Reacting to Bridgen’s claims, Health Minister Maria Caulfield said he was “entitled to his view”.
However, she disagreed with him, “not only in the content of his speech but the way in which he derided doctors, scientists, nurses, many of us who worked through the pandemic and saw first hand the devastation that covid caused.
“There is no doubt in my mind that despite the PPE, the vetting and the social disatancing the thing that made the biggest difference in combating Covid was the introduction of the vaccine.
“Vaccines have underpinned our strategy of living with Covid.
“They have saved thousands of lives and allowed the economies to reopen not just in this country but in countries around the globe.”
She added: “It is important to put on the record that the Covid vaccine is safe and we have some of the highest safety standards in the world.”
The BHF has denied all the claims.
A spokeswoman for the British Heart Foundation said: “The British Heart Foundation has no knowledge of these allegations. As a leading medical research charity we uphold the highest scientific standards in all the research that we fund.”