Prof probed for alleged anti-vaccine teaching
The principal at Queen’s University tried to calm a flurry of concerns Wednesday, asking onlookers to “reserve judgment” while administrators probed accusations that a health professor is teaching anti-vaccine material and that she encouraged students to watch a documentary that linked the polio vaccine to AIDS.
Current and former students circulated lecture slides purported to be from a first-year health course in the Queen’s faculty of kinesiology and health studies. One slide from the lecture — titled “Vaccines — Good or Bad?” — reads: “No scientific evidence exists showing vaccines are NOT contributing to increased incidence of chronic illness and disability in children.” Another slide provided YouTube links to such antivaccine documentaries as Origin of AIDS: The Polio Vaccine,” with instructions to “especially watch these ... All of them! Going to be on the test!!!!!”
Shown the deck of slides alleged to have been used in lecture, Public Health Ontario’s chief of infectious diseases said, “It reads like an anti-vaccine diatribe.”
“I would be astonished to learn this was given in a university lecture,” Dr. Natasha Crowcroft said.
The Alma Mater Society (AMS), the student government, asked administrators about the matter and were told the faculty was aware of the issue and had spoken with the professor, AMS academic affairs commissioner Colin Zarzour said. The student government also sent out a series of tweets urging students to get in touch with concerns about the “#antivaxprof.”
“We’re looking for some clear actions and some clear communication from the school,” Mr. Zarzour said. “What we need to know from the school is, what are they going to do about this?”
Queen’s principal Daniel Woolf tweeted that he was aware of the situation and encouraged “people to be respectful and patient, and to reserve judgment until the facts are known.”
Later, the principal’s office released a statement, saying he’d enlisted the provost to look into the matter.
“The university is committed to the academic freedom of our faculty members,” he said. “At the same time, the university expects that faculty members will present intellectually rigorous research and course materials.”
Asked about the progress of the investigation on Wednesday afternoon, Queen’s provost Alan Harrison said he needed to confirm the slides were actually shown in lecture or if there was any verbal context that went along with them, before forming any judgment.
“Even if the slides might appear incriminating, I would really need to know much more about what was actually said by the professor in the class,” he said.
The instructor listed for the course in question, Physical Determinants of Health (HLTH 102), is Adjunct Professor Melody Torcolacci, the school’s former track and field coach.
Prof. Torcolacci did not respond to calls and email on Wednesday.
The course description available on the university website lists “vaccines and health” as one of 10 topics to be covered. The course aims to “help you appreciate that it is cumulative, long-term exposures to seemly [sic] harmless things that can ultimately affect your health.”
Isabelle Duchaine, the Queen’s alumna who posted the apparent lecture slides Tuesday, said she spoke with at least three students who had concerns about the material being taught in the HLTH 102 course when she was the AMS’s academic affairs commissioner in the 2012/13 academic year.
At that time, she encouraged the students to take their issues up with the faculty. But when a Queen’s student posted that the course was covering anti-vaccination material on Tuesday, Ms. Duchaine said she started to regret not doing more.
She said she posted the slides after a current student sent them to her.
“I can now see this was something I should have pursued a bit further,” Ms. Duchaine said. “I thought, ‘ At this stage it’s absolutely ridiculous.’
“When lack of vaccination is becoming a huge problem, when we have a measles outbreak in Toronto ... it becomes not just a question of academic integrity, but a public health concern.”