University Cancels Dumb Jenny McCarthy Anti-Vaxxer 'Science' Class

The University of Toronto (allegedly, that's in Canada, but we'll double-check with native son Ted Cruz) has been offering budding young boy and girl minds a real neat class about how measles is good for you, vaccines are bad, and plenty of ailments can be cured with some good old-fashioned homeopathic hippie herbal woo-woo voodoo. And quantum mechanics prove it! Sure, why not, other than how that is stupid and wrong and STUPID AND WRONG? The class, "Alternative Health: Practice and Theory," is taught by homeopath Beth Landau-Halpern, who is married to the university's dean, probably a total coincidence.

Landau-Halpern claims she is NOT an anti-vaxxer, just someone who believes "in a nuanced and individualized approach to vaccination" and “a healthy degree of skepticism about the limits of science in understanding health and disease.” Erm, uh, OK.

On her website, Ms. Landau-Halpern has also written that “normal childhood illnesses like measles and chicken pox are almost always followed by massive developmental spurts” and to “avoid vaccinations” because they are “of questionable efficacy, full of ingredients that definitely should not be in the blood stream, and may compromise your general immunity irreparably.”

You'll be shocked to know some people objected to the university -- which had a reputation for doing science good -- allowing this not-a-medical-scientist to teach kids that medical science is bull doody. So, after much outrage (or, you know, the polite Canadian version of outrage), the school looked into it and determined that while the class was not exactly biased against vaccination, "the course could be strengthened by greater engagement of academic colleagues from the Department of Anthropology and experts from the University’s health sciences faculties in developing and approving the course curriculum." That seems like a real gentle way of saying Landau-Halpern should maybe talk to some actual scientists to be more better at teaching her class. Also, just for good measure, the school issued a statement from the deans of the public health and medicine schools explaining that vaccines are good for you and everyone else around you (because herd immunity, duh), and also, Jesus Harold Christ, don't be a goddamned idiot and listen to the debunked myths about how vaccines are scary and bad, like some kind of goddamned idiot who wants to infect everyone. But, you know, in a polite Canadian way.

You'll be shocked even more to know that some people objected to the class being offered at all, even with the disclaimers about how the content of the class was utter shite, so the University of Toronto has decided to not do that anymore. Good job, University of Toronto! You may now have your pristine Good At Science reputation back.

Sorry, anti-vaxxers, but you'll have to get your fake herbal science lessons somewhere else now, maybe from some talentless has-been actor on the Twitters. 

This concludes another episode of pointing and laughing at idiot anti-science anti-vaxxers. And, as always, remember to VACCINATE YOUR FUCKING CHILDREN, the end.

[ IFL Science / Globe and Mail / Patheos / University of Toronto ]