Reform UK Conference: Anti-Vax Misinformation Doctor Given Prime Health Slot

The controversial cardiologist Aseem Malhotra, accused by critics of spreading anti-vax misinformation laden with conspiracy theories, will give the only health-related address on the main stage of the Reform Party conference this weekend.

Leading doctors have urged Reform leader, Nigel Farage, not to put lives in danger by handing Malhotra – who claims that mRNA COVID vaccines did more harm than good – a prime conference slot.

The British cardiologist is chief medical adviser to MAHA Action, a US campaign group advocating the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda of Robert F Kennedy Jr, US President Donald Trump‘s secretary of health and human services.

Reform has said Malhotra will speak about “making Britain healthy again” and he has insisted his main topic in Birmingham will be the “commercial influence over science” and the importance of health living, but, his inclusion in the conference has raised concerns that Farage may be tempted to follow Kennedy’s lead in scrapping vaccine research, and replacing expert advisors.

Over the summer, Kennedy cancelled $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccines and earlier sacked all 17 members of the official government committee that advises on immunisation.

Jeanette Dickson, chairwoman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the professional standards body for Britain’s 400,000 doctors, told The Times: “We must not let ignorance and ideology replace evidence-based medicine. It is a very dangerous step to replace peer-reviewed, proven science with simple-sounding populism.”

The decision to embrace Malhotra is one of several actions by Farage that suggest Reform is heading towards closer policy alignment with Trump and Project 2025.

In May 2024, Farage was himself accused by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of “spreading misinformation” after becoming the face of Action on World Health (AWH), a campaign for the UK to end its membership of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

AWH has received favourable coverage in right-wing newspapers, repeating the narratives of groups associated with coordinated COVID disinformation that has seeped into the mainstream media via outlets like the Telegraph, GB News and TalkTV.   

Malhotra’s speech comes as health officials warn that vaccination rates in children starting school in September have fallen below the levels required to prevent spread through herd immunity, while in the US the Centre of Disease Control (CDC) has been pitched into chaos after CDC chief Susan Monarez was fired and several other top officials resigned in protest at RFK Jr’s assault on established vaccine science.

This comes in the wake of a gunman’s attack on the CDC building, which killed a police officer, after the man was reportedly inspired by anti-vax conspiracies.

On 27 September 2022, Malhotra published a paper with Clare Craig of the anti-vax HART group in his own journal calling for the immediate halt to COVID vaccinations.

The paper was released via a press conference by the World Council for Health (WCH), founded by Tess Lawrie of disinformation groups HART and Pandata as an umbrella organisation for groups promoting a range of alternative treatments from ivermectin to protection from 5G. WCH’s coalition partners includes Children’s Health Defence that was founded by RFK Jr.

Lawrie also founded the British Ivermectin Research Group (BIRD). BIRD is the sister organisation to Pierre Kory’s Frontline Covid Critical Care (FLCCC) organisation in the US, together they led the way in promoting ivermectin as an alternative treatment for COVID, long COVID, and “spike detox”. They also promote the false claim that COVID vaccines cause “turbo cancers”.

At the launch, Malhotra claimed there was a “willful blindness” to vaccine injuries, likening the situation to Germans ignoring Nazi atrocities. Other speakers included Lawrie and Ryan Cole of FLCCC, who is also linked to America’s Frontline Doctors. 

Former Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen’s descent into anti-vax conspiracy theories coincided with his own association with Malhotra.

Shortly after losing the Conservative whip for likening COVID vaccines to the Holocaust, Bridgen and John Mappin, a supporter of QAnon and founder of the far-right student group Turning Point UK, hosted a conspiracy theorist’s dinner party at the exclusive Carlton Club on 13 February 2024 with Malhotra as a speaker.

The other speakers were Cole and Dr Robert Malone, one of RFK Jr’s controversial picks for a vital vaccine committee that has received criticism from across the scientific community.

Attendees included Farage, Toby Young, and according to Mappin representatives of the mainstream media; GB News presenters and guests were well represented.

On X, Mappin described part of the event: “We also heard about the military grade psyop and hypnosis methods originally designed for Al Qaeda and how these methods have been turned on civilian populations”. 

In October 2024, Malhotra’s anti-vax film was screened by Stanford University with the apparent support of Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya, co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) that called for the mass infection of most of the population pre-vaccine.

Bhattacharya, who backed RFK Jr’s presidential bid, is now head of the National Institute of Health in the Trump administration, and his GBD coauthor Martin Kulldorff is another RFK Jr vaccine committee pick.

After going on a tour of countries and podcasts including Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, spreading his conspiracy-laced anti-vax messaging, Malhotra recently took up the post of Chief Medical Advisor to MAHA Action, led by the notorious Del Bigtree, who was named alongside RFK Jr in the Centre for Countering Digital Hate’s Disinformation Dozen report on the most influential anti-vax online influencers. 

Despite his vaccine claims being demonstrably false, Malhotra has gained favourable coverage in right-wing newspapers in the UK, which also suggests, some may be willing to back Reform policies inspired by MAHA.

On 13 July, The Telegraph published a full-page interview with Malhotra, headlined: ‘The harm caused by the COVID vaccination has been catastrophic’. It went on to describe him as a “leading cardiologist” who has “risen to serious prominence”, and quoted him claiming COVID vaccines had “done more harm than good”.

The piece told how Malhotra was called by RFK Jr after being interviewed on GB News about his anti-vax paper. Mahhorta told the publication that he supports RFK Jr’s claims that traditional vaccines cause autism. 

A month before, on 14 May, the Daily Mail website ran an interview with Malhotra under the headline, ‘New top doctor at MAHA revealed as he lays bare radical plan to transform US health… and ban Covid shots’. 

In a casual interview last year, Farage backtracked from his previous support for COVID vaccines, saying he started to become suspicious when he was offered a booster.

Farage was due to speak at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, alongside the likes of Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon, but reportedly missed his speaking slot due to transport issues. Other speakers included, Bhattacharya and Jeffery Tucker, founder of GBD successor organisation, the Brownstone Institute, that recently claimed that “covid mRNA vaccines are unregulated military countermeasures”.

The decision to have Malhotra as a speaker at the Reform conference will likely be seen as a signal by anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists that Reform is listening to them and will further validate their beliefs.