Who are we?

HART is a group of highly qualified UK doctors, scientists, economists, psychologists and other academic experts.  We came together over shared concerns about policy and guidance recommendations relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

We continue to be concerned about the lack of open scientific debate in mainstream media and the worrying trend of censorship and harassment of those who question the narrative. Science without question is dogma.

Specifically, we identify a need for public policy to reflect a broader and more balanced approach across a number of key areas, such as:

  • Impact of masks and mandatory lockdowns on wider society; 
  • Assessment of the long-term impact of school and university closures; 
  • Re-evaluation of the evidence on transmission and the role of asymptomatic spread; 
  • Re-evaluation of diagnostic testing, track and trace and associated data analysis; 
  • The psychological impact of the government’s COVID-19 advertising campaigns (in particular the ‘sick until proven healthy’ directives);
  • An urgent evaluation of the evidence base for safe and effective (non-vaccine) medicines to treat and prevent illness from SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, and more research where considered necessary.

HART Co-Chairs

Dr Clare Craig FRCPath

Diagnostic Pathologist

Clare has been a pathologist since 2001 working in the NHS and reaching consultant level in 2009.

She specialized in cancer diagnostics including diagnostic testing for cancer within mass screening programmes.

She was the day to day pathology lead for the cancer arm of the 100,000 Genomes Project. She was clinical lead for the data team and led on research and development projects at Genomics England and wrote national guidance and helped build bespoke software, working closely with NHSE. Subsequently she has worked on artificial intelligence for cancer diagnostics.

She is contributing to HART in a personal capacity.

s
Dr Gerry Quinn

Dr Jonathan Engler

Healthcare entrepreneur. Qualified in Medicine and Law

Jonathan initially trained in medicine, moving into the pharmaceutical sector where he worked on an international programme for a heart failure drug, designing and analysing clinical trials.

He then established a business which became a world-leader in using IT to co-ordinate and automate several clinical trial processes. Having sold that business, Jonathan then retrained as a barrister where he worked for a few years before moving back into business.

Dr Jonathan Engler

HART spokespeople

Dr John Lee

Retired Professor of Pathology

John is a retired English pathologist who was formerly Clinical Professor of Pathology at Hull York Medical School and Consultant Histopathologist at Rotherham General Hospital, later becoming the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust’s Director of Cancer Services.

Dr Lee became known to a wider public after co-presenting Anatomy for Beginners (screened in the UK on Channel 4 in 2005).

Dr John Lee

Dr Gordon Hughes

Former Professor of Political Economy, University of Edinburgh and former Chairman of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland

Gordon was Professor of Political Economy at the University of Edinburgh from 1985 until 1991, and has been a visiting professor ever since.

Gordon has led/directed many studies and advisory projects in environmental epidemiology, health economics and related areas.

Dr Gordon Hughes

Dr Ros Jones

Retired Consultant Paediatrician

Ros is a retired Consultant Paediatrician with a special interest in neonatal intensive care and paediatric HIV. She has served on the Advisory Committee of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit and on the Education & Training committee of the RCPCH.

An active member for many years in the British Perinatal Trials Group, she was also involved in reviewing NICE guidelines alongside some time editorial. Since retiring from the NHS, she has undertaken several tours teaching on SAFE Obstetrics courses in countries in Africa.

Dr Ros Jones

Mr Tony Hinton MB. ChB., FRCS, FRCS(Oto)

Consultant ENT surgeon

Tony qualified in medicine and surgery in 1984 and trained in teaching hospitals in Birmingham, Manchester and London. He has published more than 30 research papers and was appointed as Consultant Surgeon to St George’s Hospital, London 1995. After working in the NHS for over 30 years, he is now semi-retired in independent practice and continues to see patients in clinic face-to-face and carry out surgery at two London hospitals.

Mr Tony Hinton

Members – Medicine, Science & Data

Prof Norman Fenton

Professor of Risk, Queen Mary University of London

As well as his position as Professor at QMUL

Norman is a mathematician whose current focus is on critical decision-making and, in particular, on quantifying uncertainty using causal, probabilistic models that combine data and knowledge.

