse," Oct. 12, 2022

Fox News, "Dem super PAC targets Oz with attack ads based on 'puppy killer' claims," Oct. 12, 2022

CNN, "Top Democratic super PAC to air ads on animal cruelty accusations against Oz," Oct. 11, 2022

BillyPenn, "The facts about the animal abuse allegations surrounding Senate candidate Mehmet Oz," Sept. 13, 2022

Internet Archive, U.S. Agriculture Department-Columbia University settlement agreement , May 12, 2004

Internet Archive, PETA "Oz Dog # 6313" post , accessed Oct. 16, 2022 

Jezebel, "Dr. Oz’s Scientific Experiments Killed Over 300 Dogs, Entire Litter of Puppies," Oct. 3, 2022

Internet Archive, PETA letter to U.S. Agriculture Department , Nov. 30, 2004

Philadelphia Inquirer, "Mehmet Oz is facing accusations of animal abuse tied to his medical research. Here’s what you need to know," updated Oct. 4, 2022 

NBC News, "We need to ban animal testing. Dr. Oz’s killing over 300 dogs is a perfect example of why," Oct. 3, 2022

People, "Fact Check: Was Dr. Oz Responsible for Cruelly Experimenting on Dogs?" , Oct. 4, 2022

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Fact Check: Was Dr. Oz Responsible for Cruelly Experimenting on Dogs?

Allegations have circulated implicating Oz in the cruel treatment of animals at Columbia University. PEOPLE talked to a former Columbia employee and sifted through reports to clarify his role

Diane Herbst is a reporter at PEOPLE.

Dr. Mehmet Oz — the TV personality turned Pennsylvania Republican candidate for U.S. Senate — is once again making headlines, this time for resurfaced claims that he experimented on dogs while a practicing heart surgeon at Columbia University.

On Monday, Jezebel reported the allegation that Oz oversaw medical research in which dogs were abused and killed for studies published between 1989 and 2010. After the Jezebel article was published, Oz's opponent in the Pennsylvania Senate race — Democrat John Fetterman — tweeted a link to the piece with the comment, "BREAKING: Dr. Oz is a puppy killer."

But is there evidence to support claims that Oz was, as the Jezebel article states, involved in research that "inflicted significant suffering" on animals used in experiments?

PEOPLE spoke with veterinarian Catherine Dell'Orto, who says that within weeks of her start as a post-doctoral fellow in the research labs at Columbia's Institute of Comparative Medicine in July 2001, she was horrified by what she saw.

Dell'Orto tells PEOPLE she witnessed the inhumane treatment of dogs in lab experiments investigating aspects of heart function over which Oz served in the role of "principal investigator" — including leaving dogs in pain and paralyzed for weeks, with no discernible research benefit, before they were euthanized or died.

"When someone makes the choice to use an animal in a research experiment they should be 100 percent committed to reducing any suffering that animal will experience," says Dell'Orto. "And I did not see that happening with Oz. I saw the opposite."

Dell'Orto — who says she quickly raised her concerns with a senior veterinarian — did not see Oz in the labs performing any of the dog experiments, which she says were directly conducted instead by Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows.

When PEOPLE reached out to Oz's Senate campaign team for comment, spokesperson Brittany Yannick said in an email: "Dr. Oz was not personally involved in these incidents and to say otherwise is a lie. His name was on some forms due to his role within the Department of Surgery."

Columbia's website says that when one is named principal investigator of a research study, he or she "has overall responsibility for safety and compliance in his or her laboratory."

Dell'Orto said some principal investigators actually did come into the lab and directly oversee their animals' care, putting themselves in a position to ensure minimal suffering. With Oz, she says, "There were no endpoints. What I saw was abuse."

Dell'Orto says she has no personal knowledge to support online claims that research puppies cried out in pain as they were killed with no anesthesia. She says another lab worker, a veterinary technician whom she identified by name, claimed to have witnessed this, though PEOPLE has been unable to get in contact with the person alleged to be behind these claims.

