Dr David H Haslam is a General Practitioner and a Physician specialising in Obesity Medicine at the Centre for Obesity research at Luton & Dunstable Hospital. He graduated from St. Thomas' Hospital Medical School in 1985. He is also Clinical Director, & immediate former Chair of the National Obesity Forum. Dr Haslam is also a member of the group Experts in Severe and Complex Obesity. In 2010 he warned that the wrong people were getting bariatric surgery and said some of those who are biggest should just be offered "palliative care" for their obesity. In December 2013 he was one of a number of doctors who signed a letter to Jeremy Hunt urging that the battle against dementia should focus on the benefits of a Mediterranean diet rather than drugs of dubious efficacy.