How might strong advocates of community masking – who happen to occupy positions within the hierarchy that provide opportunities to influence research activity – go about achieving their aims? I suggest it would include some combination of discouraging the undertaking of robust research about mask effectiveness and potential harms, impeding and delaying the publication of unfavourable findings, and undermining the value of rigorous empirical science. A look at the history of the Cochrane mask reviews seems to offer an illuminating case study of these insidious forces in action.
Cochrane reviews are widely recognised to provide the most authoritative and comprehensive evaluation of the scientific evidence regarding specific healthcare interventions, and their raison d’être is to inform the decision-making process. On January 30th 2023, the latest version of the Cochrane review of the effectiveness of physical interventions (including masks) in reducing the spread of respiratory viruses was published. In keeping with their earlier reviews, the overarching conclusion of the authors confirmed what we already knew: masks achieve no appreciable reduction in viral transmission. Arguably of more interest are the indications that powerful forces within the academic world were at work to obstruct the dissemination of this inconvenient truth.
In regard to the potential benefits of mask-wearing, the findings of the review were emphatic: after considering 12 research trials (ten in the community and two among hospital workers) the main takeaway message was that face coverings made “little or no difference to influenza-like or COVID-19-like illness transmission”. When only studies where respiratory infections had been confirmed in a laboratory were included in the analysis, the conclusion was even more stark: “Wearing masks had no effect on… influenza or SARS-CoV-2 outcomes”. Furthermore, the type of mask used – the surgical variety or the higher-quality N95/P2 respirators – made no difference to the outcome.
It is plausible to assume that the conclusions of the Cochrane scholars did not make easy reading for the pro-mask establishment. The Covid era has been characterised by extraordinarily high levels of censorship of views that did not tally with the dominant public health narrative, and this silencing of alternative perspectives has often been evident within the academic and research spheres. A close inspection of the two most recent updates to the Cochrane review – their development and content – suggests that these malign forces of suppression may have been targeting this initiative in an effort to dilute the impact of its masks-are-ineffectual message. There are five observations consistent with this premise.
1. Scarcity of robust studies
It is intriguing that, three years after the start of the Covid event, there is a dearth of prospective randomised controlled trials (RCTs) – the type that provide the most robust kind of scientific evidence – to evaluate the efficacy of community masking as a means of reducing viral transmission. In the words of the Cochrane review authors, there was a “relative paucity” of such studies “given the importance of the question”. In a politicised environment, where Covid policy was often determined without recourse to empirical evidence, perhaps those in power did not want to fund research that would provide a definitive answer to the question of whether masks offered an effective viral barrier, particularly in light of the earlier discouraging results?
2. Unpublished research
In November 2020, the Danish mask study – the first RCT of mask efficacy specific to the SARS-CoV-2 virus – found that masks achieved no significant benefit for the wearer. Despite this ground-breaking conclusion, the research was initially rejected by at least three prestigious medical journals. This publication bias is also evident in the current Cochrane review where the authors, when discussing the range of RCTs included in the analysis, state that: “We identified four ongoing studies, of which one is finalised, but unreported, evaluating masks concurrent with the COVID‐19 pandemic” (my emphasis). Why would a finalised RCT, on such a pressing issue as mask effectiveness, not be published? The most likely answer, in this censorial environment, is that it came to the ‘wrong’ conclusion.
3. A disregard of the harms of masking
Very few of the studies included in the Cochrane review addressed the potential harms of wearing masks; harms were “rarely measured and poorly reported”. When one considers the wide range of credible negative consequences (physical, social and psychological) associated with mass masking in the community, this is a glaring omission. Once again, the most plausible reason for this inattention to harms in mask research in the last three years is political pressure – Government policy makers urgently sought evidence to support their premature decisions to impose mask mandates, to demonstrate their effectiveness as a viral barrier, and were disinclined to investigate the potential harms.
4. Publication delays
A blatant indication of top-down censorial influence on the ‘masks don’t work’ message is the way that publication of one of the Cochrane review updates was delayed. The previous 2020 version, incorporating updates up until January 2020, had passed peer review and was finalised by April of the same year. Extraordinarily, its publication was delayed until November 2020 due to “unexplained editorial decisions“. According to lead author, Dr. Tom Jefferson, this extra scrutiny was “a very unexpected event in Cochrane, especially during a period in which the topic of the review and the setting of policy was of global importance”.
