Fallout from comments at the recent Reform UK party conference linking covid vaccines to cancers in the royal family continued last week with the prime minister wading into the controversy.
Speaking during prime minister’s questions on 10 September,1 Keir Starmer said, “I’m proud that Labour are protecting half a million children by rolling out the chickenpox vaccines.2
“In stark contrast, the man who wrote Reform’s health policy has made shocking and baseless claims that vaccines are linked to cancer . . . These dangerous conspiracies cost lives, and it shows that Reform can’t be trusted with our NHS.”
Starmer was referring to a speech by UK cardiologist Aseem Malhotra—an adviser to the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr— at Reform’s party conference in Birmingham on 6 September.
Malhotra presented slides that he claimed showed the harms of mRNA vaccines, before adding, “One of Britain’s most eminent oncologists, Professor Angus Dalgleish, said to me to share with you today that he thinks it’s highly likely that the covid vaccines have been a significant factor in the cancer of members of the royal family.”
The comments provoked backlash from clinicians and politicians, with the medical regulator the General Medical Council confirming it was now considering whether to take action.3
Dalgleish, a professor of oncology at St George’s, University of London, known for his research into the virology of HIV, confirmed to The BMJ that he did tell Malhotra before the conference that it was “highly likely” that covid vaccines were linked to cancers among members of the royal family.
Dalgleish has previously made comments expressing concerns about mRNA vaccines in public forums, including during an interview with Sky News Australia, when he said he believed they were behind a rise in what he described as “turbo cancers.”4
He believes that covid vaccine boosters cause changes to cells (T cell exhaustion) that could help cancers grow. Anecdotally, Dalgliesh said that he had seen patients with melanoma suddenly relapsing after receiving covid vaccine boosters, and he claims that he was contacted by other doctors around the world who saw the same thing.
Posting a response on X to Starmer’s comments, Malhotra said he did not state that vaccines were linked to cancer and that he was presenting information about the possible link of the covid mRNA vaccine and cancer from US Health and Human Services department data and quoting Dalgleish.5
Malhotra added, “Conflating legitimate safety concerns of a novel mRNA technology with all vaccines is preposterous and dangerous.”
What does the evidence show?
Numerous virologists and cancer experts told The BMJ there is no evidence to support claims that mRNA vaccines are linked to cancer.
Lawrence Young, a virologist and professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick, told The BMJ, “Clearly, it is massive misinformation and part of this conspiracy theory around this idea that somehow covid was associated with what’s been termed as ‘turbo cancer.’
“It’s a ridiculous term. This idea that somehow aggressive and fast developing cancers have been seen post-vaccination . . . There is absolutely no medical evidence to support that, it has really been the product of anecdotal reports.”
Young added, “The way that mRNA works, the vaccine is not a live vaccine, it is genetic material that produces an antigen, and there is no evidence whatsoever that this in any way alters cellular DNA.”
Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said, “I don’t think that there are any plausible mechanisms by which they can claim that mRNA causes cancer. I’ve seen and heard things posited. The evidence just doesn’t exist.”
Ian Jones, professor of virology, also at Reading, said the epidemiological tracking data showed no spike in cancer cases after the use of the covid vaccine. He said, “You can split the data up into populations that either did not have a high coverage of vaccine use and populations that did have a high coverage or vaccine use.
“However you do it, there is no rise in the incidence of any cancer that I’m aware of following the release of the mRNA vaccines.
“So, for me, that’s the bottom line. You can speculate all you like—you can come up with bits of individually plausible information and conflate them all together to give some story.
“But the actual data of people who are being diagnosed with cancer has not changed since the delivery of the mRNA vaccine into millions of individuals.”
Stephen Griffin, professor of cancer virology at the University of Leeds, added, “There’s no evidence linking covid vaccines or indeed any vaccine that I’m aware of with an increase in cancer and certainly not this phenomenon of so called turbo cancers.
“The evidence that I’ve come across that Dalgleish has referred to is largely anecdotal.”
How has the myth gone mainstream?
Asked why the issue has gained traction in the media, Jones said he believed it was “largely Trumpian derived” and part of the “general backlash against vaccines” fuelled by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has cancelled $500m (£375m; €430m) in funding for mRNA vaccines.6
Griffin concurred, adding, “This is exactly the same strategy that RFK is doing. They call it an honest discussion. They call it a debate, but actually what they’re doing is pointing fingers and fuelling the whole “there’s no smoke without fire” type thing, which undermines previous studies . . . and is designed to increase hesitancy and doubt.”
Referring to declining rates of vaccination against diseases such as measles in the UK, Griffin added, “All of this is having a huge ripple effect. They’re focusing on the mRNA vaccines, but it’s fuelling vaccine hesitancy as a whole, and it’s causing harm.”
Citing the challenges that scientists and doctors face in countering such ideas that have taken root in mainstream political discourse, Griffin said, “The problem is that it’s very easy to stand up and say things that are misinformation, disinformation, but it takes a lot more work to debunk it and to prove to the public that it’s not true, because it’s platformed.”
Young added that the myths growing around mRNA vaccines were all the more “bizarre” given their use in cutting edge cancer treatment.
He said, “mRNA vaccines and the whole technology has advanced our treatment of cancer, because now we’ve got all sorts of new vaccines that are being used for personalised immunotherapy which are showing some amazing results clinically in the treatment of cancer.
“But it is part of all this antivaccine lobby, and it’s feeding into that misinformation that is a conspiracy theory, really.”
Reform UK said that Malhotra was a guest speaker with his own opinions and that the party “does not endorse what he said but does believe in free speech.”
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