His areas of work cover health, law and forensics, security, reliability, and transport safety.

Professor Norman Fenton

Prof Karol Sikora

Chief Medical Officer of Rutherford Health

Karol was the founder of Cancer Partners UK which has created the UK’s largest independent cancer network with private equity. He was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cancer Medicine at Imperial College School of Medicine and is still honorary Consultant Oncologist at Hammersmith Hospital, London. He was seconded to be Director of the WHO Cancer Programme in 2000

He was the Founding Dean and now Professor of Medicine at Britain’s first independent Medical School at the University of Buckingham and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He has published over 300 papers and written or edited 20 books including Treatment of Cancer – the standard British postgraduate textbook, now going to its seventh edition in over 30 years. His book, The street-wise patients guide to surviving cancer was published recently. Nearly a year ago, he joined Twitter and now has over three hundred thousand followers. During the Covid crisis he has been dubbed the Positive Professor.

Prof Karol Sikora

Dr John Flack

Retired Pharmaceutical R&D Scientist

John has spent 40 years working in senior R&D and executive positions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. After graduating in pharmacy from London University he attained his PhD in the Dept. of Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy, London University. He then did a post-doctoral fellowship at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Massachusetts, U.S.A.

He held senior positions in Research and Development at Smith Kline Beecham and Beecham Pharmaceuticals, during which time nabumetone (an anti-inflammatory), paroxetine (an anti-depressant), granisetron (an anti-emetic), Eminase (a thrombolytic), Augmentin (an oral anti-bacterial), Timentin (an injectable anti-bacterial), penciclovir/famciclovir (injectable/oral antivirals), Bactroban (a topical anti-bacterial) were discovered, developed and registered for marketing.

Dr John Flack

Dr Roland Salmon, MRCGP, FFPH

Former Director of the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre

Roland is a retired Consultant (Medical) Epidemiologist and former Director of the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (Wales) where he was responsible, for the surveillance and investigation of outbreaks, of infectious diseases as well as policy advice to government. He spent eight years as a member of the Department of Health’s Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP), including two years as acting chair and eight years as chair of its Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) Working Group.

Recently, he has contributed to the COVID-19 debate, to date, via rapid responses in the British Medical Journal, a tribune-libre in Le Monde and letters to the London Review of Books, the Times and the Western Mail. As a Crematorium Medical Referee, he has peer-reviewed publication, in Epidemiology and Infection of a survey of the patients dying from COVID-19 whose cremations we authorised during the first wave of the pandemic. The key findings of this study were an average (median) age of 82 years with a median of 2 other serious comorbidities, as well as a quarter of the infections being acquired in hospital and a further quarter in the care sector.

Dr Roland Salmon

Isabella Cooper FnDNutr., BSc (Hons), AFHEA, AMRSB, AfENDO

Doctoral Researcher

Isabella majored with honours in biochemistry with medical physiology, molecular genetics, advanced cell biology, advanced cancer biology, physiological networks (neurology, endocrinology and immunology), proteins and enzyme biochemistry, bioinformatics in influenza, and metabolic biochemistry. She has won multiple awards including the Faculty of Science and Technology Awards, Individual Teaching Award and Group Teaching Award for Medical Physiology, Dean’s List Awards and Biochemical Society Award.

Isabella is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Affiliate of the Endocrine Society, Affiliate of the Physiological Society and Associate Member of the Royal Society of Biology. Her PhD research is in hyperinsulinemia and ketogenic sciences. Her work involves human intervention trials and ex vivo work, with samples from research participants.

Isabella Cooper

Dr Paul Cuddon

Healthcare and Life Sciences Research Analyst, London

Paul began his career as a PhD Student at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge studying the biology of neural networks and spent a year with Merck, Sharp and Dohme working on neural stem cells. He then undertook a postdoc at the Cambridge Institute of Medical Research discovering potential treatments for Huntington’s Disease.