It is unlikely to be coincidence that this window of delay corresponds to the period when the U.K. and other Governments, under intense pressure from pro-mask groups, U-turned and imposed mask mandates on their populations. In the midst of this policy flip-flop, it would have caused considerable political embarrassment to our public health leaders should the Cochrane group – the source of the most authoritative and comprehensive scientific evidence – have broadcast its conclusion that masks are ineffective as a viral barrier. In the words of Dr. Jefferson, by the time their report was published in November 2020, “the advisers had changed their minds about the evidence, and the policies had been set”.
The latest Cochrane review update includes studies up to October 2022. Its publication three months later suggest that this edition was not delayed, presumably because, at a time when most of society is unmasked, its conclusions are likely to evoke less discomfort for policy makers.
5. Editorial interference
An explicit example of the top-down interference with the Cochrane review process (referred to above) is an editorial that accompanied the 2020 edition. Including statements such as, “Waiting for strong evidence is a recipe for paralysis”, the content of this commentary appears totally at odds with the ethos of the Cochrane initiative. Indeed, this decisions-before-evidence assertion mirrors the proclamations of pro-mask zealot Professor Trish Greenhalgh, who has previously stated that the rigorous search for empirical evidence is the “enemy of good policy“.
In the words of Dr. Jefferson, the 2020 Cochrane editorial “seemed to undermine our work” and had the effect of “completely subverting the precautionary principle”. The lead author of the editorial was Dr. Soares-Weiser (Cochrane’s Chief Editor) who is “responsible for ensuring that the Cochrane Library meets its strategic goals of supporting health care decision-making by consistently publishing timely, high-priority, high-quality reviews”. Clearly, the 2020 Cochrane mask review failed her ‘timely’ criterion and her trivialisation of the value of empirical evidence is at odds with the ‘high-quality reviews’ aspiration.
Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS consultant clinical psychologist and a co-founder of the Smile Free campaign that opposes mask mandates.
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It’s worth noting that in Summer 2020, there was a BSI publication on this topic ( bsi-guide-for-personal-safety-equipment-0520 – still available here: https://www.bsigroup.com/globalassets/localfiles/en-gb/product-certification/personal-safety/bsi-guide-for-personal-safety-equipment-0520.pdf ).
It emphasised the use of the term “face covering”, not “masks”, on pain of being out of line with trading standards if the wrong term was used. In fact, many products on sale had tiny labels in small font (that most punter wouldn’t read) to avoid being dealt with by Trading Standards. UK Government sites also used the same term, for similar reasons. It was a con, and an opportunity to sell junk, made in the far east etc.
Real term: face anus wraps.
Sometimes named: diapers for irremediably stupid and ugly.
Both Found in: the retard book of ‘the science’
You know masks do nothing positive.
I know masks do nothing positive.
But who are we?!
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
And here is what GAVI have to say in response to the latest Cochrane review on masks. Well of course they won’t take the conclusion lying down and gawd are they desperate to discredit the findings;
”Face masks and respirators work in two ways: they protect the wearer from becoming infected and they prevent an infected wearer from spreading their germs to other people.
Most RCTs in this Cochrane Review looked only at the former scenario, not the latter. In other words, the researchers had asked people to wear masks and then tested to see if those people became infected.
A previous systematic review found face masks worn by sick people during an influenza epidemic reduced the risk of them transmitting the infection to family members or other carers. Preventing an infection in one person also prevents onward transmission to others within a closed setting, which means such RCTs should use a special method called “cluster randomisation” to account for this.
Data from a RCT of N95 respirator use by health workers showed even their unmasked colleagues were protected. Yet some of the trials included in the review did not use cluster randomisation.”
Edit: It wasn’t GAVI, they just published this from another site. This is the original article from The Conversation, and I spy one of the authors is our friend Prof Trish/Trev. You can see the authors’ conflicts of interest to the right of the article. ‘Nuff said;
https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spreading-covid-despite-a-review-saying-they-dont-198992
You just had to bring that old thread up Mogs. It still makes me snigger when I see the post’s featured image – and the comments of course.
Just checking you’re in the building Trev.
