Wisdom Masters Press
Mask Facts and Randomized Controlled Trial Citations
To begin, I recognize that in today's world
there are many people who care more
for agendas and ideologies than realities, and those who belittle, ignore
or refuse to believe any truth that contradicts convictions they have chosen
or have been impelled or coerced to believe. So, I will open with a cautionary note by remembering the wise observations of
two brilliant minds.
“There are truths which are not for all men.” —Voltaire (A.D. 1694-1778)
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” —George Orwell
Mask Facts, by Ashley: On 18 April 2022, after considering all the evidence, a Federal Court
struck down the Biden administration's mask mandates for travelers in airports, other transportation facilities, on
planes, trains, buses, ride-sharing services and so forth. In issuing a
nationwide injunction, the Court's detailed, 59-page decision held the mandates to be "arbitrary and capricious."
There was jubilant cheering in airports and on airplanes and trains,
with tens of millions of Americans feeling that
it was an overdue but wonderful win for constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and the
rule of law. But many other people felt concerned and
uncomfortable with
the ruling. There was a lot of confusion, and we saw a bizarre amount of strikingly disrespectful and
highly deceptive propaganda emerging from the media after the Court's
ruling. So what is the truth?
We
heard so much about masks over the last number of years, over and over and over
again, so there must have been an overwhelming body of
evidence that masks worked to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Right? That's what people were led to believe. After all, commentators on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC and ABC—and certain politicians—relentlessly claimed that wearing a mask was your "patriotic duty," and if
you did not wear a mask you were "killing grandma," or that you were a "science-denier," and so on and so on.
It turns out that things are very different than
we were told, as I found out. I'm including this as it involves a subject about which there has been an
absolutely shocking amount of disinformation, distortion, and
outright fabrications. The truth, as always, is important, and in this case
especially for parents.
For their patient and invaluable assistance, I would like to thank the great people at Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center,
Stanford University Medical School, University of California Los
Angeles Medical School, University of Southern California Medical School, the Karolinska Institute (Sweden), Oxford University Medical Sciences (United Kingdom), Britain’s Cochrane Library, and two very helpful law professors from UC Berkeley.
And a special
thanks to the archivists at Johns
Hopkins for providing me with a comprehensive list of studies published
in top peer-reviewed medical journals examining the effectiveness of N95, KN95 or
KF94 surgical masks. See that list here.
There's
a lot to explain, but I'll start with this. Courts are able to take
what's called "judicial notice" of research results, studies and so
forth from government agencies, universities and private research
centers which are relevant to a case under consideration. In the overall body of
evidence, sometimes one little piece of information tells you
a lot:
In response to a request to the CDC for all the verified studies and data showing that masks are
effective in preventing or limiting the spread of COVID-19, the official CDC answer was precise but curt:
"The CDC is not aware of any randomized controlled trials (RCT) or studies showing
that surgical masks or double masks or cloth face coverings are effective against COVID-19."
That is a stunning admission, and notice that the CDC's response is the exact opposite of what we've been hearing
about masks from many politicians, media commentators, teacher's unions, school boards,
some companies, bureaucrats and so forth. The CDC’s
response was remarkably honest, which surprised many people,
but as one of our friends from Stanford
Medical told me, "They had no choice. There
are no
controlled studies showing that masks do anything
to prevent respiratory illnesses transmitted by aerosols, so the CDC
had to admit that or it would
have ignited a backlash from medical professionals and possibly resulted in being charged with submitting false information. [Under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, it's a felony to make a false statement to a court related to a federal matter.] That's publicity the
CDC certainly would not
want. Their own studies show that masks are ineffective."
It's true. A September 2020 study from the CDC itself
revealed that 85% of people who contracted COVID-19 reported having
consistently worn a mask (CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,
Vol. 69, No. 36). This report, even having come directly from
the CDC,
was either misrepresented or completely suppressed by the mainstream media,
and fully censored on social media platforms including Facebook
and Twitter as "disinformation." However, comparable data has been reported by
many other research centers
worldwide.