He moved into equity research in 2007, and has been a top-ranked Healthcare Analyst for the last decade. He has written extensively on diagnostics for SARS-CoV-2 treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 and the collateral impact of the pandemic on a variety of business and healthcare services. His input into HART is in his personal capacity.

Dr Paul Cuddon

Dr Tanya Klymenko

Senior lecturer in Biomedical sciences

Tanya is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a molecular biologist with 22 years laboratory experience and an expert in viral pathogen detection techniques including RT-PCR and metagenomics. She co-authored papers on host-virus interactions, biology of RNA viruses and B-cell malignancies.

Currently she is researching molecular mechanisms of the immune response and maintenance of immunological memory against pathogens. Her input into HART is in her personal capacity.

Dr Tanya Klymenko

Dr Malcolm Loudon

Expert in Global Health and Disease Control

Malcolm has worked in the hospital and wider health sector in the United Kingdom and abroad.

He has extensive expertise in Global Health and mission specific knowledge of COVID-19 disease control, facility planning and delivery at pace and scale, medical force protection and key logistics.

He has extensive experience in trauma, emergency general and colorectal surgery. He has led regional services including cancer delivering change and service improvement consistently and effectively.

Dr Malcolm Loudon

Dr Penelope Siebert

Lecturer in Public Health

Penny is a lecturer and the course leader for the MA Public Health programme at Nottingham Trent University.

Before entering academia she worked as a public health specialist in primary settings in the East Midlands. She has an interest in communicable disease control at a community level and with a specific interest in how the members of marginalised communities’ needs are articulated and recognised. She has research experience in evaluation with a special interest in the use of qualitative methodologies to elicit better understanding of in practice generation and use of evidence to improve programme and policy implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Her PhD focused on exploring evaluation from the perspective of public health professionals. Her input into HART is in her personal capacity.

Dr Penelope Siebert

Dr Gerry Quinn

Post-doctoral Researcher in Microbiology and Immunology

Gerry began his research career over 15 years ago in Florida working on the mechanisms by which pathogens are able to overcome human immunity mainly with multi-resistant hospital infections like MRSA but also with some work on anti-HIV peptides.

He then moved on to work on methods to overcome antibiotic resistant bacterial biofilms mainly through biosurfactants.

He is currently researching molecular signals in antibiotic production and the discovery of new antibiotics.

His input into HART is in his personal capacity.

Dr Gerry Quinn

Rev Dr William Philip MB ChB (Hons), MRCP, BD

Christian Minister and former Physician

William has been Senior Minister of The Tron Church, Glasgow, since 2004, now overseeing three venues across the city. Formerly Director of Ministry for The Proclamation Trust in London, he is chairman of Cornhill Scotland (a training institute for ministers), a trustee of The Christian Institute, and serves on the International Advisory Board of the Delhi Bible Institute.



He read medicine at The University Aberdeen and prior to ordination was training in cardiology at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He has written articles for various publications.

Rev William Philip

Dr Elizabeth Evans

Retired Doctor

Liz was formerly a GP registrar, then moved into the field of complementary medicine. She recently co-founded the UK Medical Freedom Alliance.

Liz is a member of PHIRE (Physicians’ Health Initiative for Radiation and Environment) and the BSEM (British Society for Ecological Medicine).

Dr Elizabeth Evans

Dr Alan Mordue

Retired Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Epidemiologist

Alan worked as a Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Epidemiologist for 28 years in Newcastle and Scotland and was an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. Before Public Health training he worked clinically in hospital and general practice.

His interests include the prevention of cardiovascular disease, clinical epidemiology and evidence-based medicine, and the application of health economic principles and techniques in health care. After a brief return to the NHS in 2020 to support the response to COVID-19, he has retired from the fray once again.

“Dr

Dr Pedro Parreira

Lecturer in Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow

Pedro graduated in materials science in Lisbon in 2006 and moved to Glasgow for his PhD in 2011, where he ended up staying. Having researched thin film deposition and electron microscopy for approximately 10 years, he has slowly drifted towards scholarship of learning and teaching. In addition to coordinating and teaching on several courses, with emphasis on experimental physics, astronomy and computing, he is also a supervisor and adviser of studies.

