MP Andrew Bridgen ‘bombarded’ cabinet ministers with anti-vax messages

MP Andrew Bridgen “bombarded” cabinet ministers with Covid claims before he lost the Conservative whip for linking the vaccine to the Holocaust.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak denounced the North West Leicestershire MP’s comments as “completely unacceptable”.

The Conservative Party’s chief whip Simon Hart also said Mr Bridgen had “crossed a line” and had “caused great offence in the process”.

One cabinet minister told The Independent that he had been “on the receiving end myself” of Mr Bridgen’s claims about the vaccine.

On Wednesday Mr Bridgen tweeted an article on vaccines, adding: “As one consultant cardiologist said to me, this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust.”

Asked if he had been messaging government ministers, Mr Bridgen added: “Of course I have been trying to get the science, the facts and the data in front of ministers. I have a duty to raise my grave concerns about the experimental mRNA gene therapy treatments and to protect the lives of my constituents and the wider British public.”

But Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who helped develop the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, and Professor Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, both denounced the claims.

Sir Andrew said: “It is essential, as part of the scientific process, that hypotheses on vaccine safety and efficacy are tested rigorously in clinical trials, and the data subjected to challenge by investigators and independent experts, and undergoes painstakingly detailed regulatory review, to ensure that we always base vaccine policy decisions on the very best scientific evidence and its interpretation.

“The emergence of new data or evidence is welcome in science to ensure that conclusions can be reviewed and revised as necessary so that the most effective and cost-effective use of vaccines continues.

“Ideological beliefs in favour or against vaccination are not science and have no role to play in making the best policy.”

At Prime Minister’s Questions, the former health secretary Matt Hancock highlighted the “disgusting, antisemitic, anti-vax conspiracy theories”.

Without referring directly to Mr Bridgen, the former cabinet minister said the comments were “not only deeply offensive but anti-scientific and have no place in this House or in our wider society”.

Tory MP Michael Fabricant welcomed the decision, saying his former colleague will have “blood on his hands” if his comments stop people getting vaccinated.

“If this deters people from being vaccinated and causes deaths as a direct consequence, he’ll have blood on his hands. His tweets are wholly irresponsible.”

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, called the comments “highly irresponsible and wholly inappropriate”.

Mr Bridgen is currently suspended from the Commons after he was found to have displayed a “very cavalier” attitude to the rules in a series of lobbying breaches.

MPs agreed at the start of the week to suspend Mr Bridgen for five sitting days from Tuesday.

Prof Finn said: “Both denying the existence of vaccine side effects and exaggerating them are very unhelpful to the public, to public health and to maintaining trust in medicine and science.

“Serious injury due to vaccination definitely does occur but, mercifully, it is very rare while the benefits are near universal.”

He added: “It is fair to say that both expert and public opinion demands that the individual benefit must greatly outweigh any risk or theoretical risk for a vaccine to be recommended.

“Having been closely involved in such risk-benefit assessments of Covid vaccines for the UK over the last three years, I can say with confidence that this approach has been consistently taken throughout and that policy decisions have followed such evidence-based recommendations.”

Prof Sir Kent Woods, emeritus professor of therapeutics at the University of Leicester and a former chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, said there was “overwhelming evidence” that the benefits of Covid vaccines for the population as a whole outweigh potential harms.

He said: “The MMR-autism fiasco demonstrated clearly that groundless assertion of vaccine hazards can cause real harm.”