Fresh from giving evidence to the United States Senate, I believe Andy Burnham is the only major politician who truly understands how to get justice for the COVID vaccine injured, save the NHS and tackle Britain’s chronic disease epidemic.
Two weeks ago I was invited to give evidence to senators on issues including the potential harms of the covid mRNA vaccine, public health, medical transparency and restoring trust in healthcare.
My testimony which you see in full here was very well received and covered by GB News. There were several other scientists who also testified over their personal experience in the suppression of data on covid vaccine harms including Britain’s most eminent oncologist, Professor Angus Dalgleish.
Why is this relevant to Andy Burnham?
I’ve known Andy both personally and professionally for almost 20 years.
My late father, Dr Kailash Chand OBE, a GP from Tameside and Honorary Vice President of the British Medical Association, first introduced us when Andy was a health minister in the last Labour government.
One of the reasons I have so much respect for him dates back to 2012, when Andy was Shadow Health Secretary.
At the time, the Coalition Government was pushing through controversial NHS reforms that critics feared would allow more private companies to run NHS services and force hospitals and providers to compete against one another.
Doctors, nurses and patient groups warned the changes could make care more fragmented and move the NHS away from its founding principles.
I helped support a national campaign opposing the reforms. I managed to attract backing from public figures including celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and former professional footballer Rio Ferdinand for a petition generated by my father that was debated in Parliament.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/23/nhs-bill-andrew-lansley
Andy invited me and my dad to attend the debate.
From the opposition benches, he argued passionately that introducing more competition and private provision into the NHS would increase costs, undermine patient care and weaken the health service.
Although the reforms eventually became law, Andy emerged as one of their strongest opponents.
What impressed me wasn’t just his grasp of the detail but his determination to stand up for patients and defend the NHS.
After attending the premiere of my first co-produced Documentary with Donal O’Neill, The Big Fat Fix (covered by BBC World News) in 2016 he told the Tameside reporter in reference to my work.
“He’s gone all the way from Tameside and he’s changing the world. His messages are revolutionary in their impact. The challenge that he’s thrown out about sugar to the food industry. He’s really making people think differently about what they eat and how they live their life. Through this film and through his other work he’s going to change many thousands of lives, many millions of lives for the better.”
Andy also endorsed our first book, The Pioppi Diet, where he was quoted as saying ” this book has the power to make millions of lives healthier and happier”.
What were the major themes of the book, the film and my work that most resonated with the Mayor of Manchester, who if he wins the by-election in Makerfield will almost certainly become the next UK Prime Minister.
Following in my father’s footsteps and having worked in the NHS for almost two decades, I’ve dedicated much of my career to improving patient care and tackling the root causes of poor health.
That means ensuring patients get treatments that genuinely help them while reducing avoidable harm.
A major focus has been improving the use of medicines. Adverse drug reactions account for a significant proportion of hospital admissions among older people.
I’ve also highlighted the problem of unnecessary tests, treatments and operations. As medical director of NHS England, in 2015 Sir Bruce Keogh estimated 1 in 7 of all NHS medical and sugical treatments should not have been carried out in patients. One doctor’s waste is another patient’s delay.
But perhaps most importantly, we need to focus on prevention.
Most chronic disease is driven by lifestyle and environmental factors. If we want a sustainable NHS, we need to help people improve their mental, physical and social wellbeing rather than simply treating illness after it develops.
At my book launch Andy talked passionately about over prescribing and how the NHS should focus on the prevention model rather than the medical model as he called it. He talked about social prescribing and its benefits.
In 2022 Andy was one of the first politicians I spoke to when I began raising concerns about vaccine safety and how I believed it was the major contributor to my fathers premature death.
He gave me almost an hour of his time to hear my concerns and discuss the evidence. He told me that he knew someone who had suffered a pulmonary embolism after taking the mRNA jab which we now know is a recognised complication.
Throughout his political career, Andy has shown a willingness to engage with difficult issues and listen to people who feel they have not been heard.
He was a prominent campaigner on the infected blood scandal, in which thousands of NHS patients were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products, and he described the decades-long failure to tell victims the truth as a “criminal cover-up”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39713396
He has also supported campaigners seeking justice over Primodos, a hormone-based pregnancy test at the centre of a decades-long controversy over alleged links to birth defects and miscarriages.
The wider issue for me is public trust.
Whether discussing medicines, patient safety or public health policy, trust is rebuilt when politicians are prepared to listen, ask questions and engage openly with concerns.
As I told the Senate last week, one of the biggest challenges facing healthcare is restoring confidence in our institutions. That requires transparency, accountability and a willingness to confront difficult questions.
Those are qualities I believe Andy possesses. I trust him more than any other politician.
Last year I was honoured to be awarded with a five-star patient rating from Top Doctors. My father, who was Andy’s closest health adviser, was adored by his patients and inspired me to be the best Doctor I could be to serve them.
He came up with a great acronym for what matters most to patients in the NHS: the ABC of healthcare.
- A is for Access. Patients need timely access to care when they need it.
- B is for Behaviour. How healthcare professionals treat patients matters enormously. Empathy, compassion and kindness are central to good outcomes.
- C is for clinical competence. Patients deserve healthcare professionals with the skills, expertise and judgement to provide the highest quality care.
Healthcare is about much more than prescriptions and procedures.
We have reached a chronic disease crisis after decades of economic policies that have too often put corporate interests ahead of public health.
The ultra-processed food industry engineers products designed to be over-consumed. Drug companies naturally seek to maximise the use of their products. Yet good health doesn’t primarily come from a medicine bottle.
Fifty to eighty per cent of differences in health outcomes is determined by the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.
That means early child development, good education, decent housing, affordable healthy food, a fair living wage and access to high-quality healthcare for all.
What impresses me about Andy is that he understands these underlying causes. He recognises that the NHS cannot be fixed simply by spending more money on hospitals. We must tackle the root causes driving demand in the first place.
In my view, Andy is one of the very few politicians who understands both what is driving Britain’s health crisis and what is needed to reverse it.
That’s why I believe he is Britain’s best hope not just to save the NHS, but to help create a healthier and happier country.