Reform UK has been criticised for allowing a vaccine sceptic cardiologist to address its conference, where he claimed Covid vaccines may have caused the King and Princess of Wales’s cancer.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said it was “irresponsible” of the party to allow Dr Assem Malhotra to speak from the stage in Birmingham, where he made a series of claims about the pharmaceutical industry, politicians and the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Saturday.
Dr Malhotra, who described himself as a friend of controversial US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, said hundreds of studies showed the harms of mRNA vaccines and that they were interfering with genes.
“It may be a risk factor for cancer,” Dr Malhotra told the event at a talk titled Make Britain Healthy Again at the NEC.
He said “many other doctors feel the same way”, adding: “It’s highly likely that the Covid vaccines have been a factor, a significant factor, in the cancer of members of the royal family.”
Mr Streeting said: “When we are seeing falling numbers of parents getting their children vaccinated, and a resurgence of disease we had previously eradicated, it is shockingly irresponsible for Nigel Farage to give a platform to these poisonous lies.
“Farage should apologise and sever all ties with this dangerous extremism.”
Medical experts also criticised Dr Malhotra. Professor Brian Ferguson, professor of viral immunology at the University of Cambridge, said the speaker had indulged in “meaningless pseudoscience”.
The link between the Covid jab and cancer has previously been dismissed by academics and oncologists after claims it had led to “turbo cancers”.
Prof Ferguson said: “There is no credible evidence that these vaccines disrupt tumour suppressors or drive any kind of process (biochemical or otherwise) that results in cancer.
“It is particularly crass to try to link this pseudoscience to the unfortunate incidents of cancer in the royal family and is reminiscent of the ‘died suddenly’ trope which attempted and ultimately failed to link the death of any young person to their vaccination status.
“This kind of outlandish conspiracy theory only serves to undermine the credibility of those spreading it.”
During his 15-minute speech on the final day of Reform’s conference, Dr Malhotra also said taking the Covid vaccine was more likely to cause harm than the virus itself.
He said: “What does that mean? It is highly likely that not a single person should have been injected with this.”
“Nobody is immune to medical misinformation,” he told the audience.
He went on to say the World Health Organisation had been “captured” by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and urged for it to be replaced.
A separate fringe event at the conference on Saturday, also featuring Dr Malhotra, on behalf of the organisation The Together Association, said the UK should “leave” the World Health Organisation.
He hit out at health minister Stephen Kinnock, who had criticised Dr Malhotra in advance of his speech, calling him an “anti-vax conspiracy theorist”.
On the stage, he asked the audience: “Have you heard anything anti-vax or conspiracy theory so far here?”
He continued: “What do we do about this? I think it’s time to just say no, to all drugs that are being proved, unless they are independently evaluated. Everybody just needs to say no.
“Over the last few years, it’s very clear that, with the evidence, the drug industry are responsible for probably killing millions of people.
“The Covid vaccine, if one in 800 is a figure of serious harm, and you translate across the world from the best quality of evidence, then it means the Covid mRNA jabs have likely killed or seriously harmed millions of people across the world.”
Prof Ferguson said: “There are repetitions of often-used anti-vax tropes that have been extensively disproven.”
He said it was untrue that the drug industry, or Covid jabs were responsible for killing millions.
“There are numerous, high-quality studies that prove the Covid vaccines, including mRNA vaccines, saved millions of lives,” he added.
“Evidence that mRNA vaccines have done more harm than good just does not exist and claims that they did do not stand up to scrutiny.”
And Professor Penny Ward, visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at Kings College, London, said: “Dr Malhotra has provided his own interpretation of scientific evidence on covid vaccines, but his view is not shared by the majority of medical practitioners.”
She said the WHO is staffed by clinical and scientific experts who “take very seriously their responsibilities to ensure the quality of information reviewed and advice given meets the highest ethical and scientific standards”.
“It is profoundly to be hoped that the Reform Party will do the same should they in future become responsible for the management of the nation’s health,” she added.
A Reform spokesperson said: “Dr Aseem Malhotra is a guest speaker with his own opinions who has an advisory role in the US government.
“Reform UK does not endorse what he said, but does believe in free speech.”
