Reform slammed for hosting 'quack' doctor who blamed Covid jabs for causing King's cancer
Reform UK has been criticised for letting a vaccine-sceptic doctor address the final day of its conference.
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The Health Secretary Wes Streeting says it was "irresponsible" for the party to get Dr Aseem Malhotra to speak in Birmingham.
Dr Malhotra claimed the Covid vaccine had caused the cancer diagnoses of the King and the Princess of Wales.
Dr Malhotra, who described himself as a friend of controversial 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 added "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."
Mr Streeting has called on Nigel Farage to apologise for allowing him to speak on the main stage.
The link between the jab and cancer has previously been dismissed by academics and oncologists.
Mr 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."
Reform UK told LBC that Dr Malhotra is "a guest speaker with his own opinions" and it "does not endorse" what he said.
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'Broad church'
Speaking with Lewis Goodall on Sunday morning, Councillor Laila Cunningham defending bringing him up on stage, adding that Reform were a "broad church".
"We believe in freedom of speech. People are welcome to disagree with him and it got the debate going."
Goodall challenged her on this saying vaccines don't cause cancer and that Reform was "platforming quacks".
Medical experts also criticised Dr Malhotra.
Professor Brian Ferguson, professor of viral immunology at the University of Cambridge said the speaker had indulged in "meaningless pseudoscience".
The link between the Covid jab and cancer has previously been dismissed by academics and oncologists after claims it had led to "turbo cancers".
Prof Ferguson said: "There is no credible evidence that these vaccines disrupt tumour suppressors or drive any kind of process (biochemical or otherwise) that results in cancer.
"It is particularly crass to try to link this pseudoscience to the unfortunate incidents of cancer in the royal family and is reminiscent of the 'died suddenly' trope which attempted and ultimately failed to link the death of any young person to their vaccination status.
"This kind of outlandish conspiracy theory only serves to undermine the credibility of those spreading it."
During his 15-minute speech on the final day of Reform's conference, Dr Malhotra also said taking the Covid vaccine was more likely to cause harm than the virus itself.
He said: "What does that mean? It is highly likely that not a single person should have been injected with this."
"Nobody is immune to medical misinformation," he told the audience.
He went on to say the World Health Organisation had been "captured" by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and urged for it to be replaced.