Craig Kelly awarded Australian Skeptics? Bent Spoon gong for spreading Covid misinformation

This year's award for "the proponent of the most preposterous piece of pseudoscientific or paranormal piffle" has been awarded to the United Australia party MP Craig Kelly.

The Australian Skeptics gave Kelly the "undesirable" Bent Spoon gong for spreading misinformation about Covid and vaccinations.

In January, Australia's chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, rebuked Kelly for advocating for the use of anti-parasitic drug ivermectin against Covid, saying there was "no evidence" it worked. The Australian Medical Association vice-president, Dr Chris Moy, called on the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and other government leaders to counter misinformation from politicians such as Kelly.

In February, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president, Dr Karen Price, condemned Kelly for promoting unproved Covid treatments including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

Also in February, Kelly was banned from Facebook for a week after posting links that mentioned those treatments.

In September, the Therapeutic Goods Administration demanded that the MP stop distributing what it believed to be "seriously misleading" information after he texted "incomplete extracts" of adverse events after vaccinations. (Kelly has, in turn, declared the TGA's statements to be "misleading".)

The Australian Skeptics executive officer, Tim Mendham, said Kelly was the "hands down" winner, picked unanimously by Skeptics groups around Australia.