US anti-vaccine rhetoric trumpeted in UK, thanks to Reform

Scientific and public health experts have pushed back against anti-vaccine comments made by an advisor to the Trump administration at this year's Reform UK conference.

Aseem Malhotra, a controversial adviser to US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, took the stage at the conference in Birmingham to claim that COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe and linked to cancers developed by the King and Princess of Wales.

He also asserted that mRNA vaccines can alter genes, interfere with tumour suppression genes, and were known to be ineffective at preventing COVID-19 transmission – all claims which do not stand up to even cursory scientific scrutiny.

He also said that, during the pandemic, he was told by the chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) that doctors were "getting their information on the COVID vaccine from the BBC," an allegation that has been denied by the organisation.

There has been widespread condemnation of the comments, as well as the decision by Reform UK and its leader, Nigel Farage, to give Malhotra a platform at its conference, although the party has said it "does not endorse what he said, but does believe in free speech."

The event at which Malhotra spoke – headlined Make Britain Healthy Again, in an aping of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement spearheaded by Kennedy in the US – has drawn widespread criticism.

Prof Brian Ferguson, a specialist in viral immunology at the University of Cambridge, said that Malhotra's speech "presents many incorrect claims and narratives about mRNA vaccines and medical research, along with sweeping claims about the pharmaceutical industry."

"There are repetitions of often-used anti-vaxx tropes that have been extensively disproven," he added. "There are numerous high-quality studies that prove the COVID vaccines, including mRNA vaccines, saved millions of lives. 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."

Meanwhile, Prof Penny Ward, a specialist 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."

Malhotra's attendance has also raised fears that the anti-vaccine rhetoric seeping into US policymaking will start to take hold in the UK – particularly as Reform UK currently has a big lead in UK opinion polls. Citing a party figure, Politico reported that Farage pushed to have Malhotra attend due to his links with the Trump administration.

UK Health Secretary Wes 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."