Doctors on masks
Should doctors mask forever? I Unpack a recent debate
In the video below Dr. Vinay Prasad reviews articles on masking featured on his Sensible Medicine substack.
Children and masks
“But the issue of child mask mandates isn’t just about mask effectiveness; it’s about potential harms too, such as negative effects on language learning and communication.
Mask wearing causes reduced word identification and impedes the ability to teach and evaluate speech. There is a link between observation of the mouth and language processing, and people of all ages continue to focus on the mouth when listening to non-native speech.
Masks may also have negative psychological effects on children too.
There is also evidence that masks hinder social-emotional learning and language/literacy development in young children. Children with special-education needs and autism may be disproportionately impacted by mask requirements as they rely heavily on facial expressions to pick up social cues. Misinterpretation of facial expressions increases anxiety and depression in individuals. School environments with mask mandates were also found to have increased anxiety levels compared to those without mandates.
Additionally, the physiological effects of masks may be worse for children than adults.
In addition, mask wearing has been associated with physiological harm — many of which are more frequently reported in children than in adults — which may have multiple negative downstream effects, including reduced time and intensity of exercise, additional sick days, reduced learning capacity, and increased anxiety. Masking has also been found to lead to rapid increase in CO2 content in inhaled air — higher in children than in adults — and to levels above acceptable safety standards for healthy adult workers, which may rise further with physical exertion.”
While concluding that wearing masks “probably makes little or no difference” in preventing the spread of viruses, a recent Cochrane review [the one discussed by Dr. Moran in the below video] also emphasized that “more attention should be paid to describing and quantifying the harms” that may come from wearing masks. A new study from Germany does just that, and it suggests that the excess carbon dioxide breathed in by mask-wearers may have substantial ill-effects on their health—and, in the case of pregnant women, their unborn children’s.
Replicating the CDC study shows similar results; however, incorporating a larger sample and longer period showed no significant relationship between mask mandates and case rates.
[Note: Pre-prints are not peer-reviewed and may not be in their final form.]
Discussion [Abstract]:
There is a possible negative impact risk by imposing extended mask mandates especially for vulnerable subgroups. Circumstantial evidence exists that extended mask use may be related to current observations of stillbirths and to reduced verbal motor and overall cognitive performance in children born during the pandemic. A need exists to reconsider mask mandates.
Conclusions
Face mask recommendations in schools did not reduce COVID-19 incidence among 10–12-year-olds in Finland. This may indicate that COVID-19 cases in schools merely reflect community infections than school outbreaks. Future research in this area would benefit from prospectively controlled study design while examining impact of face mask use. Also, similar studies including older children would be valuable. Further research is needed to gain better understanding about the effectiveness of use of face masks among children.
COVID-19/Flu and Masks
Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe
Conclusion:
While no cause-effect conclusions could be inferred from this observational analysis, the lack of negative correlations between mask usage and COVID-19 cases and deaths suggest that the widespread use of masks at a time when an effective intervention was most needed, i.e., during the strong 2020-2021 autumn-winter peak, was not able to reduce COVID-19 transmission. Moreover, the moderate positive correlation between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe also suggests that the universal use of masks may have had harmful unintended consequences. (Emphasis added.)
During the pandemic, countless people’s rights were violated without any benefit. All of these episodes happened because CDC and other public health organizations misled the public about the science of masking. They called it science, but it wasn’t science at all. It was ideology.
What is most shocking is that the public health establishment has long known that the available evidence does not support masking for viral pathogens.
In 2019, the World Health Organization published a systematic review and meta-analysis on the use of face masks for the prevention of influenza, involving ten high-quality studies with more than 6000 participants [16]. Its conclusion:
“There was no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”
Should I Wear a Mask? What do 15 randomized studies say? Cochrane Review 2023
In the video below, Dr. Keith Moran explains the results of the Cochrane Collaboration review of randomized control studies of mask effectiveness.
January 30, 2023: Cochrane study: Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses
No difference between N95 respirators and surgical masks in preventing laboratory-confirmed flu.
Rodef Shlom 613 comments: The following paper published in JAMA in 2019 showed that surgical masks and N95 masks were completely ineffective against the flu. They both offered the same amount of protection, i.e., none. This is of course why nobody wears them to stop a virus. In fact, the surgical mask actually performed slightly better than the N95 mask in the study. How can that be? It’s obvious: both masks offered no protection whatsoever so it was a wash and the differences were simply random.
N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Personnel
Conclusions and Relevance Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza.
159: Mask Efficacy & COVID-19 w/Stephen Petty, CIH
Stephen Petty, a certified industrial hygienist, safety professional, and engineer with 45 years of experience in the field, is one of the top testifying experts on personal protective equipment (PPE) and exposure control in the country.
Higher Incidence of COVID-19 Found Among Consistent Mask-Wearers: Study
Masking Harms
Related articles:
- All You Need to Know About Facemasks, But Didn’t Know to Ask
- Are Face Masks Safe to Wear?
- Are Face Masks Effective; What Studies Show
- Is It Halachic to Wear a Mask?