He is contributing to HART solely in a personal capacity.

“Dr

Prof Alan Floyd

Professor of Education, University of Reading

Alan is Professor of Education at the University of Reading.

A former teacher, Alan’s research interests are focused on issues related to educational leadership and management in both compulsory and higher education, with the ultimate goal of positively impacting on student learning outcomes and experiences.

Prof Alan Floyd

Dr Malcolm Kendrick

General Practitioner, NHS

Malcolm is a Scottish GP, author and speaker. He has written several books, one which helps decipher medical jargon and one examining current theories about cholesterol and heart disease.

Dr Malcolm Kendrick

Dr Keith Johnson

IP Consultant, Former Patent Examiner

Keith is a recently retired patent examiner with nearly thirty years experience in the field of diagnostic testing, including PCR, DNA chips and immunoassay.

He also holds a D.Phil from Oxford University in the field of Molecular Reaction Dynamics, which involved statistical modelling and chemometrics.

Dr Keith Johnson

Dr Ayiesha Malik

General Practitioner, NHS

Dr Ayiesha Malik is a General Practitioner who works in the NHS and private sector. She is an integrative practitioner who has a special interest in chronic pain and mental well being. She is also a committee member of Doctors For Patients UK. She joined HART when she became impressed with the research and ethics of the organisation.

Dr Ayiesha Malik

Members – Economics, Politics & Law

Prof Marilyn James

Professor of Health Economics, Nottingham Clinical Trials Unit, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham

Marilyn is a health economist who has worked widely in economic evaluation and clinical trials. Resource and outcome valuation are some of her key interests.

She was on the National Screening Committee Antenatal Sub-group and has worked on diabetic eye screening for over 30 years. Additionally, she has experience of working in the Health Service and large pharma as a health economist.

Prof Marilyn James

Prof David Paton

Industrial Economics, Nottingham University Business School

David is Professor of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School.

He has published widely in journals such as Economic Journal, Economica, Journal of Health Economics, Public Choice, Social Science & Medicine, Small Business Economics and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation.

He has acted as an adviser to several Government departments including HM Revenue and Customs, Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department of Trade and Industry and is currently co-editor of the International Journal of the Economics of Business.

Prof David Paton

Dr Lee Jones

Reader in International Politics, Queen Mary University of London

Lee Jones has worked at QMUL since 2009, when he moved from the University of Oxford.

Lee specialises in political economy and international relations, focusing on the politics of intervention, security, and governance, with a particular interest in social conflict and the transformation of states. Much of his work focuses on Southeast Asia and China.

He is co-author of Governing Borderless Threats: Non-Traditional Security and the Politics of State Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2015), which dealt with pandemic management, and “COVID-19 and the Failure of the Neoliberal Regulatory State”, forthcoming in Review of International Political Economy.

Dr Lee Jones

Members – Mental Health, Social Care and Education

Dr Gary Sidley

Retired Clinical Psychologist

Gary is a former Professional Lead/Consultant Clinical Psychologist after 33 continuous years of employment in the UK’s NHS.

He began his career as a psychiatric nurse in 1980, and qualified as a clinical psychologist in 1989. In 2000, he obtained his PhD for a thesis exploring the psychological predictors of suicidal behaviour.

Dr Gary Sidley

Dr Ali Haggett

Former Lecturer in Mental Health

Ali was a former university lecturer and her research focuses on the history of mental illness, with a particular interest in gender and male suicide prevention. Her PhD examined the causes and treatment of depression in women since the 1950s.

She now works in the community, primarily with older people with complex medical problems, using reminiscence therapy and other holistic approaches to promote wellbeing. 

Dr Ali Haggett

Dr Livia Pontes

Clinical Psychologist

Dr Livia Pontes has 18 years of experience as a Clinical Psychologist. She has wealth of cross sector experience, having worked in the public and private sectors, as well as in primary, secondary and tertiary care. She has worked in Brazil, the USA and UK.