It is that veterinary technician's account, says Dell'Orto, which PETA relied upon in a letter the group allegedly wrote to the USDA in 2003 . That letter recounted a complaint, from an unidentified whistle blower, that "a litter of fully conscious puppies" was placed in a plastic bag and killed with expired euthanasia medication injected directly into their hearts, and that the puppies "cried out as they received the IC injection" because it was done without any prior pain killer.

But Oz himself is not mentioned in this letter, nor is he mentioned in the USDA's $2,000 settlement agreement with Columbia in 2004 — a settlement which explicitly states that Columbia neither admits nor denies the USDA's allegation.

"The puppies killed in the bag were killed by a vet tech," not by Oz, Dell'Orto tells PEOPLE, noting she does not know if the puppies were part of an Oz-led study or one led by another principal investigator.

"But," she says, "there are a lot of valid things he did wrong."

During the period of time that Dell'Orto says she raised questions about the school's treatment of research animals, Oz was a cardiothoracic surgeon and Columbia University professor of surgery, as well as director of the Cardiovascular Institute at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Dell'Orto tells PEOPLE that before she resigned in February of 2003, she saw about 30 dogs upon whom research was performed as part of procedures for which Oz was principal investigator.

She says she saw some of these dogs' chests opened so that pacemakers could be inserted into their hearts, "pacing them at a very high rate to induce heart failure."

Then, she says, "they were doing different treatments to see what worked."

"I didn't think it was good science," Dell'Orto says. "I didn't think the results that came from such experiments were worthy of adding to the scientific database. It was so poorly done."

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She says she also saw some of these dogs left paralyzed for days or weeks, apparently suffering and in pain before death via euthanasia. They'd lose more than 20% of their body weight and were left struggling to breathe, she says, adding that in her opinion, the study "was not designed" to promptly euthanize dogs at the point that the experiments became inhumane.

PEOPLE asked Oz's campaign team to respond to claims that the experiments for which he was principal investigator were conducted poorly and in many cases inhumane. Yannick, his spokesperson, responded: "While Dr. Oz was busy operating on human lives, researchers and veterinarians were in the Columbia University research labs finding new approaches to treat patients with atrial fibrillation which impacts millions of Americans."

She continued: "Dr. Oz was not in the operating room when the operations were done, he wasn't present during the post-op treatments, no one alerted him of the problem until after the cases were finished and he does not condone the mistreatment of animals."

Back at Columbia, Dell'Orto says she took her concerns — backed up with photocopies she made of three dogs' lab records with Oz as P.I. — to the administrator for the university's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee in October of 2002. (She says thedetail of the lab records she provided are now available online as part of a PETA site titled "Columbia University Cruelty.") These included dogs in Oz-led research. With one, Dell'Orto says she saw that from two days after painful surgery till the pup was euthanized, the dog, labeled 6269, was vomiting and unable to stand up, with bloody urine. Another dog was kept alive for 29 days post-operatively despite being paralyzed and with no clear research benefit, says Dell'Orto.

"Horrible things that went on," she says. "I mean, they just were not cared for properly. They were not given proper pain medications."

Columbia set up a committee to investigate these concerns as well as other concerns she had about stroke research on baboons.

Dell'Orto then contacted the USDA, which oversees compliance with the Animal Welfare Act. And to make sure that the issue stayed at the forefront, she says she also contacted PETA.

By February 2003, Dell'Orto says she quit her job at Columbia. "I was shunned at that point," she says, "and I thought I could be more productive with a different job."

She worked for a small animal clinic in Ardsley, New York, and a year later moved to Tucson, Arizona, where she still lives, working with horses.

But her complaint led to several findings. An April 22, 2003, report by Columbia — which was obtained by PEOPLE — found that two of the three dogs used in Oz's research, for which Dell'Orto had provided records, received "inadequate or questionable veterinary care."

One dog — whose chest was opened (called a sternotomy) and received radiofrequency ablation on July 17, 2002 — developed paralysis, lethargy, vomiting and renal failure, suffering for a week. But "the records do not show why the animal was kept alive" until euthanized a week later, on July 24.

