Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy and American Dad! has pointed the finger at Oprah for giving us “dubious characters” like Dr Phil.
The actor called out the former talk show host on Twitter, for using her platform to promote people like Dr Phil and Dr Oz.
Oprah has done some wonderfully altruistic things with her career, but the use of her platform to amplify the voices of dubious characters rather than legitimate scientists has been a disservice. I hope she will lend her own powerful voice to correct it.https://t.co/h002GVGX3f
— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) April 17, 2020
The tweet came after both Dr Phil and Dr Oz publicly questioned stay-at-home restrictions which had been put in place to help curb the spread of coronavirus throughout the US.
Dr Phil said in an appearance on Fox News that shutting down the economy to stop the pandemic was “dangerous.”
“The fact of the matter is… 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes, 360,000 from swimming pools, but we don’t shut the country down for that. But yet we’re shutting it down for this?”
Neither Dr Phil nor Dr Oz are epidemiologists, while Dr Phil no longer holds a license to practise psychology.
MacFarlane expanded on his criticism of Oprah on talk show Seat at the Table saying that Oprah’s altruism alongside the “elevation” of Dr Phil, Dr Oz and Jenny McCarthy’s anti-vax movement is a “strange dichotomy.”
“This person who has done all of this positive work for the world and yet somehow has gotten caught up in this web of junk science on many occasions,” MacFarlane said.
