Posted on 04/21/2022 10:52:05 AM PDT by Heartlander
First, a primer on the levels of the different levels of quality of research and the “Hierarchy of evidence.” Not all studies are equal in their level of certainty or quality, but the absolute most reliable and most certainty we can get usually comes from Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Control Trials.
See the chart below from the Center for Evidence Based Medicine:
Luckily we have the highest possible evidence we can get on the effectiveness of masks. A Systematic Review of Randomized Control Trials. Cochrane Library (widely considered a gold standard in evidence based medicine and medical research), was actually censored for posting their own link to their Systematic Review of Mask evidence.
“We included nine trials (of which eight were cluster‐RCTs) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness (two trials with healthcare workers and seven in the community). There is low certainty evidence from nine trials (3507 participants) that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI) compared to not wearing a mask (risk ratio (RR) 0.99, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.82 to”1.18. There is moderate certainty evidence that wearing a mask probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza compared to not wearing a mask.”
Of course this research was collected in the “pre-Covid” era, so some would criticize it just for that reason. However, as much as social media and government sources might want to claim otherwise, there is a boat load of published research on the ineffectiveness of mask mandates, cloth masks, and medical masks, and even mixed results on N95 masks. There’s also a lot of published medical research on the harms and downsides of masks, particularly to children.
As far as the evidence for masking, there have been a lot of very bad “studies” that offered no control group or any comparison group at all that have been published during Covid to try to “prove” masks work (Not to mention the mechanistic studies performed in a lab with mannequins). Perfect example would be the recent CDC Studies that were so poorly designed it was pathetic- you might hear people reference these. However, they are easily refutable. Here is a concise refutation from Dr Vinay Prasad on the CDC study, and you can find my previous post with my criticism of the Pediatrics Mask Study here.
Below you will find 10 papers (of more than 150) that describe the lack of effectiveness of Masks and Mask mandates, and 14 papers on the harms and potential harms of masks. I hope these links and summaries can be a valuable reference. As we finally move past this massive psychological experiment, we should address the secondary effects that masks have had on our society, especially our children, and one day actually insist that our government and public health leaders commit to risk/benefit analysis instead of blindly following the urge to “do something.”
“More than a century after the 1918 influenza pandemic, examination of the efficacy of masks has produced a large volume of mostly low- to moderate-quality evidence that has largely failed to demonstrate their value in most settings. Ideally, high-quality evidence will eventually provide clarification. When repeated attempts are undertaken to demonstrate an expected or desired outcome, there is a risk of declaring the effort resolved once results consistent with preconceived notions are generated, regardless of the number or extent of previous failures”
“The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates”
“Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection.”
“As worn by health care personnel in this trial, use of N95 respirators, compared with medical masks, in the outpatient setting resulted in no significant differencein the rates of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”
“We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection.”
“The extent of marginal benefit of universal masking over and above these foundational measures is debatable.
“It is also clear that masks serve symbolic roles. Masks are not only tools, they are also talismans that may help increase health care workers’ perceived sense of safety.”
“The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94) were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%.”
“ In intention-to-treat analysis, facemask use was neither effective against laboratory-confirmed vRTIs (OR 1.35, 95% CI 0.88-2.07) nor against CRI (OR 1.1, 95% CI 0.88-1.39), not even in per-protocol analysis (OR 1.2, 95% CI 0.87-1.69; OR 1.3, 95% CI 0.99-1.83).”
“No evidence was identified that examined a potential role for surgical face masks in protecting staff from infectious material encountered in the operating room”
“There was no reduction in per-population daily mortality, hospital bed, ICU bed, or ventilator occupancy of COVID-19-positive patients attributable to the implementation of a mask-wearing mandate”
“We compared the differences in trends of 14-day incidences between Helsinki and Turku among 10–12-year-olds, and for comparison, also among ages 7–9 and 30–49 by using join point regression. According to our analysis, no additional effect seemed to be gained from this, based on comparisons between the cities and between the age groups of the unvaccinated children (10–12 years versus 7–9 years)”
“Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID25 19 growth surges”
“ Au fait research on reading covered faces reveals that: 1) wearing masks hampers facial affect recognition, though it leaves reliable inferring basic emotional expressions; 2) by buffering facial affect, masks lead to narrowing of emotional spectrum and dampen veridical evaluation of counterparts; 3) masks may affect perceived face attractiveness; 4) covered (either by masks or other veils) faces have a certain signal function introducing perceptual biases and prejudices; 5) reading covered faces is gender- and age-specific, being more challenging for males and more variable even in healthy aging; 6) the hampering effects of masks on social cognition occur over the globe; and 7) reading covered faces is likely to be supported by the large-scale assemblies of the neural circuits far beyond the social brain.”