Another dog, which underwent the same procedure on July 11, 2002, "was in chronic distress (paralyzed in hindquarters)" but kept alive for 29 days until euthanized.

"The records did not contain a rationale for keeping the animal alive in a paralyzed condition for a prolonged period of time," the investigative committee wrote.

Related Articles

We need to ban animal testing. Dr. Oz’s killing over 300 dogs is a perfect example of why.

On Monday, Jezebel reported that from 1989 to 2010, research by Dr. Mehmet Oz — the television personality and Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania — inflicted suffering on and killed over 300 dogs, 31 pigs and 661 rabbits and rodents. It was during Oz’s time as a principal investigator at a Columbia University lab. 

Ironically, the discovery comes on the heels of the Senate’s unanimously passing the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 last week. The measure would eliminate a federal mandate in the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requiring animal testing for new drugs. Drug developers would be permitted to use alternative methods to test for safety if this reform becomes law. That’s good news, but there should be a bill that ends animal testing altogether. Perhaps the latest news about Oz, playing out on the national stage, will hammer that point home.

Defenders of animal testing often argue that while it may be imperfect, it is our only option for advancing human medicine. This view neglects how differences in the bodies of species can lead to misleading information.

For context, the Humane Society estimates that over 50 million animals are used in laboratory experiments every year in the U.S. The Animal Welfare Act minimally protects some species. Still, as is alleged with Oz, violations routinely occur , and most animals tested are not covered . 

In these experiments, animals are exposed to toxic chemicals or diseases and imprisoned in barren cages . They are usually killed after experiments are completed.

Despite these grim realities, advocates of testing on animals argue that it is critical for medical developments and treatments in humans. To bolster their position, proponents of animal testing point to important discoveries throughout history in which animal research was involved. For example, in 1921, researchers Frederick G. Banting, Charles Best and John Macleod demonstrated that we could treat diabetes with insulin by performing experiments on laboratory dogs who had their pancreatic ducts tied; in 1939, a group of scientists discovered the antibiotic effect of Penicillium by infecting mice with a virulent strain of Streptococcus and then treating half of them with the Penicillium mold; in 1953, Jonas Salk produced the first inactivated polio vaccine using a virus grown on monkey kidney cells.

Moreover, those in favor of animal experimentation argue that substances that have not been first tested on animals at all or thoroughly enough pose threats to humans. One purported cautionary development occurred in the late 1950s and the early 1960s with thalidomide . Originally designed to be a sedative, it was found to have other healing effects. This “ wonder drug “ was found to help pregnant women with the symptoms of morning sickness. However, thalidomide had not been tested on pregnant animals .

Thousands of pregnant women took the drug internationally (it was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but as many as 20,000 people in the U.S. were given the drug as part of a clinical trial, according to a New York Times report ).

A deeper dive into these claims reveals that animal testing is not all it is cracked up to be and that it may actually be hindering medical progress.

Sadly, it turned out that thalidomide can cause major birth defects, specifically in babies’ limbs, bones, ears, eyes and hearts , and can also lead to pregnancy loss or infant death. The drug was taken off the market, but the damage was done. According to one report , an estimated 24,000 babies were born with thalidomide-induced malformations worldwide, and 123,000 stillbirths and miscarriages were caused by the drug. Reflecting on this tragedy, one scientist noted that “had there been more extensive testing on laboratory animals before the drug was launched, the disaster could have been avoided.”

But a deeper dive into these claims reveals that animal testing is not all it is cracked up to be and that it may actually be hindering medical progress.

It is worth noting at the outset that a lot of experiments involving the use of animals are so poorly designed that their results are meaningless. One analysis found that among 2,671 papers from 1992 to 2011 that reported trials in animals, randomization was not reported in 75% of them, blinding was absent in 70%, and fewer than 1% and 12% had sample-size calculations and conflict of interest statements, respectively — all factors that can lead to inaccurate results. 

