Western University prof says colleague spreading vaccine misinformation is hiding behind academic freedom – CBC
London, Ont., school says it’s ‘disappointed,’ but can’t do much about Donald Welsh’s Twitter views
Jan 31, 2022
A professor at Western University in London, Ont., is accusing a colleague of hiding behind the protections of academic freedom to spread misinformation about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and other public health measures.
“Academic freedom comes with academic responsibilities,” said Jacob Shelley, who holds a joint appointment with Western’s faculty of law and the school of health studies, and directs the school’s Health Ethics, Law & Policy lab. “That means having integrity in our research, not just to say whatever the hell we want.”
Shelley’s scorn is directed at Donald Welsh, a professor of physiology at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Welsh has a specialization in cardiovascular biology, and regularly tweets and retweets information that challenges the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.
For his part, Welsh, in an email to CBC News, stands by his right to state his own opinions, spelling that out on his Twitter profile page.
