Public Health Social Marketing of Vaccination: Is it Ethical?

By Bernadette Pajer

NOTE: This was originally posted in March of 2021. Today, July 23, 2022, fear-marketing of multiple vaccine-targeted-infections has begun by the World Health Organization, U.S. federal and state agencies, and the media. Campaigns are underway for covid variants, monkey pox, polio, diphtheria, flu, and many others with corresponding existing or in-the-pipeline vaccines. It is important to be able to spot the “social marketing” campaigns so that slogans can be distinguished from facts. Informed consent cannot occur in a society where an individual is afraid that if they choose not to get a vaccine, they will face retaliation, job-loss, being ostracized and mocked. Informed consent cannot occur when full and complete information about the infection targeted, natural immunity, and treatment protocols are never explained.

Public health agencies in the US engage in what’s known as “social marketing” or “social engineering.” There are university programs and textbooks dedicated to changing behavior using marketing principles.

Campaigns have been done to encourage people to quit smoking, to breastfeed their babies, and to get more exercise. Positive reinforcement messaging is generally appreciated and unchallenged, and those who don’t change their behavior are not ridiculed. You don’t see political cartoons condemning women who bottle feed their babies. It’s considered mean to laugh at someone battling obesity.

Social engineering is also used to increase vaccine uptake. But unlike other public health interventions, there has always been opposition. This opposition has come from those who don’t subscribe to the germ theory of health, from parents of vaccine-injured children, from doctors who witnessed the health of too many of their patients decline following a round of vaccines, from scientists studying the biological impact of vaccination and of vaccine ingredients, such as aluminum.

Also unlike other public health interventions, ridicule of those who disagree with the messaging abounds and is even condoned by the mainstream. There is even a derogatory term meant to mock and shame and intimidate: antivaxxer.

Today in the United States we are experiencing a heightened awareness of the need for respect and kindness for all individuals, regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, age, income, health affliction, and more.

But excluded from this respect and kindness movement are:

  • anyone critical of vaccines and masks
  • anyone who chooses natural immunity over vaccination
  • anyone who promotes individual health responsibility
  • anyone who promotes treatments for vaccine-targeted infections

For proponents of natural immunity and critical of the official response to COVID-19, ugliness and cruelty and public attacks, such as the above cartoon by cartoonist Bob Englehart, are increasing. Even individuals who support vaccination in general, but are wary of the COVID-19 vaccines in particular, are being labelled antivaxxers. There are many messages in Englehart’s cartoon worthy of discussion, but for the purposes of this post, I will point out the main message that the vaccine industry and their public health partners are thrilled to see and they hope you will come to believe: people who support natural immunity are dangerous.

If Pharma-State (meaning corporate-captured public health agencies) can get society to believe that anyone who supports natural immunity is a dangerous nut job, then the general public becomes an army of vaccine enforcers, and every single person on the planet, even those who are already immune to the targeted infection, become obedient customers. Do people who support natural immunity believe they have the right to intentionally infect anyone? Of course not. Do vaccine-free people pose a greater risk of transmission of vaccine-targeted infections in public settings than vaccinated people? Also no.

I must pause here to say that the vast majority of individuals working for public health and even the vaccine industry are good, kind, and well-meaning. They believe in the need for vaccination, they believe the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks. They believe they are doing good–for the “greater good.” The vaccine industry has done a superb job of infiltrating all sources of information, from science journals to medical school curriculums, effectively obscuring and hiding anything negative about their products. In a corporate-captured agency, the employees are not all bribed to do Pharma’s bidding. Some are, and of course the entire system is set up to be funded by Pharma payments to the agencies, but most are folks simply doing their job and believing they are doing good. To learn the full facts about vaccines, the science, politics, and industry, you have to step outside of the mainstream. To do that, you have to be fairly brave because the minute you put your toe over the line, you are called an antivaxxer and your career and even friendships are put at risk. There are an increasing number of people working in public health that have begun to understand this capture and are feeling extremely conflicted, wanting to speak up and change the system, but afraid of what will happen to them if they dare try.

I have been to many medical freedom rallies over the past few years. They have all been peaceful events, full of passion to improve vaccine safety, to end the corporate-capture of public health agencies, to defend medical freedom and informed consent. They are events of powerful speeches, bringing chills, tears, and hope. Below is a graphic reflecting the reality of meeting between medical freedom activists and those who are pro-vaccine and pro-mask.

Yes, I have had people shout at me that they hope I and my family die of polio. Nice, huh? Where is all this anger against those who support natural immunity coming from? Social Engineering from a captured Public Health system.

It has been going on a long time. Consider this publication in the Federal Register in 1984 (vol 49, no 107):

“. . . any possible doubts, whether or not well founded, about the safety of the vaccine cannot be allowed to exist in view of the need to assure that the vaccine will continue to be used to the maximum extent consistent with the nation’s public health objectives.”