And even when the studies are designed reasonably well, the results do not usually hold up in humans. A 2004 FDA report found that 92% of drugs that pass the animal testing stage are ultimately abandoned .

So why, then, does animal experimentation often accompany breakthroughs in medicine? According to Dr. John J. Pippin , a former animal experimenter who is now the director of academic affairs at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a research and advocacy organization that promotes alternatives to animal research, it is essentially chance: “It may reasonably be stated that most medical advances have included animal experimental use; for decades, this has been the default approach. But it has not been demonstrated that such animal use has been essential or even reliable for medical advancement.”

Defenders of animal testing often argue that while it may be imperfect, it is our only option for advancing human medicine. This view neglects how differences in the bodies of species can lead to misleading information — which can be worse than no information. In addition, it ignores the reality of alternatives already available that are based on human biology and have the potential to increase research relevance and deliver more reliable risk assessments while maintaining existing safety levels. 

One of these breakthrough technologies is advanced data computing. A 2018 Johns Hopkins study suggested that scientists could use large databases of known chemicals to predict a new chemical’s toxic properties better than tests on animals.

Want more articles like this? Follow THINK on Instagram to get updates on the week’s most important political analysis  

Another viable alternative is organs-on-a-chip , or “organoids,” miniature tissues and organs in-vitro that enable modeling of human physiology and disease. Lung, liver, kidney, gut, skin, brain, heart and other organ chips have all been developed . They present many game-changing possibilities, including simulating particular diseases, such as cancer or heart disease, and providing researchers with a cost-effective way to evaluate the impacts of drugs in real time.

Other viable in-vitro methods include the use of “ biobanks ,” biological samples often left over from clinical procedures, such as surgery, or from dead bodies; technologies that use stem cells ; and even 3D printing . While some of these promising technologies are in their infancy, imagine what could be accomplished if the billions of dollars wasted on animal testing were allocated toward further advancing them.

Perhaps for all of these reasons, a 2018 Pew Research Center poll found that a growing majority of Americans oppose using animals in experiments. But for this projected boom in non-animal testing methods to catch up with public opinion, funding and regulatory bodies will need to explore a shift in focus, going well beyond the FDA Modernization Act 2.0. The fate of both animal and human life depends on it.

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Brian Kateman is a co-founder and the president of the  Reducetarian Foundation , a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing consumption of meat, eggs and dairy to create a healthy, sustainable and compassionate world. He is the author of “ Meat Me Halfway ” — inspired by a documentary of the same name — and the editor of “The Reducetarian Cookbook” and “The Reducetarian Solution.” He is an adjunct professor of environmental science and sustainability at Kean University and teaches environmental communications at Fordham University.

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The facts about the animal abuse allegations surrounding Senate candidate Mehmet Oz

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Read the news of the day in less than 10 minutes — not that we’re counting.

Rumors that U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz abused puppies during his time at Columbia University have been rampant lately on social media.

The claim almost sounds made up — as if detractors wanted to find the least defensible thing about the Republican nominee for senator from Pennsylvania. But is it valid? Like many internet memes, there appears to be some truth mixed with possible exaggeration or assumption.

Mehmet Oz was investigated & fined for his sick & abusive experiments on dogs. Among his violations, he pumped injections into puppies hearts without sedation. People noted the puppies screams could be heard through closed doors, then he left them dead in a plastic garbage bag. — Kyla in the Burgh 🏴‍☠️🔥 (@KylaInTheBurgh) September 9, 2022

Allegations that spread over the past few days, like a now viral tweet that explicitly states Oz himself “pumped injections into puppies hearts without sedation” are incorrect. No documents from the time corroborate the claim, and neither do people who were there.

“It wasn’t him that did the euthanasia of the puppies,” Catherine Dell’Orto, then a postdoctoral veterinary fellow at Columbia, told Billy Penn. Dell’Orto was the one who blew the whistle on studies that she says “were very badly done.”

