A scathing House of Representatives report published last month further revealed the Department of Health and Human Services’s disregard for truth during the COVID-19 pandemic and the mendacity with which its hired propagandists attempted to manipulate people into internalizing ineffective public health policies.
According to the report, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations spent more than a year looking into the success and scientific accuracy of HHS’s $911 million “We Can Do This” campaign.
Developed in partnership with the “behavior change research and strategy firm” the Fors Marsh Group, the campaign ran from August 2020 through June 2023. As detailed in the report, the Fors Marsh Group was awarded a series of task orders to instill fear in people and convince them of the importance of being vaccinated, boosted, masked, and alone — or at least browbeat and shame them into reluctant compliance.
To do this, according to the report, the Fors Marsh Group utilized “a strategic mix of paid and earned media with exclusive radio partnerships, research-based messaging, and reinforced messaging from trusted influencers, celebrities, and sports figures.”
Much of the campaign messaging highlighted in the report is best described as emotionally manipulative, presenting obedience as the pathway to freedom while portraying masking and vaccination as key to in-person learning for children and a prepandemic life for adolescents and young adults.
Many other ads featured in the report also targeted parents by overstating the risks of COVID-19 to children while downplaying the possible side effects of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters.
The Fors Marsh Group, according to the report, based its messaging on “CDC guidance, recommendations, and internal scientific research,” despite much of this guidance being based on flawed science — or no science at all.
According to the report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regularly disregarded scientific evidence that conflicted with preferred policies based on overestimates of COVID-19’s risk, faulty algorithms, unsubstantiated claims, and untested hypotheses.
If this were not disturbing enough, the report also brings to light the extent to which the government, through the Fors Marsh Group, utilized social listening tools, monitored Google search trends, and studied and categorized people based on their demographic characteristics, media usage, stage of life, and psychographics for the purposes of segmenting people into target audiences and hitting them with fine-tailored advertisements to influence their beliefs and behaviors.
These practices, according to the report, raise “serious questions over further entrenching Big Tech’s role in surveilling Americans and in seeking to influence public opinion.”
“Without more answers from Google and HHS,” according to the report, “it is unclear whether personally identifiable information was in any way used by Google in the development of the Campaign … and to what extent children’s viewing habits were involved in the Campaign.”
Assuming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is approved as HHS secretary next year, one can only hope that he will serve as a much-needed agent of change within a department that thought any of the actions detailed in the report were even remotely acceptable.
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One can also hope that he will take seriously the recommendations for reforming HHS and its agencies put forth in the House report, such as ensuring transparency and accountability while refraining from attempts to silence dissent. Personally, I would also add that he not have his agency surveil and propagandize people.
However, the House report does leave one wondering whether the propaganda program described within was a bad idea pushed solely by senior leadership at the HHS and the CDC or whether it was representative of a larger expert class at the agencies. In either case, Kennedy undoubtedly will have his hands full if his appointment is confirmed.
Daniel Nuccio is a Ph.D. student in biology and a regular contributor to the College Fix and the Brownstone Institute.