Also, in 2016, both Professor Stephen Hawking and Professor Robert Winston called for an inquiry into claims made by Mr Hunt regarding the NHS had sufficient funding, with Hawking saying Hunt had “cherry-picked research, causing a devastating breakdown of trust between government and the medical profession”. Given this, Hunt's tweet after Hawking's death claiming that the physicist was a 'hero' to him received widespread condemnation. A response to Hunt from author Guy Mankowski went viral when it stated that ' disagreed with you so vehemently he took you to court. If he was truly a hero to you...you wouldn't have argued with him'.