Reform 'irresponsible' over doctor's vaccine claims at conference, says Streeting

Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

By Harry Taylor and Helen Corbett, PA Media

Reform UK has faced criticism for inviting a vaccine-sceptic cardiologist to speak at its conference, where he claimed COVID-19 vaccines may have caused the King and Princess of Wales’ cancer.

Health secretary Wes Streeting said it was “irresponsible” of the party to allow Dr Aseem Malhotra to speak from the stage in Birmingham, where he made a series of controversial claims.

Dr Malhotra, an advisor to 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 claimed “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.”

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.