Did Wolf Blitzer and Dr. Oz endorse a new drug that can cure diabetes? No, that's not true: The video showing the CNN host and the physician uses digitally added sound that does not match their mouth movements and there is no record of them ever making the statements shown on the video. As of this writing, there is no cure for diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on Facebook on November 2, 2023. It opened with a video of CNN's Wolf Blitzer appearing to say:
An American doctor said he will pay a million dollars to anyone who cannot cure diabetes with his new drug. The new medicine normalizes blood sugar levels after the first use.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Nov 7 18:56:14 2023 UTC)
There is no cure for diabetes as of publication date, per the CDC website (archived here):
The Impacts
Diabetes and diabetes-related health complications can be serious and costly. The eighth leading cause of death in the United States, diabetes costs a total estimated $327 billion in medical costs and lost work and wages. In fact, people with diagnosed diabetes have more than twice the average medical costs that people without diabetes have.
Diabetes can take a serious toll on your quality of life, affecting your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. But though there is no cure for diabetes, there are things you can do to manage it and its health complications. And if you have prediabetes, there are things you can do to help prevent it from becoming type 2 diabetes.
The post includes a link to a website that purports to be FoxNews.com but the url is https://utetet.autos/ (archived here) and it is not the real Fox New website nor is it an interactive website. The headline on the website is, "Big Pharma Files Lawsuit Against Dr. Oz For Exposing Revolutionary Diabetes Management Remedy," but a Google search (archived here) for that on the Fox News website yields zero matching results.
In the video it appears as if Blitzer is reporting on a new drug. A Google search (archived here) for the phrase "an American doctor said he will pay a million dollars to anyone who cannot cure diabetes with his new drug," yields zero reputable news reports of Blitzer making the statements.
In the video, Oz's audio does not match his mouth movements as he supposedly says:
I guarantee you that your blood sugar levels will return to normal in three days. All symptoms will disappear within two weeks and diabetes will never return. 100,000 Americans have already tried the medicine on themselves and got rid of diabetes.
A Google search (archived here) for the phase, "all symptoms will disappear within two weeks and diabetes will never return," yields zero results for any time Oz made these statements.
Other Lead Stories debunks of claims on purported cures for diabetes and other diseases are here.
