Celebrity chef Pete Evans ‘health coach’ title under fire from AMA
His publishers Pan Macmillan call him the number one ‘health coach’ but the Australian Medical Association has taken aim at the claim, due to Pete Evans’ increasing promotion of the most extreme anti-vaccine activists and his continual undermining of COVID-19 health measures.
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The Australian Medical Association has taken aim at former celebrity chef Pete Evans and publisher Pan Macmillan for promoting Evans as “the number 1 selling Australian health” author.
The former My Kitchen Rules judge has firmly embedded himself in the anti-vaccine camp by proclaiming the likes of disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield, TV producer Del Bigtree and Robert F Kennedy Jr as “heroes”.
Evans also said COVID-19 a “‘f**king scam” and “social distancing will make you sicker and lower your immune system” in live posts last week. He has a new ‘lifestyle’ book out next month.
AMA President Dr Omar Khorshid said: “Pete Evans should stick to writing cookbooks and leave the health advice to people who have actually studied science and medicine at university, not via Google”.
“If someone who compares COVID-19 to Barney the dinosaur and calls three of the most notorious anti-vaxxers ‘heroes’ can be ‘Australia’s leading health author’, then I’ve still got a chance of running out for the West Coast Eagles in the grand final.”
Evans has used his 1.5 million social media following, garnered through his mainstream media career as a television chef, to give a platform to the most extreme anti-vaccine campaigners of late, including Wakefield and Bigtree, the producers of Vaxxed, which perpetuates the thoroughly scientifically debunked, non-existent link between the measles mumps and rubella vaccine and autism.
Evans calls himself “pro safe” but his rhetoric is exclusively anti-vaccine, especially with regards to any future COVID-19 vaccine.
He also believes in the QAnon conspiracy that the world is run by Satan-worshipping paedophiles plotting to oust US president Donald Trump and that tech billionaire Bill Gates is behind a bizarre plot to depopulate the world through vaccination.
“It’s ironic that his latest book is called Heal. It’s hard to heal a baby with whooping cough, or a young adult with meningococcal disease, and you’re certainly not going to do it with a $15,000 lava lamp, or by staring into the sun,” Dr Khorshid said.
“You are only going to be able to do it by ensuring that enough people who can be vaccinated against preventable disease are vaccinated, to protect those who can’t.”
Evans recently opened the Evolve Health Lab in Byron Bay that sells “bio-hacking” through arctic chambers and light machines.
Pan Macmillan, which describes Evans as “the #1 selling Australian health and wholefood author” and “health coach” defended their commercial relationship.
“Pan Macmillan has had a successful publishing relationship with Pete Evans since 2014. The company has published 15 books of recipe and food-related content that is healthy, safe and nutritious,” the company said in a statement to The Sunday Telegraph.
“These books have been bought in the hundreds of thousands by people who admire his food ethos and has led to him being Australia‘s No.1 selling Australian wholefood author for the past three years.”
Originally published as Celebrity chef Pete Evans ‘health coach’ title under fire from AMA
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