| Dear Stacy:
I think that the university would not want to appear to quash free speech by cancelling the booking but we'll see what the administration does in response to Dean O'Neil's enquiries. One possibility is to hold a session at Harbour Centre led by SFU faculty in which a more informed discussion can take place. It needn't take place at exactly the same time as the Vaccine Resistance Movement symposium but within a couple of weeks of the symposium to present a more balanced view.
As a microbiologist, I would be willing to participate in such an event.
Regards, Margo
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Margo M. Moore, Ph. D. Professor Department of Biological Sciences Simon Fraser University Burnaby BC V5A 1S6 Canada
Tel: 778-782-3441 Fax: 778-782-3496
On 2013-03-01, at 12:04 PM, Stacy Pigg wrote: Dear Anke,
Thank you for sending this around. I too question the role SFU is taking as a public university in renting space to this organization, and thereby by implication associating this organization with an academic imprimatur. Like you, I believe that free speech is important. Moreover, the science and public policy issues are not simple. What concerns me is that whoever rented this space to this group did so without ANY awareness of the research and teaching going at a SFU.
Perhaps "engaging the world" should begin with engaging the knowledgeable and skilled faculty researchers who work at SFU?
I too teach about vaccine controversies. About a third of my seminar "Anthropology of Medicine" uses the anti-vaccination movement as a case study. Students learn to apply approaches from the sociology and anthropology of science and medicine to this case. They study the ways that evidence is mustered on both sides, and go on to consider the social and political reasons why the public health/public policy arguments do not sway parents who are hesitant to vaccinate their children. In teaching this material, I have to explain why I myself support vaccination; I emphasize to the students that our purpose int he course is not to decide which side is "right" but to come to a deeper understanding of how controversies about science and technology operate socially, culturally, and politically. We study the argument from a book called Vaccine Anxieties -- a book in which the authors analyze why the public health arguments do not sway vaccine-hesitant parents and they suggest alternative communication and policy strategies to promote vaccination.
In my "International Health" course we also look at the tension between promotion of and resistance to vaccination campaigns. This is part of a unit in which we analyze the mixed results of disease eradication campaigns. Specifically, we look at the historical legacies of coercion in state-led public health campaigns. Again, students review the evidence in public health and policy in support of vaccination, and I try to lead them onward to see how a social and political analyses can help understand apparently irrational resistance to vaccination. And again, the goal is not to convince students that vaccines are "bad," but to expand their conceptual skills for understanding the social and political presence of science and technology.
The bottom line is that SFU will rent its space to anyone. And in fact, university-sponosred events are finding it harder and harder to mount programs at SFU Harbour Centre and SFU Woodward's because the space is too expensive for us.
Stacy Pigg
Department of Anthropology
On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 11:25 AM, Anke Kessler <akessler@sfu.ca> wrote:
Dear all,
I don't ordinarily write in this forum, but I feel the need to alert the academic community at SFU to an event that our institution is hosting on March 12 at SFU Harbour Centre, see
http://vaccineresistancemovement.org/
To be sure, I am not a medical expert. But as a mother of three young children I educated myself on the science (and pseudo-science) of vaccinations. My understanding is that the scientific consensus in the medical community has been that vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary. As an economist, I also know all about positive externalities - indeed, vaccines are one of the prime example I use in class to explain the vast welfare gains that can be achieved, at very low cost, if significant externalities are present.
Sadly, the impact of the anti-vaccination movement has been significant. In 2010, California suffered a deadly outbreak of whooping cough. Measles and mumps have also made a comeback although vaccines are available. It is largely agreed that the root cause of these epidemics can be traced to groups insisting that vaccines are harmful (despite evidence to the contrary). The death toll in the US due to vaccine-resistance has been estimated to be in the 1000s.
Here's a recent article in Slate about the whooping cough epidemic in the US, and how it is partly related to low vaccination rates
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/02/pertussis_epidemic_how_vermont_s_anti_vaxxer_activists_stopped_a_vaccine.html
I would like to know what SFU event planners were thinking when invite a group like this, and - by hosting the event on a university campus - allow the organizers to associate themselves with our academic/scientific community.
To be sure, free speech is important, and groups like these should be able to freely send their message out to the public. But do we really have to give a platform like SFU for their agenda?
I am not sure.
Sincerely,
Anke Kessler
Department of Economics
Simon Fraser University
akessler@sfu.ca
+1-778-782-3443
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Dr. Stacy Leigh Pigg
Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Drive
Burnaby BC V5A 1S6 Canada
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