several public figures add their support for suspending mRNA vaccines
28th August 2026
To: The Right Honourable Andy Burnham, Prime Minister
Dear Prime Minister,
Congratulations on becoming Prime Minister.
Britain has spent six years arguing about the Covid pandemic. We do not believe the country needs another rehearsal of those arguments. But what it does need is answers.
A group of 160 doctors, scientists and health professionals have written to you asking you to do something your predecessors have repeatedly failed to do: commission an independent examination of outstanding questions about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines and ensure that those who believe they have been injured or bereaved are properly heard. The full letter is linked here.
We are not asking you to accept the conclusions.
We are asking you to ensure that the evidence is examined.
That distinction matters.
You have spoken powerfully about what happens when institutions become defensive and difficult questions are left unanswered. Britain has seen the consequences in Hillsborough, the infected blood scandal and the Post Office scandal. In each case, people raising concerns were dismissed for years before institutions were eventually forced to confront what had happened.
Whatever your own view of Covid vaccination, we ask you to ensure that the same mistake is not made again.
There remain legitimate and unresolved questions about adverse events following Covid vaccination, including cardiovascular events; increases in cancer, the causes of excess mortality and increased long-term sickness since the pandemic; the adequacy of systems for identifying vaccine injury; and whether those who believe they have suffered serious harm have been adequately investigated and supported.
Excess mortality and ill health are likely to have multiple causes, including delayed NHS treatment, the effects of lockdown, Covid infection itself and wider pressures on the health service. But we believe vaccination must also be permitted to form part of that investigation rather than being treated as a question that cannot be asked. This is ultimately an issue of public trust.
As a group of senior clinicians and public figures, we are asking you to take concerns raised in the letter extremely seriously and we ask your government to support a full and transparent examination of the outstanding evidence. The UK Covid-19 Inquiry chaired by Baroness Hallett stated that they would not look at the full evidence for the safety or efficacy of these products, as (remarkably) it was outside the scope of the Inquiry.
The pharmaceutical industry produces medicines that save millions of lives. But precisely because governments spend billions purchasing its products and depend upon its research, the relationship between industry, regulators, medical institutions and government must be transparent and subject to rigorous scrutiny.
Our testimonies raise a wider issue which we believe deserves serious political attention: the influence of the pharmaceutical industry over medical research, regulation and public health policy. The Pandemic Response All Party Parliamentary Group in 2024 concluded that the MHRA is failing to flag serious harms from the Covid vaccine. Several signatories to this letter have been invited to speak in Westminster on these issues.
No industry responsible for products affecting the health of billions of people should be beyond challenge. Nor should doctors or scientists fear professional or reputational consequences simply for raising legitimate questions about safety.
Some adverse effects of Covid vaccines are already officially recognised. The question is whether Britain’s mechanisms for identifying, investigating and compensating serious vaccine injury are adequate – and whether every credible safety signal has been investigated with sufficient independence and urgency. As one of the signatories to this letter stated under oath in the United States senate in June, he fears that millions of people may be at risk of premature heart disease and cancer.
There is another group whose voices should not be lost in the political argument: people who have been seriously injured by Covid vaccines and families who have been bereaved.
People who believe they have suffered harm should not have to choose between being ignored and becoming campaigners simply to have their cases heard.
That should be something on which people on every side of the Covid debate can agree.
Prime Minister, we are therefore asking you to answer two straightforward questions.
• Will you support a full examination of evidence concerning Covid vaccine safety and efficacy that we believe has not been adequately addressed by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry? This must include excess mortality and increased long-term sickness since 2021.
• Will you ensure that people who believe they have been seriously injured following Covid vaccination, and bereaved families who believe vaccination contributed to a death, have access to a credible system through which their cases can be properly investigated?
Until the outstanding safety questions have been independently examined, we believe the precautionary principle requires the Covid booster programme to be suspended.
We recognise that asking you to suspend the programme would be a significant decision. But you do not need to agree with us about suspension to agree that unanswered safety questions deserve independent scrutiny.
The reason for this lies beyond a fair hearing for those who believe they were injured by the vaccine. Public confidence in vaccination and medicine cannot be restored by insisting that people trust institutions. Institutions have to demonstrate that they are worthy of trust. That means publishing evidence, acknowledging uncertainty, investigating possible harms and being willing to change course when evidence demands it.
It also means recognising that questioning a medical intervention is not inherently anti-science. Proper science requires challenge, replication, disagreement and the willingness to test uncomfortable hypotheses.
The Covid years divided families, communities, doctors and politicians. Continuing to fight the same political battles will not heal those divisions.
Finding out what happened might.
You have an opportunity, at the beginning of your premiership, to approach this differently. We are not asking you to prejudge the evidence.
We are asking you to open the door to its independent examination.
If the concerns we and others have raised prove unfounded, a rigorous investigation should establish that. If they are justified, the public deserves to know.
Either way, transparency is the only sustainable route to restoring trust.
We thank you for taking these proposals seriously.
Yours sincerely
Dr Aseem Malhotra, MBChB, MRCP, Cardiologist
Dr Rosamond Jones, retired Consultant Paediatrician, Children’s Covid Vaccines Advisory Council
Dr Clare Craig, diagnostic pathologist, co-chair Health Advisory and Recovery Team
Dr Elizabeth Evans, retired doctor, CEO, UK Medical Freedom Alliance
Mr Nick Hunt, retired Civil Servant, MoD, Chairman, The Perseus Group
Dr Ayiesha Malik, General Practitioner, Executive Committee, Doctors for Patients UK
Professor Angus Dalgleish, MD, FRCP, FRACP, FRCPath, FMed Sci, Emeritus Professor of Oncology, City St Georges, University of London, Principal, Institute for Cancer Vaccines & Immunotherapy
Professor David Seedhouse, Honorary Professor of deliberative practice, School of Pharmacy, Aston University
Dr Alan Black, MBBS, MSc, DipPharmMed, retired pharmaceutical physician
Dr Alan Mordue, MBChB, FFPH. Retired Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Epidemiology
Dr Andrew McHutchon, MBChB, FRCA, retired Consultant Anaesthetist/Intensivist
Dr John Flack, BPharm, PhD, Retired Director of Safety Evaluation, Beecham Pharmaceuticals and Senior Vice-president for Drug Discovery SmithKline Beecham
Dr Henry Goodall, MBBS, FFOM, retired Consultant Occupational Health Physician, President of the Society of Occupational Medicine, 2011-12
Dr John Campbell, Nurse educator and broadcaster
Graham Phillips, BPharm, Dipp Comm Pharm, FRCPharm, Principal Pharmacist iheartpharmacy group, Founder of Prolongevity.co.uk
Dr Sabine Hazan, MD, Gastroenterogist
Molly Kingsley, writer and campaigner, cofounder UsForThem
John Vincent MBE, British restaurateur, entrepreneur and government food adviser
Gurinder Chadha OBE, Film Director
Dimitri Masceranas, England International Cricketer
Pat Cash, International tennis coach
Peter Fleming, Professional tennis player and sports commentator
Woody Harrelson, Actor
Rob Schneider, Actor & film maker