The Senate candidate was in fact the director of a research program at Columbia when it agreed to settle animal abuse claims with the USDA.

Dell’Orto believes the settlement amount was too small — just $2,000 — and based on a faulty internal review. She said her claims about the abuse of dogs were ignored, both by the USDA and Sulli Popilskis, the head veterinarian involved in the research.

Popilskis, now at the City University of New York, told Billy Penn he didn’t recall the details of the allegations.

“It’s a very unfortunate issue, it’s easy to publish anything and have it spread,” he said, in regard to the current social media uproar. He added that he has the “greatest respect” for Oz as a cardiovascular surgeon, saying Oz has “always been on the frontline of advancing [heart health].”

The Oz campaign did not respond to a request for comment. So what’s the full story? Here’s what we know.

What was going on at Columbia?

In 2002, when Oz was the director of the Cardiovascular Institute at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Dell’Orto went public with allegations of animal mistreatment in medical research testing, and activism nonprofit People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) waged a public campaign.

The primary allegation was abuse towards primates, according to the now-archived website columbiacruelty.com and a later student newspaper op-ed by a PETA-affiliated doctor recounting the circumstance. This fits with the recollection of Dell’Orto, the post doc at the time.

But it was the treatment of puppies that inserted Oz into the controversy. The 62-year-old first gained renown as a cardiovascular surgeon, and has contributed to multiple studies on cardiac function in dogs .

At Columbia, the experiments in question were meant to “model human cardiac failure,” per Dell’Orto. The dogs’ hearts were paced quickly for “six to eight weeks,” and then various treatments attempted to bring them back to proper heart function.

“There was no [humane] endpoint, major, multiple survival surgeries for these dogs. They suffered quite a bit prior to death, and a lot of them were just found dead in the cages,” Dell’Orto said.

“He was the principal investigator on these experiments,” she said of Oz.

After trying to bring attention to the issue through internal channels at Columbia and then the USDA, Dell’Orto said, she contacted PETA in 2002. She first told them about the treatment of macaques and baboons — and followed up later with details about the pups.

A 2003 letter from Mary Beth Sweetland, then director of PETA’s Research & Investigations Department, describes an incident involving a number of puppies:

“According to the complainant, a litter of fully conscious puppies was placed in a plastic bag and killed with an intracardiac (IC) injection of expired Beuthanasia-D…. According to the complainant, the puppies cried out as they received the IC injection because it is, of course, very painful and should not be done without first anesthetizing the animals.”

Oz is not mentioned in a series of these letters until after the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Columbia reached a settlement for $2,000 in the spring of 2004.

The settlement was based on an internal investigation by Columbia’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. The USDA accepted their findings, but Dell’Orto believes the review itself was faulty.

“That internal review had investigators on the committee that were also complicit in this type of poorly designed, cruel animal experimentation,” she recalled.

The committee’s findings, listed in the settlement agreement, don’t all pertain to dogs. The ones that do are dated October 2003:

• “Pups whelped from a dog being used in a research study were euthanised with outdated euthanasia solution; drug use logs indicate the pups were not properly sedated at the time as claimed by person administering euthanasia.”
• “Dog exercise plan does not provide evidence that plan is approved by the attending veterinarian.”

Documented breaks from protocol found in a November 2003 review include “the improper administration of an injectable euthanasia agent.” This violation didn’t explicitly mention dogs, but the misuse of euthanasia wasn’t alleged in the case of the primates — their reported abuse came from the conditions of their containment and experimental practices, some of which they were not properly anesthesized for.

Oz’s culpability, and the fallout

Administering euthanasia is rarely, if ever, left to department leaders or directors like Oz was at the time, Dell’Orto acknowledged. But she still feels he’s culpable.

“When your name is on the experiment, and the way the experiment is designed inflicts such cruelty to these animals, by design, there’s a problem,” she said.

Another letter from then-PETA investigations director Sweetland that followed the USDA settlement in the fall of 2004 does call out the current Senate candidate by name.

