General Discussion

HuckleB

(35,773 posts) Sun Sep 13, 2015, 05:10 PM Sep 2015

Medical students protest the University of Toronto's anti-vaccine course

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/16/8977583/toronto-protest-anti-vaccine-course

"Medical students in Toronto are fighting back against quackery being taught at their prestigious university.

For two years, the University of Toronto had been offering an undergraduate course in the anthropology department called "Alternative Health: Practice and Theory."

The teacher, Beth Landau-Halpern, is a devotee of homeopathy, a practice that defies the basic laws of science and has no good evidence of efficacy. The readings in her course include anti-vaccine materials and an article glorifying Andrew Wakefield, the discredited physician-researcher who used fraudulent research to fabricate a link between measles vaccines and autism.

Landau-Halpern also promotes the views that quantum physics "offers clear explanations as to why homeopathic remedies with seemingly no chemical trace of the original substance are able to resolve chronic diseases" and that cancer is actually a "survival mechanism."

..."

Ugh. Did I say, "UGH!"?

2 replies

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Highlight:

Medical students protest the University of Toronto's anti-vaccine course (Original Post) HuckleB Sep 2015 OP

How bizarre Blasphemer Sep 2015 #1

That's good to know, but quackery is invading some of the most prestigious institutions... HuckleB Sep 2015 #2

Blasphemer

(3,261 posts)

1. How bizarre

Reply to HuckleB (Original post)

Sun Sep 13, 2015, 05:17 PM

Sep 2015

As a graduate of an anthropology department at a not-as-prestigious school in the U.S, I can say that every health-oriented course completely trashed Wakefield and the anti-vacc movement in general. I can't imagine even one course/professor sneaking in and undermining the curriculum. However, the politics behind her appointment is, sadly, status quo so it's not too surprising that she was hired and managed to get away with this.

HuckleB

(35,773 posts)

2. That's good to know, but quackery is invading some of the most prestigious institutions...