New Jersey Public School Prize-for-Vaccine Scheme Under Fire

Syringes filled with COVID-19 vaccine sit on a table at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in a file image. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A New Jersey initiative that awards public school students gift cards and cash prizes for creating posters and videos promoting vaccines has come under fire by health critics, who claim the program to be a thinly veiled attempt to solicit young people into creating promotional material on behalf of pharmaceutical interests.

The campaign, “Protect Me With 3+,” sponsored by the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDH), stipulates that “New Jersey students in grades 5–12 can enter to win great prizes while promoting vaccination.” Contest participants can win a $50–$175 gift card, while teachers whose classes submit the most entries will be awarded $75 gift card awards, according to the website.

“By getting vaccinated, you are protecting yourself and your family and friends,” the website instructed. “Not vaccinating a child on time can make someone else sick, like a friend, baby, adult, grandparent, or someone unable to be vaccinated.”

The stated goal in creating the contest for children is to “raise awareness of the importance of vaccination against one of the following vaccine-preventable diseases: Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis (Tdap), Meningococcal ACWY (MenACWY), Human Papillomavirus (HPV), Flu, or COVID-19,” according to the NJDH.

“By getting vaccinated, you are protecting yourself and your family and friends,” the website added. “Not vaccinating a child on time can make someone else sick, like a friend, baby, adult, grandparent, or someone unable to be vaccinated.”

In conjunction with the program, the NJDH has also been promoting its campaign in universities, where students are asked to create content promoting vaccines with the phrase “Step Up! Vax Up!” and offers a cash prize of $5,000 to the winning entry.

Concerns

However, the taxpayer-funded contests have raised concerns among some medical experts, who claim that having children participate in the promotion and marketing of pharmaceutical products crosses an ethical red line.

Brian Hooker, senior director of science and research for the Children’s Health Defense, told The Epoch Times that there can be no rational justification for the solicitation of minors to push medical products.

“These school children have been turned into unwilling minions of big pharma, and it is wholly inappropriate,” said Mr. Hooker. “The outrage is that through these schools, they are doing marketing and advertising on behalf of these large pharmaceutical interests, and further, using taxpayer dollars to promote their product.”

Moreover, many of the winning posters that are currently being promoted on its website make false claims about vaccines, according to Mr. Hooker.

Many of the posters promoted on the website include the claim that getting vaccinated prevents transmission of COVID-19, which has since been proven to be false.

The award winner submissions included a hand-colored poster created by a tenth-grade student, which featured a picture of a mask along with the slogan: “Having corona is not a fun persona. Get vaccinated & stay safe.”

“This is put out by the New Jersey Department of Health, who knows better, but they keep perpetuating these lies,” said Mr. Hooker. “We know that the COVID-19 vaccine does not prevent transmission.

“The teachers are being incentivized essentially to lie, while the students are being incentivized to create a disinformation campaign, all with the ultimate goal of marketing to this younger demographic.”

The past two years have seen the COVID-19 vaccines become mired in controversy. The original COVID-19 vaccines were taken by more than 80 percent of Americans after officials pledged that the shots would effectively prevent contraction and stop the spread of the disease.

However, once it was revealed that the shots didn’t work as promised, interest in the subsequent booster shots decreased dramatically.

Vaccines could also be attributed to widespread reports of negative health outcomes believed to have been caused by the shots. COVID-19 vaccines have been named the primary suspect in over 1.5 million adverse event reports, according to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database. The numbers could be even higher. An FDA-funded study out of Harvard found that VAERS cases represent fewer than 1 percent of vaccine adverse events.

‘Propaganda’ Campaign

In a December press release, Mariekarl Vilceus-Talty, president and CEO of the Partnership for Maternal and Child Health of Northern New Jersey, which partnered with NJDH for the project, said the goal in creating the incentive-laden contest was to get young people to become active in their own health and that of their community.

“Through vaccine awareness, this year’s contest aims to inspire adolescents with an engaging and interactive approach to community health,” said Ms. Vilceus-Talty. “Participation is vital to start the conversation about being healthy in their community and while with peers during the school day.”

The Partnership for Maternal and Child Health of Northern New Jersey was unavailable for comment.

Mr. Hooker says the only “participation” these public education students are being engaged in is a taxpayer-subsidized “propaganda” campaign to help market and sell a highly profitable pharmaceutical product.

“They have a clear and very obvious agenda,” said Mr. Hooker. “They try to start children early with a huge laundry list of lies regarding vaccination in general, and they are awarding prizes.

“Parents need to get the school boards involved in order to stop this gross manipulation of children. Kids are too young to make medical decisions for themselves—much less to advertise for the pharmaceutical industry.”