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Brandon Turbeville
Natural Blaze / BrandonTurbeville.com
February 26, 2016
Recently, a presentation stemming from the Centers for Disease Control regarding a flu vaccine awareness and uptake program has been making the rounds on a number of natural health and alternative media websites.
Entitled “Increasing Awareness and Uptake of Influenza Immunization,” by Dr. Glen Nowak, acting director of media relations for the CDC and associate director for communications for the NIP/CDC, reads more like a cross between Edward Bernays, Zbigniew Burzynski and an aggressive corporate marketing firm than anything related to public health.
Nowak’s presentation is supposed to be a short talk about how to best encourage the public to accept vaccinations and encourage vaccine uptake. However, the presentation is actually a list and chronological display of how to manipulate statistics, take advantage of mass media, create mass hysteria and capitalize on a witless and frightened public to achieve the aims of the CDC.
Realistically speaking, the presentation reads more like a wartime psy-op and propaganda manual than a public a service announcement. Nowak’s presentation begins by pointing out that “good (i.e., effective) communication is a necessary but usually only partially sufficient condition for achieving desired behaviors,” and “facts, figures, and statistics in and of themselves, don’t equate to good communication (nor does more information equal good communication).”
Nowak then gives and example of a commonly used type of propaganda related to vaccines. He writes, “‘it strikes 2 million Americans each year. And complications from this kill up to 200, 000 people a year – more people than breast cancer, car crashes, and AIDS combined. The good news is, in most cases, this can be prevented.’ What is it that causes this harm? (and does having this information change your behavior)”
Just for clarity, the condition that Nowak is referring to is DVT – deep vein thrombosis, not the flu. But his message is clear in that it gets your attention and immediately has the reader wondering how to prevent such a deadly but preventable disease.
Nowak then describes his “‘recipe’ for fostering public interest and high vaccine demand.” The presentation contains seven main points that Nowak argues can be taken advantage of to manipulate the general public’s interest and create a false sense of scarcity of vaccines. Nowak suggests taking advantage of the fact that the arrival of influenza season is the same as immunization season because this creates a situation in which both problem and solution are readily available for all to see.
He also points out that one effect that can be capitalized on is the fact that “dominant strain and or initial cases of disease are: (1) associated with severe illness and/or outcomes, (2) occur among people for whom influenza is not generally perceived to cause serious complications (e.g., children, healthy adults, healthy seniors), (3) in cities and communities with significant media outlets (e.g., daily newspapers, major TV stations).”
In other words, a readily exploited situation where news can be framed to suggest that the flu effects everyone and that even healthy individuals should be afraid. Very afraid. Hence, the need for communities with significant media outlets. Nowak is explicit in this regard in his third point which states, “medical experts and public health authorities publicly (e.g., via media) state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes) – and urge influenza vaccination.” Thus, Nowak is, in no uncertain terms, describing a concerted and coordinated effort between “medical experts” (aka Big Pharma) and corporate media outlets to massively hype and distort public health information for the purpose of promoting an agenda – in this case, vaccination.
All of this, it should be pointed out, is entirely unbeknownst, to the general public who are being frightened, lied to, stoked and prodded at the behest of powers they assume are either benign or working for their own good.
Don’t believe it? Look at Nowak’s fourth point where he states:
The combination of “two” and “three” result in: (A) significant media interest and attention, (B) framing of the flu season in terms that motivate behavior (e.g., as “very severe, more severe than last or past years, “deadly”).
5. Continued reports (e.g., from health officials and media) that influenza is causing severe illness and/or effecting lots of people – helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza.
6. Visible/tangible examples of the seriousness of the illness (e.g., pictures of children, families of those effected coming forward) andpeople getting vaccinated (the first to motivate, the latter to reinforce).
7. References to, and discussions, of pandemic influenza – along with continued reference to the importance of vaccination.Thus, the results that Nowak wishes to see from his deceptive media campaign include “fostering demand, particularly among people who don’t routinely receive an annual influenza vaccination.” For this to be accomplished it “requires creating concern, anxiety, and worry.” For example: (A) a perception or sense that many people are falling ill; (B) a perception or sens that many people are experiencing bad illness; (C) a perception or sense of vulnerability to contracting and experiencing bad illness.