For example, to cite just six studies, Sweden’s Karolinska
Institute reported that 82.2% of COVID-19 cases were in people who wore
a mask "always", Oxford University Medical Sciences reported 89%, Johns
Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center reported 87.2%, Israel's Sheba
Medical Center reported 86.4%, Germany's Universitätsklinikum
Heidelberg reported 93.5%, and India's Institute of Medical Sciences
Delhi reported that 95.5% of cases were in people who always wore a
mask.
These and other studies show, precisely as the CDC admitted, that any
claim that surgical masks or cloth face
coverings are effective against COVID-19 infection has no valid, real
world support whatever. Those claims are simply not
true.
And
recently, in February 2023, Britain’s Cochrane Library released a study of 78
Randomized Controlled Trials which were conducted with 610,000 participants that concluded, as the lead researcher put it, “There is just no evidence that masking made any difference in the transmission of COVID.” The
Cochrane Library is a publisher of the highest-quality, independent,
peer-reviewed evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. Cochrane
reviews are considered to be gold-standard-quality, clearly reported
and methodologically better than systematic reviews (SRs) published
anywhere else. In publishing the results of 78 RCT mask studies, the Cochrane Library joined dozens of other research institutions and medical centers whose studies reached the same result. For a summary of those peer-reviewed studies see a list here.
I learned that the reason for this is very simple and easy to understand. Every
SARS-CoV-2 virus is a nanoparticle, measuring about 120 nanometers in
diameter—that's 120 billionths of a meter, or 4.7 millionths
of an inch. The inter-thread space in medical face masks ranges from 55
µm to 440 µm (micrometers) which is at minimum more than 1000 times larger than
the viral particles. Due to the difference in sizes between SARS-CoV-2
diameter and the spatial dimensions of face masks' weave pattern, SARS-CoV-2 can easily pass through any mask (National Institutes of Health, January 2021).
This means that in their aerosol state SARS-CoV-2 viruses go through the protective layers of even a high-quality
N95, KN95 or KF94 mask like a bee through a barn door. And researchers have found that about 85 percent of coronavirus detected in COVID-19 patients’ breath is found in these fine aerosol particles (Clinical Infectious Diseases, August 2021). As one Johns Hopkins epidemiologist explained it: "Putting a mask on your face in hopes of keeping the SARS-CoV-2 virus out—or in—is the
equivalent of putting bars on your bedroom window in hopes of
keeping gnats out."
And there are many examples of this from real world situations. Here are a few:
Texas became the first state
to abolish its mask mandate and lift capacity constraints for all
businesses. Constitutional advocates hailed Governor Greg Abbott’s
decision, while media hosts, commentators and others on the far-left predicted doom and death. Weeks later, the result was ... nothing
happened, infection rates were unchanged. In an analysis paper, researchers at Bentley University
and San Diego State University found that Abbott’s order had no effect
on COVID-19 cases. "The predictions of mask advocates failed to materialize," the authors wrote. "The conclusion is that lifting mandates did almost nothing because masks in particular do almost nothing."
And there are many other studies which
reached the same result, and there are several that conform to the
gold-standard for studies, a 'Randomized Controlled Trial.' Florida was the largest state whose schools
remained open for in-person learning the entire 2020-2021 school year. Some
school districts required students to wear masks, others did not.
Several comprehensive studies compared schools of similar student
populations, focusing on schools with mandatory mask requirements and,
as a control group, schools where very few or none of the students wore masks. The results of the studies were published by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center and Yale University's medRx, who said: "The data showed there was no difference
in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases between schools with mask
mandates and schools where students did not wear masks, in either the
students or teachers or other staff members."
Incredibly, these peer-reviewed studies, even having come from top medical researchers, were completely ignored by the mainstream media
and censored on social media platforms like Facebook
and Twitter. A number of doctors who posted the study results had their posts removed and in several cases had their accounts suspended. For telling the truth.
