Despite getting a tongue lashing from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Craig Kelly is back doing what he does best: undermining Australia’s vaccination rollout by promoting an unproven COVID-19 medical treatment that goes against the advice of Australia’s top medical experts.
On Wednesday, many of the journalists in the Canberra press gallery reported that federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly had been “dressed down” for failing to support the government’s vaccine strategy.
Kelly — who has spent the better part of the pandemic posting on Facebook about disproven or unproven COVID-19 treatments — released a hostage-style statement shortly afterwards, committing to promote the strategy.
Craig Kelly has issued this statement after being hauled in for a dressing down by the Prime Minister @9NewsAUS #auspol pic.twitter.com/8HChbSuLWk
— Jonathan Kearsley (@jekearsley) February 3, 2021
But that promise appears to have lasted less than 36 hours.
Late on Thursday night, Kelly yet again shared content promoting ivermectin, a horse dewormer, to treat the novel coronavirus.
Kelly posted to Facebook a link to an interview with University of Newcastle’s emeritus professor Robert Clancy promoting the treatment that has not been approved by Australia’s National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, the expert body made up of doctors who review evidence to decide how to treat the virus.
“Listen to THE expert,” Kelly wrote. “Could someone please forward a copy to Tanya and Ally.”
The only problem? Clancy’s own institution says that the emeritus professor (an honorary title) does not consider him ‘THE expert’ you should be listening to when it comes to COVID-19 treatments.
“Robert Clancy is not speaking on behalf of the University of Newcastle when offering his opinion on this issue. The University has not funded his research since 2009 and he retired in 2013. The University does not consider Robert Clancy a subject matter expert on COVID-19,” University of Newcastle’s Professor Alex Zelinsky AO said in a statement on Wednesday.
As with the plethora of other conspiracy theories and unproven ideas that he has assert, Craig Kelly’s latest campaign does not stand up to scrutiny.