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Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson, along with 23 doctors and other public figures, is calling on the U.K.’s new prime minister to suspend the COVID-19 booster program in the U.K. until the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines are independently examined.
An Aug. 28 letter, coordinated by cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, argues that key questions about vaccine safety haven’t been adequately addressed.
“The doctors and members of the public don’t realize that the information they get — not just on the COVID vaccine but pretty much all drugs now — is never independently verified,” Malhotra told medical commentator John Campbell, Ph.D.
“Medical knowledge is under commercial control,” Malhotra said.
Malhotra pointed to the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, which regulates medicines and medical devices. He said MHRA gets 86% of its funding from the pharmaceutical industry.
“Everybody needs to know this,” he said. “When the person in the street, the taxi driver, the barista in the coffee shop know … that the regulator is not independently scrutinizing data and is a threat to patient safety, then we will have progress.”
The letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham follows an earlier appeal signed by 160 doctors, scientists and health professionals. That Aug. 27 letter called for a fresh examination of the government’s COVID-19 response, including lockdowns and school and business closures, their psychological effects and the safety of COVID-19 and mRNA vaccines.
The letters are directed to Burnham in part because he was not a member of Parliament during the pandemic era and therefore is in a position to take a “fresh look” at decisions made by previous governments.
The latest letter does not ask Burnham to accept the signatories’ conclusions about the vaccines. Instead, it calls on him “to ensure that the evidence is examined.”
‘Not a single human being … should have been injected with this’
For Malhotra, the new letter goes to the heart of the unresolved questions surrounding COVID-19 vaccines.
“The main concerns, really, are the fact that … there hasn’t really been a moratorium on the COVID vaccine,” he said.
The letter also addresses people who believe the vaccines injured them but have not received answers, treatment or compensation.
“There hasn’t been a review of how we got this so very wrong,” Malhotra said.
He pointed to an independent reanalysis of Pfizer and Moderna’s own clinical trial data published in the journal Vaccine.
According to Malhotra, the analysis found that an individual was two to four times more likely to experience a serious side effect from the vaccine than to be hospitalized from COVID-19.
“In my view, that means not a single human being … should have been injected with this particular technology,” he said.
‘This is ultimately an issue of public trust’
The latest letter identifies several questions about the COVID-19 vaccine that remain unresolved, including cardiovascular events, cancer increases, the causes of excess mortality and increased long-term sickness since the pandemic.
The letter argues that vaccination should be included in an investigation into those questions rather than being ruled out in advance.
It also asks whether systems for identifying vaccine injuries have worked. “This is ultimately an issue of public trust,” according to the letter.
The letter asks Burnham to:
- Support a full examination of COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy, including excess mortality and increased long-term sickness since 2021.
- Ensure that people who believe they were seriously injured following vaccination, along with bereaved families who believe vaccination contributed to a death, have access to a credible system for investigating their cases.
Until those questions are independently examined, “the precautionary principle requires the Covid booster programme to be suspended.”
The concern extends beyond the COVID-19 vaccines already in use.
The original letter warned about the broader expansion of mRNA technology, pointing to a new mRNA vaccine trial for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, involving babies. It also raised concerns about the safety of Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved.
‘Some of the most high-profile celebrities … are too afraid’ to speak out
The involvement of high-profile celebrities — including actors Harrelson and Rob Schneider, filmmaker Gurinder Chadha and former Wimbledon champions Pat Cash and Peter Fleming — has brought additional attention to the letters.
Malhotra told Campbell that some of his celebrity patients are concerned about COVID-19 vaccines but are reluctant to speak publicly.
“Some of the most high-profile celebrities in the world are my patients,” he said. “They’re fully aware of this problem. They message me on a regular basis, but they themselves are too afraid.”
He said even wealthy celebrities fear professional consequences if they publicly question the vaccines. “They’re too afraid of being canceled … if they bring up any issue of the COVID vaccine,” he said.
Malhotra said the reluctance to speak publicly reflects a widespread effort to discredit people who raise questions about COVID-19 vaccines.
“Part of the PR machinery of Big Pharma is to smear those people calling out their bullshit” and “to call it a conspiracy theory,” he said.
‘Corporate tyranny … is the root of the problem’
Malhotra said pharmaceutical companies play too large a role in producing the research and shaping the expert opinions and guidelines that doctors rely on.
“What they’re told is ‘expert opinion,’ they don’t realize it’s being curated by the drug industry,” he said.
He described a circular system in which pharmaceutical companies fund research that shapes the expert opinion and guidelines that doctors then rely on when treating patients.
“We’re under a corporate tyranny,” Malhotra said. “That is the root of the problem.”
He said meaningful change will require public pressure and political action.
“It needs a grassroots movement, too,” Malhotra said. “So, every one of us is accountable in the system, and every one of us has a role to play, and we can’t be apathetic and just leave it [to] someone else.”
‘We need to identify … people at risk’ and help them
Campbell noted that the Department of Health and Social Care responded to the open letter on GB News.
“The Covid Inquiry looked specifically at the issue of vaccines and determined that these were subject to rigorous trials to assess their safety before being rolled out,” a spokesman for the agency told the outlet.
Malhotra rejected that response. “That’s completely false. Absolutely false,” he said. “Millions across the world have been seriously harmed or killed,” Malhotra said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”
Malhotra said his concern is not limited to people already harmed by COVID-19 vaccines. Some people are living with unidentified health risks after receiving the shot, he said.
“We need to identify: Who are those people at risk and what do we do about it,” he said. “We can’t do that unless we have the best medical scientists putting their attention onto this.”
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‘If you can’t trust your doctor, who can you trust?’
For Malhotra, the debate revolves around trust — whether patients can trust the medical system and whether doctors and scientists can question powerful institutions without fear of being silenced or dismissed.
“If you can’t trust your doctor, who can you trust?” he asked.
He said Burnham understands some of the concerns but needs public pressure to act. “He’s a guy that listens, but again he needs our help too,” Malhotra said. “You can’t do this alone.”
Malhotra urged the public not to leave these questions entirely to politicians or medical institutions.
“We all have a role to play,” he said. “Don’t underestimate the power of your speech. Have a conversation. Keep pushing it with friends, with family.”
Malhotra said the resistance to questioning established medical narratives is not a matter of intelligence, but of psychological barriers to the truth.
“Sometimes I wonder whether we’re living in the twilight zone, a complete disconnect from reality,” he said. “You can have the most intelligent people who can come up with the most strange beliefs and ideas, not because they’re lacking intelligence, but because they don’t have courage or character or … they’re too attached to their own egos or they have a fear of not conforming.”
Ultimately, the stakes go beyond the COVID-19 vaccines, Malhotra said.
“We can’t continue in this particular way of being because it’s causing massive detriment to public health and society,” he said.
Watch Malhotra and Campbell here:
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