•“Freedom of information is a fundamental human right, and the touchstone of all freedoms. For a press that is
afraid to let the people judge the truth in an open market, is a press that is afraid of the truth.” —John F. Kennedy
Denmark boasts one of the lowest COVID-19
death rates in the world, according to figures from Johns Hopkins
University. COVID-19 mortality is less than one-third of the number of Danes who die
from pneumonia or influenza in a given year. Despite this incredible
success, Danish leaders found themselves under attack. The reason? Danes never wore face masks, and Danish health authorities never even
recommended them.
When attacked by hard-left
American media outlets such as CNN, MSNBC,
Vox, Slate, NPR, and The Atlantic, who were infuriated by Denmark's maskless
success and personal freedom negating the media's politically-driven narrative, Danish health officials responded by pointing to the true data from the WHO and Johns Hopkins, and noting there is no conclusive evidence
that face masks are an effective way to limit the spread of respiratory
viruses. "The countries recommending face masks did not make their decisions based on peer-reviewed studies," said Henning
Bundgaard, chief physician at Denmark’s Rigshospitale, in a remarkably restrained understatement.
In November of 2022, Brown University Professor Emily Oster and her research team
released a report stating that interventions like social distancing and
masking “were totally misguided.” Dr. Oster and her team had collected
extensive data on COVID-19 cases in school settings for nearly a year
starting in August 2020. The data mapped differing interventions by
state, county, and school district, allowing a real-time range of
comparisons. The team found that: "Students in masked schools had a 21 percent higher rate of verified COVID-19 cases than students in schools with no masks." Their report decried the "wildly irresponsible claims" of many people in positions of power that masking led to "dramatic declines" in COVID-19 infections, and concluded that "mask mandates showed zero impact on quelling the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 virus."
Numerous influential academic researchers had
reached similar results, yet, under pressure from politicians and
establishment leaders, stayed silent, often mothballing their data
altogether. It’s difficult to separate intimidation from
self-censorship, but this kind of corruption had a terribly damaging
impact on children, adults, and society in general.
• I
was provided with citations to an extensive body of peer-reviewed
scientific
literature which establishes that wearing cloth masks or N95, KN95 or
KF94 surgical masks has little or no effect on the spread of COVID-19.
As the CDC said, there are no valid randomized controlled trials or
studies that show a benefit for
community members or members of households from wearing a mask. Likewise,
no study exists that shows a benefit from a broad public mandate or policy to wear masks
in public.
• At this point some alarmed readers may stop and exclaim, "But
wait! What about all the political speeches, claims we see on news shows, and stuff on
the internet claiming masks are effective?" I asked one of our friends
from Stanford Med'
about this. He
chuckled and said, quote: "Sure,
but if you listen and observe carefully, you'll notice they never cite any controlled studies or actual evidence, ever. They can't, it doesn't exist. So their claims are either really ridiculous fictional anecdotes—'Masks have saved millions of lives!'—or present claims about schools, communities or environments where
there were no control groups,
which makes the claims meaningless, or they're just painfully strained
circular arguments—'Masks are effective at stopping the spread of COVID because masks are effective at stopping the spread of COVID'—and absent any verified data.
"The other variety are those referring to
the ability of masks to intercept infectious respiratory
secretions in the form of droplets. Those are generally 20 to 30
micrometers in diameter, with the smallest about 5 micrometers. That's
about one five-thousandth
of an inch, absolutely gigantic compared to a SARS-CoV-2 virus, which
is about five millionths of an inch. Yes, if you sneeze or cough into a
mask it's going to stop some of the larger droplets, but not viral particles in a finely
divided state in the air, which is why there are scores of papers with
randomized controlled trials showing masks just don't work."
A virologist at Johns Hopkins described what "expert"
television commentators, under the false pretense of objectivity,
are saying when they claim that masks are effective:
"They
are all perfect examples of Munchausen's Trilema in that there is never
any authentic evidence; either their so-called 'proof' is predicated on a
series of sub-proofs leading to an infinite regression, or it tracks
back to arbitrary axiomatic statements, or it's ultimately circular,
i.e. 'masks work because masks work.'
