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It’s three years since a complaint was lodged against a doctor who recently linked Covid vaccines to cancer at Reform’s conference. But the General Medical Council still hasn’t taken action.
The General Medical Council (GMC) is “considering” whether to take action against a doctor who claimed at Reform UK’s conference that cancer in the royal family could be related to Covid vaccines.
Speaking at the conference’s main stage on Saturday, Dr Aseem Malhotra claimed that an eminent oncologist had said it was “highly likely that the Covid vaccines have been a factor, a significant factor in the cancer of members of the royal family”.
After criticism from experts and politicians, Reform has tried to distance itself from Malhotra’s comments and the GMC is reviewing them.
But Malhotra has been making extreme claims about Covid vaccines that fly in the face of science for years. And three years after the regulator first received complaints about them, the GMC is yet to take action.
In 2022, Dr Matthew Kneale complained to the GMC, arguing that Malhotra’s false claims spread fear and put people’s health at risk. But the medical regulator dismissed Matthew’s concerns, saying Malhotra’s behaviour was not “egregious enough”.
Good Law Project helped Dr Matthew Kneale take the GMC to court. And when the High Court gave us permission for a judicial review in 2023, the GMC backed down and agreed to look at Matthew’s complaint again.
While the GMC has dragged its feet Malhotra has built his profile, racking up millions of views falsely claiming Covid jabs are “one of the greatest crimes against humanity” and have “seriously harmed or killed” millions of people, as well as suggesting that they “should never have been injected into a single human being”.
A BBC investigation into his appearance on Steven Barlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast in July 2024 found that it “imperils all our health” with “harmful health claims” that go “against extensive scientific evidence”. The episode has been watched 2.3 million times on YouTube alone.
The GMC must act decisively to stop doctors such as Malhotra from spreading misinformation which decreases public trust in vaccines and the medical profession. We don’t just need investigations, we need results.
