A British doctor has claimed at Reform UK’s annual conference there may be a link between Covid vaccines and members of the royal family getting cancer.
Dr Aseem Malhotra quoted a claim that the vaccination was a “significant factor” in the diagnoses of King Charles and the Princess of Wales.
The King was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in February 2024. A month later, the princess announced that she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy after cancer was detected during tests.
Charles’s cancer diagnosis was announced by Buckingham Palace in February 2024
KIN CHEUNG/AP
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said Malhotra’s words were dangerous and risked fuelling drops in childhood vaccinations.
“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,” he said.
In March 2024, Kate explained she was undergoing preventive chemotherapy after cancer had been detected in tests
BBC STUDIOS/PA
“Farage should apologise and sever all ties with this dangerous extremism.”
Malhotra, who is an adviser to the US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr (RFK), was speaking on the mainstage at Reform’s conference in Birmingham on Saturday.
He was introduced by the party’s chairman, Dr David Bull, who described him as a “brilliant clinician” and “vociferous public health campaigner” who had written “Reform’s health policy” alongside him.
In a speech focusing heavily on alleged harms from Covid-19 vaccines, Malhotra said he had been asked to share findings from “one of Britain’s most eminent oncologists, Professor Angus Dalgleish” that “he thinks it’s highly likely that the Covid vaccines have been a factor, a significant factor, in the cancer of members of the royal family.”
Dalgleish is a professor of oncology at St George’s, University of London, and previously stood as a parliamentary candidate for UKIP in 2015. He was contacted for comment.
Malhotra sought to clarify his comments on social media, claiming on X that Dalgleish’s opinion was also supported by a statement from Steven Hatfill, an adviser to President Trump’s administration on pandemic preparedness.
Dalgleish, had a financial interest in a competing Covid vaccine when he began speaking out against mRNA vaccines. In June 2020 he was listed as being on the scientific advisory board of Immodulon, and has stock options in Immunor AS, a Norwegian vaccine company.
Dalgleish was contacted for comment.
Malhotra’s website says he holds the position of medical adviser to the Make America Healthy Again initiative, as well as chief health adviser to Action on World Health, the campaign group co-founded by Nigel Farage
Malhotra’s claims are not supported by mainstream clinicians or experts. Cancer Research has previously said there is no evidence to suggest that any of the Covid-19 vaccines cause cancer.
Blood Cancer UK’s healthcare professional advisory panel, which is made up of specialists from across the UK, said: “There are no controlled, large-scale studies (studies with the most robust scientific evidence) that demonstrate an increased cancer risk following Covid-19 vaccination.”
Malhotra has been repeatedly criticised by other doctors and vaccine experts for making unproven claims about the Covid-19 vaccines. There have been calls for the General Medical Council to investigate him but so far it has not taken action.
In his speech, Malhotra falsely described the vaccines as a gene therapy.
This is a common misinformation tactic used by vaccine sceptics. The mRNA Covid-19 vaccines do not alter a person’s genes and the vaccine ingredients do not enter a cell’s nucleus where a person’s DNA is contained.
Malhotra told the crowd at Reform’s conference that modern medicine had been “hijacked by powerful commercial interests” which he said were to blame for the UK’s current healthcare crisis.
Claiming to be in “constant communication” with Kennedy in the United States, he accused pharmaceutical companies of “criminal behaviour” in hiding harms and promoting harmful medicines.
He said the drug industry was responsible for killing “millions of people across the world.”
The UK Health Security Agency says Covid vaccines have saved 475,000 lives in the UK
HANNAH BEIER/REUTERS
Malhotra’s claims have been repeatedly fact-checked and criticised as false and relying on poor evidence.
According to the UK Health Security Agency, Covid vaccines have saved 475,000 lives in the UK with more people avoiding hospital or being put on a ventilator in intensive care.
A study published in The Lancet in June said 1.6 million lives had been directly saved by the vaccines.
A Reform UK spokesman 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.”