Intentionally or not, the whole subject has pyramided itself into one
of the most massive disinformation blunders I've ever seen."
In
conclusion, the evidence shows the wearing of a mask does not prevent
infection with COVID-19 or the spread of the virus or any of
its variants. Mask mandates are therefore baseless. And worse,
disturbingly authoritarian. When you think about the
scope of it, the chaos and divisiveness it has caused, and the terrible
overall impact, especially on children, it's heart-wrenching. It's
all so sad, and so destructive of public trust in politicians and
health
"authorities."
•
Studies & Citations
If
you’re interested in more information, here are a few citations
from many of the most respected medical researchers in the world, as
published in the top peer-reviewed medical journals. This list includes the results of over 60
controlled studies (randomized controlled trials), all of which
concluded that masks have no effect on reducing transmission of
respiratory virus, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus. All of the following peer-reviewed studies
can be read in full in any library with a comprehensive medical
section.
• Jacobs,
J. L. et al. (2009). "Face mask use was not demonstrated to provide any
benefit in terms of reducing respiratory
viral transmission." American Journal of Infection
Control, Volume 37, Issue 5, 417 – 419.
• Cowling, B. et al.
(2010). “None of the studies reviewed showed a benefit from wearing a mask, in
either HCW or by
community members in public or in households.” Journal
of Epidemiology and Infection, 138(4), 449-456.
• bin-Reza et al.
(2012). “In the 17 eligible peer-reviewed studies, none established a
conclusive relationship between
mask/respirator use and protection against the transmission of respiratory viruses.” Influenza and Respiratory Viruses,
6(4), 257–267.
• Smith, J.D. et al.
(2016). “Six clinical studies found no significant effect of N95 respirators
and surgical masks in reducing
the risk of transmitting (a) laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection, or (b) influenza-like
illness.” Canadian Medical
Association
Journal, 3/2016.
• Smith, S. et al.
(2016). “There were 2247 potentially relevant citations retrieved from the
searches of electronic databases,
journal hand searching and secondary references. The evidence for masks reducing respiratory
viral transmission during
seasonal and pandemic outbreaks was lacking with the studies showing no effects.” National Institutes of Health,
20(6): 896–903.
• Offeddu, V. et al.
(2017). “Evidence of a protective effect of masks or respirators against
verified respiratory infection (VRI)
was not statistically significant.” Clinical
Infectious Diseases, Volume 65, Issue 11, 1, 12/2017, 1934–1942.
• Radonovich, L.J. et
al. (2019). “Among 2862 randomized outpatient health care personnel, N95
respirators and medical
masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference
in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed
respiratory viral infections.” Journal of the American Medical Association
(JAMA), 322(9): 824–833.
• Klompas, M. et al.
(2020). “Wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any,
protection from COVID-19 infection.
The desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the
pandemic. Mask mandates are arbitrary.”
New
England Journal of Medicine, 382:e63.
• Xiao, J. et al.
(2020). “In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs involving 15,166 individuals which examined
the
effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza or COVID-19 respiratory viral infections.
In
pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in viral transmission with
the use of face masks.” Journal
of
Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2020; Vol 26-5.
• Long, Y. et al.
(2020). “A total of six RCTs involving 9,171 participants were included. There
were no statistically
significant effects of preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza, laboratory-confirmed respiratory
viral infections,
laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infections, or influenza-like
illness through the use of N95 respirators and surgical
masks.” Journal of Evidence Based Medicine,
2020; 1-9.
• Bundgaard, H. et al.
(2021). “A total of 3,324 individuals participated in the RCT study. Infection
with SARS-CoV-2
occurred in 42 participants wearing masks (1.26%) and 46 non-mask wearing control participants (1.38%).
The
between-group difference was −0.12 percentage point, well within the 1.5% range of random variation. The study
found masking had no
meaningful effect in preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection.” Annals of Internal
Medicine, 2021; M20-6817.