“Dr. Oz … is responsible for the extreme suffering endured by dogs used in his heart experiments,” the letter states. “Columbia’s IACUC appears to have approved these highly invasive and stressful experiments without demanding a humane endpoint for the animals.”

In the letter, Sweetland recaps the last 29 days in the life of a dog used in one of Oz’s experiments, based on what she describes as 6,313 records from the dog’s file. After weeks of improper eating, urination, bowel movements, and wound care, the last day is described.

“Day 29: Does not want to come out of cage, right hind leg swollen; catheter out; chewed through [tube], not eating, breathing very labored, no stool, tried to feed-will not eat anything; p.m. [Mehmet Oz] took for last experiment” (brackets PETA’s).

The USDA did not follow up on the later allegations from 2004, and neither did Columbia’s internal review.

According to a letter published by PETA, when Dell’Orto took her worries to then-head veterinarian Popilskis, replied “‘You still don’t understand do you? It’s all political.’”

The letter explains that “Dell’Orto understood this to mean that Oz could do whatever he wanted without being questioned because of his celebrity status.”

Asked about this by Billy Penn, Popilski noted that PETA is not a reliable source of information. The organization does have a reputation for being overzealous, if not dishonest , in its claims. But Dell’Orto was impressed with their professionalism when she worked with them.

“I didn’t find them lying about anything. Everything I had documentation [on], what I said, that is pretty much what they regurgitated and tried to get into the news.”

The result of the fairly light USDA settlement fine may have had a more subtle impact, Dell’Orto said: affecting future research grants for Oz: “I believe it was the NIH [National Institutes of Health] that stopped funding a lot of Dr. Oz’s work.”

Jordan Levy

Jordan Levy is a general assignment reporter at Billy Penn, always aiming to help Philadelphians share their stories. Formerly, he has worked at Document Journal, n+1 Magazine, and The New Republic. He... More by Jordan Levy

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The Many Controversies Around Dr. Oz and His Show, Explained

Updated Oct. 6 2022, 3:52 p.m. ET

In the world of medicine, there are few figures more controversial than Dr. Mehmet Oz. His show, which is just called Dr. Oz , has faced several waves of backlash over its years on the air, but it certainly still has plenty of ardent fans. Even so, the many controversies the show has generated have only made Dr. Oz more and more of a lightning rod. 

Let's break down the biggest controversies around Dr. Oz.

Over his long career, the most consistent issue that viewers have taken with Dr. Oz is that much of the information he provides is incorrect or not based on science. In 2015, a huge number of doctors signed a letter to Columbia University asking the university to remove Dr. Oz from their faculty. The letter claimed that members of the public were being "misled and endangered" by the things that he said on the show. 

They also accused Dr. Oz of showing "an egregious lack of integrity" and promoting "quack treatment cures in the interest of personal financial gain." 

In a delayed response to the letter, Dr. Oz told NBC News that his show is "not a medical show." Instead, he said the show's goal was to discuss the "good life." Given the name of the show, though, it's understandable to think that some viewers might be confused. 

Dr. Oz also caused controversy over his comments about COVID-19.

In addition to the many articles that have been published suggesting that Dr. Oz promotes pseudoscience, the TV host faced another wave of controversy when he began discussing the coronavirus in early 2020. He was one of the early proponents of hydroxychloroquine, a drug some thought may be effective against the disease but ultimately wasn't. He also appeared on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News in April, arguing that reopening schools might be worth the additional deaths it would cause. 

Dr. Oz was criticized so severely in part because some believed the President Trump was taking a lot of his information about the disease from Dr. Oz's discussions of it. Although he was far from the only medical professional to be incorrect about the virus in the early days of the pandemic, his public comments may have done damage to the overall US response to the disease. 

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dr. Oz (@dr_oz)

Dr. Oz's scientific experiments resulted in the deaths of more than 300 dogs.

In October of 2022, Jezebel reported that over the course of 75 studies published between 1989 and 2010, Dr. Oz's research involved conducting experiments on more than 1,000 live animals. Sadly, many of those animals died, including at least 329 dogs, 31 pigs, and 661 rabbits and rodents.

