Did you know that grated potatoes can prevent tetanus?
Back in the Dark Ages when your correspondent was training to become a journalist, a wise old head counselled us with wisdom along the lines of: “In this game, you don’t have to cynical, but it pays to be skeptical.”
As we have taken this advice to heart, it is with some delight that we report on the winner of the Australian Skeptics “Bent Spoon” award for 2025.
This fabulous accolade is presented to the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of pseudoscientific or paranormal piffle foisted upon the public in any given year.
This year’s winner, perhaps not unexpectedly, comes from the field of naturopathy. Take a bow, Barbara O’Neill.
Not only does naturopath Ms O’Neill possess zero medical qualifications, back in 2019 the Health Care Complaints Commission in NSW ruled that she be prohibited from providing health-related services entirely.
Perhaps it was her advice to cancer patients to ditch their chemotherapy treatment in favour of using bicarbonate of soda instead, that swung the skeptical judges? Or maybe it was the claims that grated potatoes prevented tetanus.
Most likely it was a combination of that nonsense along with spruiking cayenne pepper as a cure for stomach ulcers, saying that sliced garlic placed on a baby’s foot was “more powerful than antibiotics” and that chopped onions could treat pneumonia.
Sadly, despite the NSW ban on Ms O’Neill spouting this nonsense, there is nothing to stop her plying her dubious trade overseas and for these loads of old bollocks to then be streamed back into Australia via the intertubes.
“With all her references to vegetables we’d say she was a shill for Big Farmer,” Australian Skeptics’ Tim Mendham said in a media release accompanying the award.
“But this is serious and dangerous stuff, with many people following her totally unqualified and wrong guidance around the world. She is one Australian export we really didn’t need,” he added.
We heartily concur.
And if you are wondering where the “Bent Spoon” concept comes from, it stems back to a TV show in the 1970s featuring a bloke called Uri Geller, a self-proclaimed “psychic” who reckoned he could bend spoons with the power of his mind.
Turned out, it was just the power of his fingers that bent the spoons, but lots of folks were happy to go along with the scam.
Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Send your spoon-bendingly amazing story tips to Holly@medicalrepublic.com.au.