Here in the UK Livia has worked in the NHS at the Whittington Hospital in London and at Luton and Dunstable hospital, before dedicating her time completely to private practice.

She has also published a book about cognitive remediation of attention and memory for persons with schizophrenia.

Dr Livia Pontes

Dr Zenobia Storah

Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychologist

Zenobia studied for her doctorate at University College London, and specialised in working with children and adolescents.

She has worked in various CAMHS settings including generic CAMHS, children’s learning disability services and services for ‘Looked After’ and adopted children. In 2018, she left the NHS and now provides private therapy for children and young people, and services to NHS trusts as a private contractor.

She works mainly with children with neurodevelopmental conditions (autism, ADHD), and retains a strong interest in attachment and developmental trauma, providing Expert Witness services for the Family Courts.

Dr Zenobia Storah

Dr Damian Wilde

Clinical Psychologist

Damian initially worked in education as a primary school teacher. After much work in child & adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), he completed a doctorate and then returned to further CAMHS practice, having carried out empirical research into the factors involved in childhood perfectionism.

After setting up a psychotherapy part of a therapies service, Damian began working in adult mental health. His main specialism is trauma psychotherapy but he also supports initiatives which look to tackle social inequality.

Dr Damian Wilde

Dr Elizabeth Corcoran

Psychiatrist and functional medicine doctor

Elizabeth is a Psychiatrist now working in Functional Medicine, is Chair of Down’s Syndrome Research Foundation UK (www.dsrf-uk.org) and has been working with PHE as a community stakeholder on the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme (FASP) Information and Education Sub-Group for the evaluative roll-out of NIPT testing.

Dr Elizabeth Corcoran

Prof David Seedhouse

Philosopher, author and software developer

David is owner and creator of the Values Exchange, an online tool for reflection and debate that has been used for almost two decades in universities and health care in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

A widely read author in health philosophy, ethics and decision-making, David is also a best-selling author for Wiley.

Professor David Seedhouse

Sarah Waters

Psychotherapist and Therapeutic Parenting Practitioner

Sarah is experienced in working with the effects of abuse, neglect and childhood trauma. She also specialises in the family therapy and parenting model, Dyadic Developmental Practice (DDP). The DDP theory of trauma and brain development underpins the TIS and Thrive models in schools. In 2013 she set up a service for families affected by domestic abuse for a Cornwall charity and ran it for nearly 4 years.

Sarah’s knowledge of attachment theory means she is passionate about early intervention but constantly frustrated by its lack in our society. She also incorporates the transpersonal into her work seeking to provide harmony between mind, body and spirt. Prior to training to be a therapist in 2004 she worked in the field of PR and Marketing in London and Australia. 

Sarah waters

Dr Val Fraser

Education Adviser

Val began working life as an English teacher in a secondary school. Later she taught post graduate students at the University of Nottingham. Her work took her around the world lecturing to international school teachers and she retired from the University in 2020.

She is also an education adviser for Nottinghamshire Local Authority reporting on home educated learners. Her specialist field is the most vulnerable children who often present with mental health issues and complex learning needs.

A subject expert for Ofqual and an Ofsted School Inspector, her subject expertise across all aspects of her work is in the field of creative pedagogues, conducive learning environments and collaborative talk for learning.

Dr Val Fraser

Jen Ayling

UKCP Accredited Gestalt Psychotherapeutic Counsellor

Jen Ayling is a Gestalt psychotherapeutic counsellor who works in Sheffield for a sexual abuse charity, as well in private practice. She’s a long time campaigner against forced and coerced treatment in mental health care and this has influenced much of her thinking around the public health response to COVID-19.

Jen is a co-founder of Therapists for Medical Freedom – a collective of UK psychological therapists who have ethical concerns around the COVID-19 response. They are committed to defending the values of bodily autonomy, informed consent, and medical freedom.

Prior to training as a counsellor, Jen worked as a web-developer, and has an active interest in how technology impacts on human health, happiness and social connection. The relationship between technology and public health remains a strong clinical interest of hers in relation to the current health crisis.

Jen Ayling