“The main insight of the present research is that face masks’ use influences emotion inference from faces for all ages and especially for toddlers.”
“In summary, the benefits of masking pre-school children are unclear but are probably too small to make a major difference to individuals risks from SARS-CoV-2 or epidemic control (even before considering variable likely compliance amongst toddlers). In contrast, the harms of this policy are likely to be damaging, potentially considerably so. Given this, and the influence that the CDC and Dr Fauci have both in the US and globally, we believe an urgent re-consideration of this policy is needed”
“Face masks also have potential disadvantages, such as hindering verbal and non-verbal communication. There is a risk that children will keep touching their masks and actually increase the viral load on their hands. Using face masks also risks replacing social distancing, as some parents may be tempted to send their children to school or daycare wearing a mask if they have minor symptoms rather than keeping them at home. Finally, the commercially made masks that are currently available, especially the N95 masks that are said to offer greater protection, rarely fit children. Hence the use of such masks might lead to a false sense of safety, despite leaking viruses due to their poor fit. However, the most important drawback of face masks in children may well be that their use could reduce the focus from other measures that may be more important, such as hand washing, social distancing and staying at home when they are sick.”
“Across conditions, participants perceived significantly lower levels of the expressed (target) emotion in masked faces, and this was particularly true for expressions composed of more facial action in the lower part of the face. Higher levels of other (non-target) emotions were also perceived in masked expressions. In the second study, participants rated the extent to which three categories of smiles (reward, affiliation, and dominance) conveyed positive feelings, reassurance, and superiority, respectively. Masked smiles communicated less of the target signal than unmasked smiles, but not more of other possible signals. The present work extends recent studies of the effects of masked faces on the perception of emotion in its novel use of dynamic facial expressions (as opposed to still images) and the investigation of different types of smiles.”
“These main effects indicated that emotion recognition was significantly reduced overall when faces wore masks (M = 0.52, SE = 0.007) relative to when they did not (M = 0.75, SE = 0.007) with this reduction evident across all emotions”
“Results showed that the ability to identify all facial expressions decreased when faces were masked, a finding observed across all three studies, contradicting previous research on fear, sad, and neutral expressions. Participants were also less confident in their judgements for all emotions, supporting previous research; and participants perceived emotions as less expressive in the mask condition compared to the unmasked condition, a finding novel to the literature. An additional novel finding was that participants with higher scores on the AQ-10 were less accurate and less confident overall in facial expression recognition, as well as perceiving expressions as less intense. Our findings reveal that wearing face masks decreases facial expression recognition, confidence in expression identification, as well as the perception of intensity for all expressions, affecting high-scoring AQ-10 individuals more than low-scoring individuals.”
“Standard surgical and custom apron shield masks significantly hampered word recognition, even in quiet conditions.”
“Our preregistered study with 191 German adults revealed that face masks diminish people’s ability to accurately categorize an emotion expression and make target persons appear less close. Exploratory analyses further revealed that face masks buffered the negative effect of negative (vs. non-negative) emotion expressions on perceptions of trustworthiness, likability, and closeness.”
“High rates of fungal contamination observed in our study emphasizes the need for better mask hygiene in the COVID-19 era”
“The use of face personal protective equipment causes significant verbal communication issues. Healthcare workers, school-aged children, and people affected by voice and hearing disorders may represent specific at-risk groups for impaired speech intelligibility.”
“However, the warning of Palmeiri et al.5 for the possible future consequences caused by a poorly regulated use of nanotechnology in textiles should be extended to face masks where TiO2 particles are applied conventionally, as a white colorant or as a matting agent, or to assure durability reducing polymer breakdown by ultraviolet light3,4. These properties are not critical for the functioning of face masks, and synthetic fibers suitable for face mask can be produced without TiO229 as was observed in the layers of several masks (Table 1). Moreover, uncertainties regarding the genotoxicity of TiO2 particles remain14. Therefore, these results urge for the implementation of regulatory standards phasing out or limiting the amount of TiO2 particles, according to the ‘safe-by-design’ principle.”