• P.S. from Amber:
After I learned all of this, thanks to Ashley's amazing work, I started
calling people; friends, neighbors,
and everyone I know who has kids in school. I was surprised at how
many of them—especially those in the scientific community—said they had
long ago done the research and were aware that masks are not effective.
Lots of others said they had long suspected that mask wearing was, as a
law professor put it, "ideological signaling," and what a poly-sci
professor called "political theater." The clue of course was many times
seeing politicians,
celebrities, media personalities, and bureaucrats like Fauci—people
assuredly in
the position of knowing the truth—ostentatiously wearing a mask
outside,
even on a windy beach, alone in a car, while jogging or riding a bike,
then being
covertly photographed at restaurants, parties, sporting events, fund
raisers and so on, closely surrounded by other people, often for hours,
with
none of them wearing masks.
• How to Help:
When we see adults still wearing masks, it's kind of sad, sometimes funny, yet we just sigh and move on. When we see kids
forced to wear masks, that's a different story. It's abusive,
unscientific, damaging, and needs to stop. But how to help? Have you
ever noticed that when you present people with facts that are
contrary to their strongly held beliefs they always change their minds?
Me neither. In fact, people seem to double down on their beliefs in the
teeth of overwhelming evidence against those beliefs. The reason is
related to a worldview or ideology threatened by conflicting
facts.
Deeply held worldviews which are perceived to
be threatened by evidence make facts an enemy to be slayed. Researchers
say this power of belief over evidence is primarily the result of two
factors: "Cognitive Dissonance" and the "Backfire Effect."
Two social psychologists, Carol Tavris and
Elliot Aronson, have documented hundreds of experiments demonstrating
how people spin evidence to fit preconceived beliefs in the effort
reduce the uncomfortable dissonance between their beliefs and the
facts. And in a series of experiments by Dartmouth College professor
Brendan Nyhan and University of Exeter professor Jason Reifler,
researchers identified a related factor they call the backfire effect, “in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.” Why? “Because it threatens their worldview, ideology or self-concept of exhibiting virtue.”
For example, subjects with diverse views on
masks were given newspaper articles from 'The New York Times' and 'The Washington Post' that
claimed face masks effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19. The
subjects were then briefed on the methodology and importance of
randomized controlled trials in scientific research, and given 32
actual, published scientific studies showing masks are wholly ineffective.
Interestingly, among the pro-mask subjects, over 70% of them rejected
the results of the studies. They reported being even more convinced the claims that masks
are an important measure to prevent COVID-19 are true, arguing that the studies
must be "inaccurate," or ironically that the dozens of scientific studies were "politically biased," even when published by many of the world's top peer-reviewed medical journals, all showing consistent results. Even
when informed that not one single randomized controlled trial in the
history of modern medicine had ever found masking to be effective, they
refused to change their belief.
If corrective facts only make matters worse,
what can we do to help people understand their beliefs are in error?
This is especially important for parents since mask wearing is highly
dangerous to children's social and psychological development.
Psychologists have some suggestions:
1) Keep strong emotions out of conversations, be calm and kind; 2)
Remain respectful; 3) Discuss, don't attack; 4) Listen
carefully and try to articulate the evidence clearly; 5)
Acknowledge that you understand why someone might hold their opinion
given the overwhelming propaganda; 6) Try to show how accepting
facts does not necessarily mean changing worldviews, ideology or
political orientation. These strategies may not always work to change
people's minds, but with the nation being put through a
political-agenda wringer, they may help reduce unnecessary divisiveness.
• After Michael read through the
information above, I noticed that he jotted something down on a pad.
When Amber and I looked at it later, we decided to include it here,
it's great:
"As the rest of America enjoys its new freedom of fun, festivals, long-awaited parties, weddings and trips,
hard-core progressive COVID cultists are sadly left, Dolos-like, to preach their peers’ folly through the
multiple layers of their masks. It’s delusion, of course. And as myths go, very far removed from the ancient
Greek hero Perseus, who saved his realm from monsters, they most resemble the ancient Narcissus,
who was so self-obsessed he wasted away by a pool of water, alone, staring into his own reflection."
