Dr. Oz wasn’t attacked on TV for talking about a new blood pressure treatment

A video purports to show Dr. Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor and 2022 U.S. Senate candidate, being attacked on live television for promoting a new blood pressure treatment.

A March 22 Facebook video shows two men fighting on a live show followed by video showing Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. "An attempt on the life of a doctor on the air," a voice that sounds like Ingraham’s says. "The Dr. Oz came to tell about a new innovative tool that allows you to clean blood vessels and normalize blood pressure in a few days."

The video cuts to Oz, with several bruises on his face, promoting a product he says will eliminate blood pressure and stroke risk. A chyron on the video reads, "A famous doctor is being gagged over his revolutionary remedy for clearing blood vessels and normalizing blood pressure!"

Two problems: The man being attacked in the video is not Oz; and Oz is not hawking this blood pressure treatment. In fact, last we checked, the link in the video went to an ad for a work jacket, although it was on a website with a url that started "healthinsurancepage.com/products."

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(Screenshot from Facebook)

The fight video is from a 2017 brawl between two journalists that unfolded on a live Polish television after a Polish journalist called a Russian journalist’s grandparents "red fascists." 

The Ingram and Oz videos both have telltale signs of deepfakes, including the audio not syncing with the speaker’s lip movements. And we’ve seen similarly edited video before, also in a baseless claim involving Oz. We searched Google and the Nexis news database but didn’t find a Fox News report of Ingram saying Oz was attacked for his blood pressure treatment. 

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The Oz video is from his 2014 Senate testimony answering questions about his promoting weight loss products as host of "The Dr. Oz Show," which aired from 2009 to 2022. Oz had no bruises on his face during his testimony. (Members of a Senate consumer protection subcommittee chided Oz for making claims about bogus "miracle" diet supplements.)

On his official website, Oz tells people to be aware of companies selling fake products using his "name and likeness – sometimes even using AI to generate fake videos of what looks like me, but isn’t." The disclaimer says the only real videos come from his verified social media accounts.

We rate the claim that there was an "attempt on the life" of Dr. Oz after he shared a blood pressure treatment False.