Bolstering faith in vaccination programs and denying harm has become a massive enterprise, institutionalized in academia. During the 2019 legislative session in Washington state, when two bills were introduced to remove personal exemptions to vaccination, the below banner from a previous exhibit was installed in the Capitol Building to influence legislators to increase “Make Me” laws.

https://www.pnsma.org/page-18126

When it comes to the “Help Me” aspect of social marketing, Public Health and other governmental agencies play two roles. One is active, the other passive. One saturates society with messaging designed to sway public opinion. The other is utter and complete silence when their messaging drives hate messaging coming from many directions.

Consider this article in Yahoo Life! in July 2020, where the author concludes it’s OK to scream obscenities at a stranger who isn’t wearing a face mask. The mask-less individual depicted could have been a war veteran with PTSD or an assault victim, now unable to wear anything over his face without having a panic attack. He could have severe asthma, a chronic lung disease, a heart condition, anxiety disorder — any number of medical conditions that make wearing a mask harmful to his health. Or, yes, he could be someone who has read the science on mask wearing by healthy people in public places and engaging in civil disobedience. The crowd depicted has no idea. They see a person without a mask, and the author of this article is inciting readers to violence against him. Will we soon see these sort of articles, encouraging violence against anyone not able to prove they are vaccinated?

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ok-yell-strangers-don-t-134608959.html

I sent this article to the WA State Secretary of Health and others at the Department of Health, telling them my concerns for the violence being witnessed in the state, asking them to please take action, to tell the public to remain calm and non-confrontational. They did not reply. They did not take action. People with health issues that qualify for a medical exemption are donning them anyway rather than risk the hateful glares and ugly remarks or refusal of service.

Not only do key players in public health work closely with the drug industry (for example AIM), but the marketing companies that public health agencies hire–with taxpayer money–are often politically aligned. To promote Gardasil and other vaccines, Washington State Department of Health has in the past hired GMMB, a marketing firm on a global mission to “cause the effect.” GMMB boasts that Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton “all hired GMMB to help them win the White House.” GMMB works exclusively with Democratic Party candidates. If you are a Democrat, how would you feel if GMMB exclusively worked with Republican candidates? GMMB is aligned with the goals of the World Economic Forum and their Great Reset, with the Gates Foundation goals to vaccinate everyone on the planet.

President Biden announced the federal government is spending nearly 2 billion dollars, all told, on a “vaccine confidence” campaign to promote uptake of COVID-19 vaccines.

“This television, radio, and digital advertising blitz, set to kick off within weeks, will focus on Americans outright skeptical of vaccines’ safety or effectiveness as well as those who are potentially more willing to seek a Covid-19 immunization but don’t yet know where, when, or how. Specifically, the campaign will target three groups in which access, apathy, or outright skepticism may pose a barrier to vaccinations: young people, people of color, and conservatives, according to a Biden aide.”

WA State BOH meeting materials

This is in addition to the many millions already being spent at the state and federal levels. Here in WA, a presentation was given to the state Board of Health recently, explaining how $500,000 was being spent to target specific communities with vaccination messaging.

The cognitive dissonance required for anyone to say or accept that investigation EUA vaccine products with just a few months of clinical trial data are “safe and effective” is massive.

And yet the conversations in the comment sections of major and social media articles are full of people defending the vaccines, saying they have been proven safe, and denying that any injury or death reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) are related.

Individuals posting about their own experiences are given sympathy and helpful information from the medical freedom community, and derided or attacked by those claiming the vaccines are doing no harm.

Some of those making comments supporting vaccination are being paid to do so. Part of Public Health marketing includes infiltrating groups and subcultures and conversations throughout society. The key messaging I am seeing:

  • the average person can’t possibly understand the science
  • there are no good treatments for COVID-19
  • natural immunity doesn’t last
  • anyone who supports natural immunity is stupid, selfish, dangerous
  • getting the virus is far more dangerous than the vaccine
  • there is no proof the vaccines are dangerous, not even during pregnancy
  • the pandemic will only end with mass vaccination

As the state and federal billion dollar social marketing campaigns get rolling, the censorship will increase, as will the ugly attacks on anyone critical of the vaccines.

I return to the title of this post. Is using social marketing techniques to promote vaccination ethical? Is it ethical to distribute inaccurate messages broadly and deeply about products that come with risk of injury or death, that alter the immune system, that have unintended consequences, that are never studied for long term health impacts? Is it ethical or even safe to create a society and general population ignorant of the products they are being told to take? Is it ethical to not take responsibility for the ugliness, the anger, the potential violence instilled by the messaging?

How far will the government go to try to silence the truth?

History has shown us that truth cannot be silenced. You can’t snuff out the human spirit by throwing a blanket of suppression over the flames of truth. In fact, the harder you try, the more fuel you create, and the bigger the flames grow. We who stand for truth and demand justice and medical freedom are like those birthday candles that you can’t blow out. And our numbers are growing exponentially.