The Conversation…
Yet another organisation compromised by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Conversation also bans people who challenge the status quo…on vaccination policy for instance. I was banned from making comments on The Conversation in April 2016. So much for ‘the conversation’…
See: The Conversation – a marketing arm for the university and research sector.
The pro-maskers are really grasping at straws now, lol. Source control can be even more self-evidently debunked by those famous videos demonstrating smoke leaking through the masks and around the edges.
Reminded me that around the height of the panic, I saw someone wearing one, with a shopping bag in one hand and a live cigarette in the other! I didn’t stop to watch how they smoked, though.
The basic lie here is that Face masks work in two ways. They don’t. They’re a physcial barrier between inside and outside areas and this physical barrier is supposed to prevent certain things from crossing from one area to the oher. If the barrier is effective at stopping these things from crossing from one area to the other, it’ll be equally effective for inside -> outside and outside -> inside. If it’s not effective for one, it can’t be effective for the other, either. It’s just that there’s an objective metric for testing effectiveness for the outside -> inside direction (wearer becoming infected) and there isn’t one for the other as the intended effect is a non-event: Person remains uninfected. One would need to observe the person forever, ie until death, in order to be sure that infection will never have occurred.
That’s a special case of asserting that a negative must be proven which is impossible as it would require omniscience, cf
https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/phil_of_religion_text/CHAPTER_5_ARGUMENTS_EXPERIENCE/Burden-of-Proof.htm
NB: It’s really important to understand that Corona’s witnesses always rely on claims which can’t be proven to justify their policies. Which means they’re basically Bauernfänger (literally farmer catchers, swindlers relying on the relative ignorance of farmers about urban affairs to trick them into something).
For me, the giant elephant in the room which I don’t see being discussed is that we don’t want to stop the spread of viruses.
The idea that we don’t want respiratory viruses spread is, in my view, insane and incredibly destructive.
We used to understand this. We used to talk about colds getting around, letting children catch them and human immune systems getting stronger from them.
To me it’s like telling everyone to stop walking because they might sprain their ankles. And most important of all, old people must never walk because they are at greatest risk of falling and breaking a hip or something else.
No, you do the opposite. You walk a lot, and often and do all you can to strengthen you muscles so that the day you step on something in a funny way, your muscles are as strong as possible and have the best chance of keeping you on your feet.
If by any chance masks do stop the spread of viruses, which is seriously doubtful, the last thing we should do is wear them.
The world has gone mad. Completely mad. They’ve tried to re-engineer so much of human society in just three years (and made such enormous inroads) that we”re losing track of the most basic reality.
Not only that, it’s based on an assumption that most people won’t understand the physics of it all. After all, we’re talking about a tiny compound with a size of around 100 nm. So small it will pass through most fabric that we have available, and is quite likely to be part of the air we breath, particularly inside places with a lot of air circulation.
Very well said. As I’ve posted elsewhere, eradicating the spread of mild infectious diseases is quite possibly a very dangerous thing to do – even if it were possible at reasonable cost and without disruption to normal life, it might lead to utter catastrophe.
I cannot help but think of the measles parties of old. To be replaced by the chickenpox parties (I have known this to happen).
About the authors of this:
C Raina MacIntyre receives funding from mask manufacturer Detmold for testing of their masks and is on an advisory board for mask manufacturer Ascend. She receives funding from Sanofi for investigator-driven influenza research, and from NHMRC and MRFF. She has been an expert advisor for Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) In the matter of a proceeding under the Labour Relations Act, 1995 between ONA and Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation.
Abrar Ahmad Chughtai had testing of filtration of masks by 3M for his PhD. 3M products were not used in his research. He also has worked with Paftec on research in respirators (no funding was involved).
Dr Fisman has served as an expert witness for the Ontario Nurses Association and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario in legal challenges related to safer working conditions in healthcare and schools. Dr. Fisman has served on advisory boards for Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Merck, Seqirus and Sanofi vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and S. pneumoniae. He holds current funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and Health Canada.
For those of you who don’t know, the Ontario Nurses Association is very pro-mask.
I spy an oxymoron. Let’s consider the second point – that masks stop infected people from spreading the virus. If they are infected and they know it they should be isolating, and if they are isolating they don’t need to wear a mask…
Masks are splashguards (Mike Yeadon) and dust filters.
