Would a celebrity convince you to be vaccinated?

What’s the difference between Elvis, Joe Biden and Sir Ian McKellen?

Joe Biden is the only non-celebrity to be publicly vaccinated as an incentive.

How is it that we have allowed the creation of a world where we don’t trust the leaders we voted for? Coupled with this are doubts about the integrity of big pharma, maybe because of the apparent link. ‘Congress is owned by pharma.’

Both have lied, been caught and often got away with it. Accountability is scarce on both sides. Trump ‘knew the extent of the deadly coronavirus threat in February but intentionally misled the public by deciding to “play it down”. It is now virtually impossible to sue a pharmaceutical company for side effects; a special Injury Compensation Program was set up as a no-fault alternative.

The profits to be gained may be too tempting. Gerald Posner, author of Pharma, Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America, explains how ‘‘Pharmaceutical breakthroughs such as anti­biotics and vaccines rank among some of the greatest advancements in human history. Yet exorbitant prices for life-saving drugs, safety recalls affecting tens of millions of Americans, and soaring rates of addiction and overdose on pre­scription opioids have caused many to lose faith in drug companies. Now, Americans are demanding a national reckoning with a monolithic industry.’

But we continue to trust celebrities who make their livings out of pretending to be something else other than their true selves. We even trust their judgment on vaccinations, a field dependent on experts in science, research, genetics, chemistry, healthcare and much more. Why?

I recently wrote about the power of celebrity when I met Elizabeth Gilbert – click here to read the full blog.

Elvis endorsed the polio vaccine, promoting its uptake by being publicly vaccinated. ‘Public health officials recruited Elvis, who had skyrocketed to fame that year with his gyrating hips, crooning tunes and rakish good looks, to mobilise America’s teens.’ ‘Elvis’ pre-show inoculation “was obviously a help in getting teenagers to take up the vaccine.” Signed Elvis photos were also used as an incentive.

The NHS in the UK is enlisting ‘sensible’ celebrities, people who are ‘known and loved’ to persuade people to take the coronavirus vaccine amid fears of a low take-up. Ministers and NHS England are drawing up a list of “very sensible” famous faces in the hope that their advice to get immunised would be widely trusted, Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia who specialises in infectious diseases, said famous faces could help “people hear the truth and understand the message”.

A common denominator exists ­– profit. Celebrities, along with pharma, are attracted by the money which in turn attracts us to further invest in their future success.  When greed becomes the main driving force it can go dreadfully wrong.

I encourage my clients to unplug from others’ dreams. They are usually created for their benefit, not my clients’. I believe we are all born with our own dreams and it is easy to get sidetracked by the seductive temptations presented to us daily, even hourly.

I work with logos and one of the experiments I do in some of my workshops is to hand around blank (numbered) envelopes with different logos and encourage participants to feel into these and tune into the business values embedded in the logo within. It is interesting and informative. At one session, a participant threw an envelope on the floor in extreme distaste and refused to pick it up. At the conclusion, when we opened the envelopes and compared notes, this envelope contained the logo of a pharmaceutical company, one she had bad experiences with.

As it happens, and in contrast to some other pharmaceutical businesses, a Chairman of this very same company once argued that it was not worth investing in drugs that would not generate substantial revenue.

This is not a call to mistrust pharma.  Personally, I believe that most of us want to create better in the world, but it is an encouragement to think for ourselves, to take into account the individual, unique and innate wisdom that resides in each of us, and to incorporate that into our decision taking. This is how we create anew; this is how we help create the world of our own dreams.