{"id":15070,"date":"2025-12-28T08:52:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T15:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=15070"},"modified":"2025-12-28T08:52:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T15:52:02","slug":"hhs-cdc-fund-online-game-bad-vaxx-to-psychologically-inoculate-vaccine-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2025\/12\/28\/hhs-cdc-fund-online-game-bad-vaxx-to-psychologically-inoculate-vaccine-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"HHS\/CDC Fund Online Game ‘Bad Vaxx’ to ‘Psychologically Inoculate’ Vaccine Resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I think it was under Obama where they passed legislation letting the federal government legally propagandize the country directly, and here you go. Some of the language reminds me of the part of the EU President’s speech I posted<\/a> yesterday, which points to global coordination. And with all the deaths, disabilities, SADS… how is the unvetted and highly experimental gene therapy still being pushed and sold? And if it worked, what does it matter if people don’t get it as those that did would be protected? It’s because it didn’t work, harmed your immune system, and disabled or killed too many of those that did take it with its poison adjuvant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/jonfleetwood.substack.com\/p\/hhscdc-fund-online-game-bad-vaxx<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Ironically, the game uses the very techniques it claims to train users to detect.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Jon Fleetwood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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U.S. taxpayer funds are being used by federal health agencies to develop and test online psychological games designed to condition how people\u2014especially younger audiences\u2014interpret and respond to vaccine skepticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An August Nature Scientific Reports<\/a> <\/em>study reveals that the project was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through a CDC award administered by the American Psychological Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper states that the funding totaled \u201c$2,000,000 with 100% funded by CDC\/HHS.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grant supporting the project is titled \u201cCOVID\u2014INOCULATING AGAINST VACCINE MISINFORMATION,\u201d award number 6NU87PS004366-03\u201302<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That award has already handed out over $4.3 million in taxpayer funds since its activation in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project language mirrors the study\u2019s conceptual framework: dissent is treated as exposure to a pathogen, and resistance to dissent is treated as immunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government-funded study centers on the creation and evaluation of an online game called Bad Vaxx<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the authors, the purpose of the game is not to examine disputed vaccine claims or to compare competing evidence, but to reduce what they define as \u201cvaccine misinformation\u201d by shaping how players cognitively process vaccine-critical content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is despite the CDC\u2019s own VAERS data confirming<\/a> over 2.7 million injuries, hospitalizations, and deaths linked to vaccines since 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study authors explain their premise at the outset:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cVaccine misinformation endangers public health by contributing to reduced vaccine uptake.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

From this premise, the study moves directly to intervention design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe developed a short online game to reduce people\u2019s susceptibility to vaccine misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The paper frames this approach as a form of psychological prevention, borrowing language from immunology rather than education or debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cPsychological inoculation posits that exposure to a weakened form of a deceptive attack\u2026 protects against future exposure to persuasive misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Bad Vaxx game operationalizes this concept by training players to recognize four specific \u201cmanipulation techniques\u201d: what it refers to as emotional storytelling, fake expertise, the naturalistic fallacy, and conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These techniques are treated as characteristic of vaccine misinformation as a category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe game trains people to spot four manipulation techniques, which previous studies have identified as being commonly used in the area of vaccine misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The study does not include a corresponding examination of whether similar persuasive techniques may be used in vaccine-promoting messaging, government communications, or pharmaceutical advertising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, the Bad Vaxx project itself relies on the same persuasive architecture it claims to neutralize\u2014emotional framing, authority cues, and repetition\u2014embedded in a gamified format designed to shape intuition rather than invite scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The classification of \u201cvaccine misinformation\u201d is established in advance and applied only to information critical of injectable pharmaceutical products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the paper, vaccine skepticism is framed as a behavioral and social risk rather than as a possible response to uncertainty, evolving evidence, or institutional error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The taxpayer-funded authors write:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSusceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 predicts lower compliance with public health regulations and lower willingness to get vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The choice of a game as the delivery mechanism is emphasized as a strength of the intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors repeatedly describe the format as \u201centertaining,\u201d \u201cimmers[ive],\u201d and scalable, highlighting its ability to shape intuition rather than deliberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cA practical, entertaining intervention in the form of an online game can induce broad-scale resilience against manipulation techniques commonly used to spread false and misleading information about vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Games function by rewarding correct pattern recognition, reinforcing desired responses, and reducing analytical friction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study\u2019s outcome measures reflect this design: discernment scores, confidence ratings, and willingness to share content, rather than independent evaluation of claims or evidence comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers also emphasize the potential reach of such interventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe Bad Vaxx game has the potential for adoption at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This matters because the funding source is not an academic foundation with no policy stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CDC is the primary federal agency responsible for vaccine schedules, promotion, and uptake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the study does not address how this institutional role shapes the definition of misinformation used in the intervention, nor does it acknowledge the conflict inherent in a public health authority funding psychological tools aimed at managing disagreement with its own policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dystopian nature of the project emerges from the structure itself: state funding, psychological conditioning, asymmetric definitions, and a delivery system designed to bypass debate in favor of intuition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the paper documents, in concrete terms, is the use of taxpayer funds to develop and validate a behavioral intervention\u2014delivered through a medium optimized for psychological conditioning\u2014that trains users to reflexively distrust a predefined category of speech, while exempting vaccine-promoting institutions from equivalent scrutiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think it was under Obama where they passed legislation letting the federal government legally propagandize the country directly, and here you go. Some of the language reminds me of the part of the EU President’s speech I posted yesterday, which points to global coordination. And with all the deaths, disabilities, SADS… how is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15070"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15072,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15070\/revisions\/15072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}