A reality TV series starring Dr Charlie Teo has been shortlisted for Australia’s biggest quackery award for allegedly spruiking an acupressure remedy using repeated finger-tapping for the treatment of stress and anxiety.

The show Medicine or Myth? involves ordinary people presenting home remedies to a medical panel, which then determines whether the idea should be subject to a trial.

The panel includes neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo, GP and TV personality Dr Ginni Mansberg and immunologist Associate Professor Ashraful Haque.

But clinical psychologist Gary Bakker says the program was guilty of “abysmal science” and nominated it for the Australian Skeptics’ 2019 Bent Spoon awards for the “perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudo-scientific piffle”.