By the Children's Health Defense Team

Last December, the world's leading vaccine experts met in Geneva and acknowledged that vaccine confidence was in the toilet. Despite the public health establishment's best efforts to mock and dissipate "vaccine hesitancy," these experts, convened by the World Health Organization (WHO), confessed that the number of citizens and health professionals raising questions about vaccine safety was spiraling out of their control. One of the attendees—a WHO-affiliated anthropologist who has made a career out of fine-tuning vaccine messaging and rebranding vaccine concerns as "rumors"—even admitted that there was no legitimate science to back up vaccine proponents' bald assertions about safety.

As if by magic, SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19 materialized early in 2020, just in time to recast vaccines as a solution rather than a problem. In fact, vaccines have been given a starring role in the tense global drama that is unfolding, with the media misleadingly promoting them as the best and even only "path to immunity." Frustratingly for the vaccine pushers, this daily barrage of propaganda has not only failed to achieve its intended effect but is trending in the wrong direction. In the most recent poll, two out of five Americans (40%) indicated that they do not intend to get a Covid-19 vaccine, and the percentage voicing interest in a vaccine displayed a 10% drop since May.

Stumped by this recalcitrance, behavioral scientists have decided to take the persuasion game in hand, availing themselves of the bonanza of research dollars suddenly on offer for anything Covid-19-related. On July 8, Yale University quietly completed a randomized controlled trial assessing the impact of "Persuasive Messages for COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake," and in late August, Vanderbilt University issued a press release summarizing results from a similar study. (The same types of studies are also being conducted to determine how best to convince people to socially isolate themselves, social distance and wear masks.) Both Yale and Vanderbilt happen to be hosting clinical trials for Covid-19 vaccines, and both institutions' persuasion studies operate from the insulting premise that individuals making independent vaccine choices are cowardly, selfish and unscientific. Equally insultingly, the university researchers appear to believe that the ignorant masses can be manipulated into a different way of thinking if exposed to the proper messaging.