'It could be catastrophic': Woman says natural supplement contained hidden painkiller drug
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon best known as the host of TV's Dr. Oz Show after rocketing to fame on Oprah Winfrey's show, is planning to run for Pennsylvania's open U.S. Senate seat as a Republican, according to three people familiar with his plans.
Should Oz run, he would bring his unrivalled name recognition and wealth to a wide-open race that is expected to among the nation's most competitive and could determine control of the Senate in next year's election.
Oz -- a longtime New Jersey resident -- would enter a Republican field that is resetting with an influx of candidates and a new opportunity to appeal to voters loyal to former U.S. President Donald Trump, now that the candidate endorsed by Trump has just exited the race.
Oz, 61, in recent days has told associates and Republicans in Pennsylvania of his plans, according to the three people who spoke to The Associated Press. Two people were told by Oz directly, while the other was briefed on a separate conversation. Two of the people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Montgomery County's GOP chair, Elizabeth Preate Havey, said Oz told her Friday that he will run. Separately, he spoke with Allegheny County's GOP chair, Sam DeMarco, who said Oz did not directly say he will run, but "he left me with no doubt that he is going to be running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania."
Publicly, Oz has only said through a TV show spokesperson that he had received encouragement to run and that he has lived and voted in Pennsylvania since last year.
The announcement could come Tuesday night on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News, which Hannity previewed by saying that Oz would appear on it and that "he has a huge announcement. Hint: think midterm election."
As one of the nation's biggest presidential electoral prizes, Pennsylvania put Democrat Joe Biden over the top in last year's election. His 1 percentage point victory put the swing state back in Democratic hands after Trump won it even more narrowly in 2016.
Oz's resume is dizzying: heart surgeon, author of New York Times bestsellers, Emmy-winning TV show host, radio talk show host, presidential appointee, founder of a national non-profit to educate teens about healthy habits and self-styled ambassador for wellness.
He was appointed by Trump to the presidential Council on Sports, Fitness and Health, guest-hosted the Jeopardy! game show and helped save a dying man at Newark Liberty International Airport last winter.
Oz may have to explain why he isn't running for office in New Jersey, where he has lived for the past two decades before he began voting in Pennsylvania's elections this year by absentee ballot, registered to his in-laws' address in suburban Philadelphia.
His longtime home is above the Hudson River in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, overlooking Manhattan, where he films his TV show and practices medicine. Oz became a household name after gaining fame as a guest on Oprah Winfrey's show before starting his own show in 2009.
Oz's appetite to expand his business portfolio is voracious, with critics saying he often promotes questionable products and medical advice.
He has been dogged by accusations that he is a charlatan selling "quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain," a group of doctors wrote in 2015 in a letter calling for his firing from Columbia University's medical school. He wasn't fired.
Oz began making regular appearances on Fox News after the start of the pandemic, and in the spring of 2020 came under fire for comments suggesting that reopening schools might be worth the extra deaths, because it "may only cost us 2% to 3% in terms of total mortality."
Researchers from the University of Alberta found in 2014 that, of 80 randomly selected recommendations from Oz's shows, often dietary advice, roughly half was unsupported by evidence, or contradicted by it.
In any case, Oz could be part of an influx of Republican candidates who, until recently at least, did not live in Pennsylvania, but, perhaps more importantly, are rich.
As Oz moves to enter the race, a hedge fund CEO who lives in Connecticut, David McCormick, is working his way across Pennsylvania this week meeting with Republican officials in expectation of returning to his native state to run.
The most prominent Republicans already running are conservative commentator Kathy Barnette, real estate investor Jeff Bartos and Carla Sands, Trump's wealthy ambassador to Denmark and fundraiser who has recently returned to her native Pennsylvania after spending most of the past four decades in California.
Of them, none has won elective office before, and only Bartos has run statewide in Pennsylvania, as lieutenant governor on the GOP's losing gubernatorial ticket in 2018.
The Democratic field has been stable since August, and features candidates with far more electoral experience -- although far less personal wealth -- than the Republican field. Their best-known candidates are John Fetterman, the state's lieutenant governor, and U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb of suburban Pittsburgh.
Oz was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a heart surgeon who emigrated from Turkey.
He attended high school in Delaware and Harvard University as a college undergraduate, also playing football there, and served in the Turkish army to maintain his dual citizenship.
Oz's wife is also the daughter of a prominent heart surgeon, and the two met in Philadelphia through their fathers when Oz attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.
------
Tucker reported from Washington.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
The World Health Organization is likely to issue a wider warning about contaminated Johnson and Johnson-made children's cough syrup found in Nigeria last week, it said in an email.
Police have released video footage of a dramatic takedown of a group of teens wanted in connection with an attempted carjacking in Markham earlier this month.
Canada called for 'all parties' to de-escalate rising tensions in the Mideast following an apparent Israeli drone attack against Iran overnight.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time on what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.