Originally published November 10 2009
Conflicts of interest? Dr. Mehmet Oz owns 150,000 option shares in vaccine technology company
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) Dr. Mehmet Oz is a huge promoter of vaccines. He's been on television reinforcing fear about H1N1 swine flu and telling everyone to get vaccinated. But what he didn't tell his viewing audience is that he holds 150,000 option shares in a vaccine company that could earn him millions of dollars in profits as the stock price rises. It is in Dr. Oz's own financial interest, in other words, to hype up vaccines and get more people taking them so that his own financial investments rise in value.
Evidence describing these facts was delivered to NaturalNews by a private investigator named Joseph Culligan (http://webofdeception.com/oprah.html#oz). That evidence includes an SEC document detailing how Dr. Oz. bought options on stocks for SIGA Technologies in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. SIGA Technologies (stock symbol SIGA) is a vaccine technology company with many advanced developments whose success depends on the widespread adoption of vaccines. According to SEC documents, Dr. Mehmet Oz. currently holds 150,000 option shares on SIGA Technologies, purchased for as little as $1.35 back in 2005.
At the time of this writing, SIGA Technologies is trading at $7.10, making those options bought in 2005 worth $5.75 in profits today. If all the 150,000 options purchased by Dr. Oz. were exercised today, they would be worth roughly $180,000 in profits (they were bought at different prices, not all at $1.35). This is all revealed in what the SEC website calls an "insider transaction" document (link below).
These options won't expire until the years 2015 - 2019, and the higher the stock price of SIGA gets before then, the more profit can be realized when these options are cashed out. You can see the 2019 expiration date in this "insider transaction" form: http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1010086/0...
If the stock price of SIGA Technologies could be pumped up even more -- say, from someone hyping up vaccines in front of a national audience -- these options could mathematically be worth millions of dollars. Just to clarify, by the way, SIGA Technologies doesn't currently manufacture a vaccine for H1N1 swine flu. It focuses on future vaccine technologies that could be applied to many different vaccines down the road.
Dr. Oz. isn't merely a holder of SIGA stock options, by the way: He's on the Board of Directors! As SIGA's own website explains, Dr. Oz has served on the board since 2001 and continues his role there today. This brings up the obvious question:
Is it right for someone talking about whether vaccines are safe on television to also be carrying stock options and serving on the board of directors of a vaccine company at the same time?
Just to make things a little more interesting, SIGA Technologies recently received a $3 million grant in taxpayer dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The purpose of the grant money? To fund the study of a chemical adjunct named ST-246 to be used in future vaccines. So taxpayer money is now being used to fund a vaccine technology company whose stock price increases will financially benefit the very celebrity doctor who is hyping up vaccines to a national audience.
Something sounds fishy here...
Conflict of interest?
To my knowledge, Dr. Oz. has never disclosed to his viewing audience the fact that he owns 150,000 option shares of SIGA Technologies. And yet, with an audience of millions, Dr. Oz has continued to beat the drum of the vaccine industry, urging people to get vaccinated while implying that vaccines protect people from swine flu (even though there is absolutely no scientific evidence to back up that claim).
Here's a link to the SEC document detailing Dr. Oz's ownership of these 150,000 option shares:
http://sec.gov/cgi-bin/own-disp?action=getow...
The current value of SIGA shares can be verified here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SIGA
Information about SIGA Technologies and their vaccine technology can be found on their website:
http://www.siga.com/index.php?ID=2
The press release announcing SIGA's receipt of $3 million from the NIH is available here:
http://www.siga.com/?ID=120
The RealAge Big Pharma front group
In addition to holding stock options in a vaccine technology company, Dr. Oz. is also a front man for the RealAge website, a sort of "health front group" for the pharmaceutical industry that uses information provided by RealAge members to solicit consumers with pro-pharma marketing message targeted by age or health condition.
Corporate sponsors of RealAge include most of the major drug companies and their most profitable pharmaceutical products such as Adderall, Ambien and Celebrex. The companies sponsoring RealAge include GlaxoSmithKline, Genentech, Wyeth and many others. RealAge is essentially a marketing platform for Big Pharma, disguised to look like a consumer health information service.
The New York Times calls RealAge "a window for drug makers" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/technology...) and explains, "The test has received widespread publicity because of its affiliation with Dr. Mehmet Oz."
This NY Times article goes on to explain how the RealAge scheme operates:
People come to the site, then provide an e-mail address to take [the RealAge test]. They are asked throughout the test if they would like a free RealAge membership. If people answer yes to any of the prompts, they become RealAge members, and their test results go into a marketing database.
RealAge allows drug companies to send e-mail messages based on those test results. It acts as a clearinghouse for drug companies, including Pfizer, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, allowing them to use almost any combination of answers from the test to find people to market to, including whether someone is taking antidepressants, how sexually active they are and even if their marriage is happy.
RealAge sends the selected recipients a series of e-mail messages about a condition they might have, usually sponsored by a drug company that sells a medication for that condition.
The RealAge ads seen all over the internet do not openly disclose that taking the RealAge test gets you signed up to be solicited by Big Pharma for medication advertisements. Dr. Oz's continued promotion of this service has exposed tens of millions of health consumers to this deceptive marketing front for Big Pharma.
How much has Dr. Oz earned from his affiliation with RealAge? He isn't saying.
Front man for Big Pharma?
In my view, Dr. Mehmet Oz. is a front man for Big Pharma and the vaccine industry. He's pushing vaccines for his own personal financial gain while championing one of the largest internet Big Pharma marketing scams yet concocted.
Dr. Oz. stands to profit millions of dollars from helping creating demand for vaccines, and yet he does not disclose to his audience this huge, blatant conflict of interest. Sadly, by catapulting his career from her own show, Oprah has inadvertently unleashed a vaccine pusher onto the general public and given him influence over millions of people who may now be corralled into services like RealAge that seek to sell more drugs to unsuspecting consumers.
I respect Oprah. She's an amazing achiever. But I don't respect all the wannabe celebrity leeches who use her to launch their own careers and then exploit their newfound popularity for financial gain at the expense of the public.
Shame on Dr. Oz. for his financial conflicts of interest and his strong affiliation with the deadly pharmaceutical industry. Through his actions, Dr. Oz. has aligned himself with precisely the evil corporations that are destroying health in America today. Does the man have no shame?
He may not have any shame, but he does have 150,000 stock options that could be worth millions in the years ahead.
Additional sources:
Joseph Culligan is more than just a private investigator; he's also an author. His book When In Doubt, Check Him Out is available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/When-Doubt-Check-Him-O...
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