Pro-Vaccine 'Messaging' Research Began 5 Months Before Vaccines Made Available

Government sponsored experiments to craft the best pro-vaccine messages FIVE MONTHS before COVID-19 vaccines became available

Arsenio Toledo 

So-called public health experts sponsored by the federal government had been conducting experiments on how to make people take the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines six months before they first became available.

Researchers from Yale University conducted the study back in July 2020, at least five months before the first COVID-19 vaccine received an emergency use authorization. It was published in the National Library of Medicine, a medical library run by the National Institutes of Health.

This means the federal government has sponsored tests designed to figure out the best messages to use to get people vaccinated.

The study, officially titled “Persuasive Messages for COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Part 1,” involved 4,000 participants recruited online. The goal of the study was to test which kind of messaging would work best to convince people to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

In the study, one group of participants was assigned as a control group. They were given messages that were not related to getting the COVID-19 vaccines. Another group was assigned to be fed baseline messaging. Meaning, they were fed straightforward “facts” regarding the effectiveness and safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

It should be noted that all COVID-19 vaccines were still in the middle of development in July last year. This means any “facts” this group was fed regarding the vaccines had not been proven at the time. (Related: COVID propaganda roundup: The ‘safe and effective’ narrative implodes.)

The experiment had 10 other groups that were told different kinds of propaganda regarding the vaccines. One group was fed messages about “personal freedom.” Members of that group were told that COVID-19 is limiting people’s personal freedom “and by working together to get enough people vaccinated, society can preserve its personal freedom.”

One other group was told that frontline workers like firefighters, doctors and other healthcare personnel are brave for helping deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. “Those who choose not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 are not brave,” read the study’s summary of this experiment.

Another group was told to trust in the science regarding the COVID-19 vaccines. The main message for the group was: “Vaccination is backed by science. If one doesn’t get vaccinated that means that one doesn’t understand how infections are spread or who ignores science.”

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