AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. This study is not affiliated with Stanford University, nor does the author work for the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System as he claims. The study presents a hypothesis that includes false claims about the health effects of wearing masks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend wearing face coverings to reduce the spread of COVID-19, as research shows they can block the transmission of respiratory droplets, which spread the virus.
THE FACTS: Websites and social media users ranging from political candidates to health influencers are falsely claiming a study published on a digital research repository came from Stanford University and proves face masks are ineffective.
In reality, the study is not affiliated with Stanford and is based on debunked claims about face masks, including the false notion that wearing a face covering decreases oxygen levels and increases carbon dioxide levels.
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Up above I said I could find no evidence the study was done at Stanford, and I myself think masks are helpful. Still, my opinion could change as further evidence comes out, and science’s should too. These “fact-checkers” are too dogmatic themselves, acting as if simply because a view is not currently the prevailing one among scientists, it’s necessarily false, and anyone who supports it is the scum of the earth. Yet just a little over a year ago Fauci and others at the CDC were not in favor of the general public wearing masks. (”There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.” Fauci, March 8,2020, 60 Minutes]
A survey of the gradual development of science shows that the prevailing view in countless instances has been wrong. After thousands of years in which dissenters were persecuted, I’d hoped we’d learned that the best policy for arriving at the truth is to allow a wide range of opinions, and let people examine the evidence for the various views. The current trend of “fact-checking” leading to censorship is based on the old idea that the establishment always knows the truth, and that anything that differs from it must be crushed.