“the risk of inhaling plastic microfibers, particles, and fragments from the inside of masks and respirators has only been anecdotally examined”
“This study including 19504 blood donors spanning over one and a half year shows that prolonged use of face mask by blood donors may lead to intermittent hypoxia and consequent increase in hemoglobin mass”
mask caused hypoxia and related health issues has virtually disappeared from the google ministry of truth,
. Long term mask wearing WILL cause heart disease
Covidism: An obsession with “safetyism” has underpinned many politicians responses to COVID-19, where individual safety takes primacy over other practical, scientific or moral concerns. This can been seen where state/local governments readily deploy public health restrictions to contain the virus at the expense of all else. Some say that this has been allowed because Western society has become so individualized, they lack ties, whether that’s extended families, nationalism, or religion......this builds a degree of weakness where governments can impose themselves. To the “10% is better than nothing” crowd, it is really time for you to understand that this doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are real, negative physical, developmental and psychological effects that also come from wearing masks.
If masks work, why haven’t they worked so far?
I view wearing a diaper on your face to prevent the transmission of a respiratory disease as an act of futility, kind of like needing a Therapy Dog!!
P
“If masks work, why haven’t they worked so far?”
Begs the question...
If vaxxines/jabs work, why haven’t they worked so far?
What bothers me most - having been a Science (Biology) major - is that laypeople place so much trust in “studies” (and “models”).
Some of the most historically influential studies - in science, in business, et cetera - were single studies with small sample sets, and were sometimes singular outliers. Or they were fundamentally misinterpreted or misapplied.
“Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.’” - Mark Twain
There are no perfect studies - and no perfect models: none.
There are more applicable or less applicable studies, and more accurate or less accurate models.
I do not need any study to tell me that tying my shoelaces increases the likelihood that my shoes will remain on my feet.
I do not need any study - Federally funded with taxpayer monies or not - to tell me that wearing a mask perpetually is not only not protective of health, but is actually detrimental to health:
It inevitably inhibits oxygenation to some degree, increases re-inhalation of exhausted carbon dioxide to some degree, and acts as a warm and moist incubator of entrapped bacteria and fungus, fueled by one’s own breath.
Anyone with a basic grasp of high-school biology and some common sense - at least as both existed in the recent past - could come to that conclusion, with nary a single study in sight.
The masks worn in hospitals were not worn for the reasons cited for the mandates, were not worn perpetually, and were not of the same design and construction, and were not used without individual fitting.
Honest nurses and doctors who refuse to be silenced have asserted that repeatedly.
I am required to wear a mask...An N-95 specifically...
I check my SpO2 all the time....and never below 95%...which is a bit lower than my norm.
I understand P02 and Sat's....
I know the OxyHemoglobin Dissociation Curve....I'd guess you do not.
Both work: for their true purposes (just not the stated purposes).
For reference:
To add this article to the “Links” tab on your FR Profile page, click on “Bookmark” at Reply #1 above.
Speaking for myself, I do not care about a statistical curve. I care about the fact that, when I have been forced to wear a mask for a prolonged time, I get short of breath, and, if prolonged further, have a bronchitis attack. Following that, I have a headache.
I presume you would dismiss that as merely “anecdotal”; that is why I, an exemplar in the physical sciences while in school, including biology, do not spend much time anymore with studies and models.
I care more about the real world... I’d guess you do not.
(Also, see my comment above: You wear an N95, by your own admission. The vast majority do not wear such a mask, much less a fitted one! You are in the extreme minority. The mask mandates have been communistic: universal.)
As for the cardiovascular aspect:
“Dentists: ‘Mask Mouth’ Can Lead To Strokes, Heart Attacks”
ANDREW MARK MILLER VIA WASHINGTON EXAMINER NOVEMBER 13, 2020
https://www.technocracy.news/dentists-mask-mouth-can-lead-to-strokes-heart-attacks/
Fine don't wear it...
I presume you would dismiss that as merely “anecdotal”; that is why I, an exemplar in the physical sciences while in school, including biology, do not spend much time anymore with studies and models.
Okay......do what you want.
Ain't going to argue with you...I live in the real world. I am bound to wear a N-95 when with patients. As I didn't take the VAX.
The mask mandates have been communistic: universal.
Strange take on that...I might agree...HA!!
Dentists have always wore masks...since I can remember. Not a good example...........
I compare masking to putting up a chain link fence to keep out flies.
Just 2 weeks ago they stopped making the children wear them. His cough is now gone.
It is not going to surprise me in the least, if we find out there has been widespread respiratory damage, because of 2 years of forcing everyone, including children, to wear masks for hours on end daily, (something they were not even designed for) and definitely they were not meant to be worn by growing children, with still developing lungs.
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