Respirators from P100 upwards can work against viruses, but only with full PPE and for max. 45 minutes, during which one has to stay quiet.
(Steve Kirsch had an article on a study showing that about 6 months ago).
In practice, only 3% leakage of the splashguards and dust filters already results in 100% inefficiency against either, and their mishandling is by now legendary and inevitable.
In practice, they simply cannot work, even if they were efficient, which they aren’t, least of all in educational or business settings where people speak and thereby moisturize them.
Masks were introduced solely for psychological and power display reasons and in particular to prepare for and normalise other assaults on bodily autonomy, like invasive testing and gene-therapy mandates.
Correct. And in the real world, almost no-one bought any kit that could do what was promoted. No training, or education to do with it’s use either. A lot of junk was sold, with tiny labels (in less than 8 point text) that most would not read, to the effect that they were not actual medical masks at all. They were labelled in larger text on the front of a pack as “face covering”. Almost all supermarkets did that; the only benefit was improved sales income.
So true. For all practical purposes, the masks as worn in practice were utterly useless and not fit for purpose.
TBH I don’t much care whether they “work”. Covid was/is a mild inconvenience for most people, in the same bracket as flu. I’m not prepared to wear a muzzle on the offchance it might stop me spreading “covid” to someone.
Just a reminder that if your workplace is still insisting on mask mandates, get in touch with the Workers of England Union who will fight for you. Unlike the other bigger national unions who happily go along with government diktats.
Go to https://workersofengland.co.uk
You can be based in England, Scotland or Wales. All are welcome.
‘….public health officials must act in a precautionary manner to take action even when evidence is uncertain (or not of the highest quality), particularly when the harms and costs of such action are likely limited.’
Dr Soares Weiser, Cochrane’s Chief Editor
Herein lies the problem within the medical profession once again:
Ignorance.
Cochrane’s Chief Editor is talking manifest nonsense:
EU (from whence the ‘precautionary principle emanated) legal advice regarding the ‘precautionary principle’
‘the general principles of risk management remain applicable when the precautionary principle is invoked. These are the following five principles:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/the-precautionary-principle.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20European%20Commission,be%20determined%20with%20sufficient%20certainty.
The man, if he had any decency, should resign forthwith.
Indeed, he is turning the precautionary principle (the original Rio Declaration Earth Summit 1992 version) completely on its head.
Indeed. Publication bias is very real. Another example is the Fargo school mask study, which is still a preprint and not yet published even a year later, versus the highly and fatally flawed Boston school mask study that got pal-reviewed and published in the NEJM rather quickly. Guess which study found that masks didn’t make a difference, and which one claimed that masks worked?
For some it is the assumed ‘Truth’ that masks work and therefore any other opinion is wrong and therefore should be censored.
They never question their assumptions, presuming that they are infallible and can never be wrong.
For me, what is most important is free debate and allowing open science to find the actual truth.
Not allowing free science to discover the facts and truth is not real science but ideology.
If some says ‘The science is settled’ you know they are talking ideology, not real science.
If the objective is to stop the spread of viruses then the best method is no contact with other people.
Everyone should stay in a closet by themself and never leave.
Suppression of adverse views is normal behaviour, of which scientific examples go back to the persecution of Galileo. It has however just occurred to me that, given the Danish mask study was one of the first, we should remember Tycho Brahe, who developed the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, and elevate both to the Galilean pantheon.
Great, you always feature in m articles and will do so again this week
https://dailysceptic.org/why-children-should-not-be-masked/.
Masks don’t work so why are people continuing to push for them ?
https://hughmccarthy.substack.com/p/masks-dont-work
Not Masks Again
https://hughmccarthy.substack.com/p/not-masks-again
The desperation to mask/muzzle people is beyond sinister.
Adrian Esterman in South Australia has made it his life’s work to try and keep people muzzled…what is going on with these people?!
There are so many individuals with ‘doctor’ and ‘professor’ titles seeking to interfere in other people’s lives, and steal their personal autonomy and bodily integrity.
On what authority do they do this?
It’s way past time to call them out, make them accountable for their influence on policy.
Free speech and open free science is the enemy of the ‘woke progressive’ ideology so they want to censor, ban, demonize and smear any other opinions other than their own.