Back in the early 2000s, a veterinarian named Catherine Dell’Orto testified that Dr. Oz's team had inflicted extensive suffering on the dogs they were experimenting upon, including multiple infractions against the Animal Welfare Act. The law requires researchers to use pain-relieving medications, to avoid multiple experiments on the same animal, and to euthanize animals rather than leaving them to suffer. Dell'Orto claimed that Dr. Oz's team failed to follow each of these edicts, and shared some truly horrifying stories of how the animals in his team's care were mistreated.

The more I learn about how Dr. Oz’s research team tortured and killed 329 dogs and puppies under his direction, the more upset I get. Who agrees this man is unfit to hold ANY elected office? ✋ — Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) October 12, 2022

Dr. Oz's claims were found to be false much of the time.

A study published in 2014 suggested that just 46 percent of Dr. Oz's were supported by firm science. Those results were based on the vigorous fact-checking of 80 episodes of the series, which seemed to reveal that Dr. Oz makes misleading or untrue claims on his show quite frequently.

The controversies around Dr. Oz's pseudoscience are trending yet again because he is set to become the latest temporary host of Jeopardy! . Given his apparent propensity for misleading viewers, those competing on the show while he's hosting it should hope that he provides the actual answers to the clues that he's reading off instead of just making something up. 

Dr. Oz's Family Has Played an Integral Role in His Personal Life

What Are Dr. Oz's Political Views? The Talk Show Host Has Voiced Some Wild Opinions

Dr. Oz Says He Feels Guilty About His Mom's Alzheimer's Diagnosis

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Investigation finds research led by Penn graduate Dr. Oz to have killed over 300 dogs

Mehmet Oz — better known as TV personality Dr. Oz, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania — was found to be the “principal investigator” in a series of studies that killed more than 300 dogs. 

Jezebel' s investigation reviewed 75 studies conducted at the Columbia University Institute of Comparative Medicine labs, where Oz, a 1986 Perelman and Wharton graduate, had “full scientific, administrative, and fiscal responsibility for the conduct” of the research. 

Dogs, pigs, and calves were among the “at least 1,027 live animal subjects.” In addition to the 329 dogs, 31 pigs and 661 rabbits and rodents were killed.

Oz is a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon and was once the vice chair of Columbia’s Department of Surgery, although the university appeared to cut ties with him in January.

Dr. Oz will face Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in November’s Senate general election

Penn graduate Dr. Oz announces candidacy for Pennsylvania's Senate seat

Billy Penn conducted a recent investigation into Oz’s time at Columbia, as well as the fallout over the experiments. The investigation surrounded a claim from 2002, when Oz was the director of the Cardiovascular Institute at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. 

Catherine Dell’Orto, a veterinarian at the time, testified that Oz’s team violated the Animal Welfare Act by waiting two days to euthanize a dog that suffered from “lethargy, vomiting, paralysis and kidney failure.” 

Dell’Orto also said that one study allegedly killed a litter of puppies after they received an unsedated direct injection of expired drugs to their hearts. After they were killed, Jezebel reports, “the puppies were allegedly left in a garbage bag with living puppies who were their littermates.”

Dr. Oz has a lengthy history of controversy. Questions surrounding his medical legitimacy came to a head in 2015, when a group of 10 physicians led by Henry Miller of Stanford University called for Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons to fire him. 

This appeal came months after he appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance and Data Security in June 2014, facing scrutiny for his history of endorsing “miracle” weight loss products.

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Despite his track record , Oz has participated in politics before. In 2018, former President Donald Trump appointed Oz to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. 

This fall, he will face Democratic candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in the race for Pennsylvania’s open seat in the U.S. Senate. Fetterman, who is known for his social media presence , wrote on Twitter : “BREAKING: Dr. Oz is a puppy killer.” As election day approaches, the most recent polls show Fetterman up 5.8 points. 

Oz has not yet commented on these allegations.

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