Controversial chef Pete Evans expressed his dangerous and unscientific anti-vaxxer views unchallenged on Monday, after being given a platform on Sydney breakfast radio.
Pete, 47, encouraged listeners of The Kyle and Jackie O Show to question the safety of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic – even though vaccines are completely safe and have helped eliminate deadly diseases, saving millions of lives.
The former My Kitchen Rules judge, who was released from his contract with Channel Seven after falsely claiming a ‘healing lamp’ could help cure coronavirus, began his rant by questioning new legislation ordering visitors, staff and contractors to receive the flu jab before visiting aged care facilities.
Sham science: Controversial chef Pete Evans expressed his dangerous and unscientific anti-vaxxer views unchallenged on Monday, after being given a platform on Sydney breakfast radio
Pete said he couldn’t agree with the flu jab legislation, citing supposed scientific research claiming ‘there is the potential that it increases your risk of coming down with greater symptoms of COVID-19’.
Pete went on to insist that he was not an anti-vaxxer but instead ‘pro choice for medical freedom’.
Many anti-vaccination campaigners are beginning to use the term ‘pro choice’ – which is most commonly associated with abortion rights – instead of ‘anti-vaxxer’ in order to make their views seem more socially acceptable.
Dangerous: Pete encouraged listeners of The Kyle and Jackie O Show to question the safety of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic – even though vaccines are safe and have helped eliminate deadly diseases. Pictured: radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson
Semantics: Pete insisted that he was not an anti-vaxxer but instead ‘pro choice for medical freedom’. Many anti-vaccination campaigners are beginning to use the term ‘pro choice’ – which is most commonly associated with abortion rights – instead of ‘anti-vaxxer’ in order to make their views seem more socially acceptable
Vaccinations are vital to reducing the spread of preventable diseases, and any suggestion otherwise flies in the face of science and the advice of medical experts around the globe.
Some of Australia’s largest COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred in aged care facilities, including Newmarch House in western Sydney, where 89 residents were infected and 18 died.
Elderly people are considered more vulnerable to the deadly respiratory infection, and the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee recommended visitors and staff be vaccinated against the flu to help protect residents.
‘Something happened when they got a shot one day’: Pete also peddled a disproved theory about a so-called link between vaccination and ‘behavioural changes’ in children
Pete also questioned whether general practitioners were the best people to go to for advice about vaccines.
‘I don’t know how much training GPs have done in virology, or immunisation, or whatever that is. And that’s a question that I would love to see here,’ he said.
The former Channel Seven host then peddled a disproved theory about a so-called link between vaccination and ‘behavioural changes’ in children.
Oddball: Following his radio interview, Pete raised eyebrows by sharing this post to Instagram about group sex
Pete, who has no medical training and is seeking to profit from alternative health treatments, said: ‘I’ve met so many mothers and their children and they tell me, “Hey Pete, my boy or girl was a healthy, functioning beautiful child – and they’re still a beautiful child – but something happened when they got a shot one day.”‘
‘And within two hours, 12 hours, 24, 48 hours, that little boy or girl completely changed their behaviour. And certainly changed their nature,’ he added.
There is no evidence that vaccines can cause such changes in children.
The supposed link between the MMR vaccine and autism, which was first proposed by discredited ex-physician Andrew Wakefield in 1998, was exposed as a fraud years later.
Bizarre: Pete (pictured with his wife, Nicola Robinson) has been sharing conspiracy theories on Instagram in recent weeks, following his departure from Channel Seven
Following his radio interview, during which hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson declined to challenge his dangerous views, Pete raised eyebrows by sharing a post to Instagram about group sex.
‘During the middle ages they celebrated the end of a plague with wine and orgies. Does anyone know if they have anything like that planned when this one ends? (Asking for a friend),’ the post read.
It comes a week after Pete urged his social media followers to sign a petition demanding the government backtrack on legislation preventing people who have not had their flu jab from visiting nursing homes.
The petition promoted claims that the flu vaccine has not been vetted ‘for the potential to cause cancer, genetic mutations, and fertility impairment’, and that people were being ‘coerced to take part in a medical experiment’ by getting the jab.
Pete, a Paleolithic diet enthusiast, has been widely criticised by former fans and experts alike for spruiking dangerous conspiracy theories relating to COVID-19.
He was recently fined $25,200 by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for promoting a lamp he claimed could help treat the ‘Wuhan virus’.