Health centers in San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia have reinstated requirements to wear face masks. One would naturally assume that health centers implement policies that reflect the best, most up to date scientific medical knowledge available in order to provide optimal care for patients.
Wearing a face mask was a central element in Washington’s response plan to CoViD. The Biden administration publicly shamed, castigated, even canceled Americans who opposed mandates for masking or who opposed the experimental gene therapy, mRNA self-styled “vaccines.”
Repeatedly, Washington spokespersons Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, and Rachel Walensky claimed they “follow the science,” without acknowledging that true science involves open, honest competition between differing ideas and data until truth is established, by weight of evidence not by proclamation based on authority by title. Suppression of writings or voices opposed to Washington’s medical mandates was (and is) the very antithesis of science, viz., then-NIH Director Francis Collins demanded a “quick and devastating published take-down” of the Great Barrington Declaration, an approach to CoViD different from the official, politically acceptable Fauci response plan.
Without accurate information, Americans cannot evaluate the truth about facemasks and the appropriateness of reinstating mandatory usage. Following are scientifically proven facts about masking with extensive evidence provided as embedded URLs.
Wearing a face mask is supposed to protect the wearer and to decrease the spread of CoViD (SARS-CoV-2). A wealth of data starting with a randomized controlled study in Denmark, followed by more than 150 subsequent reports conclude that “…surgical and cloth masks … have no impact on controlling the transmission of Covid-19 virus.” This information was available more than one year ago.
An uncontrolled study of face mask cleanliness by the parents of eleven school-age children is fascinating. First, the facemasks of the children were evaluated at parents’ expense in a University of Florida, Gainesville. bio-lab. They found a number of bacteria living in the masks and breathed in by the children such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis (causes tuberculosis), Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis), and Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease), all more dangerous to children than CoViD.
Why has there never been an NIH study to assess the possible infectious dangers of wearing a facemask?
Masks cause psychological harm. “The major efficacy of a mask is that it causes alarm [fear of contagion] in the other person.” In children, the “alarm” can manifest as a free-floating anxiety that forces emotional withdrawal. Teenage suicide rose dramatically during CoViD lockdowns, social distancing, and universal facemasks.
Masks impair communication particularly facial expressions, which can be more effective communication than spoken words. Masks are particularly damaging to learning as masks negatively “impact children’s ability to recognize faces and emotions” of both teachers and fellow students.
With overwhelming evidence that facemasks don’t protect and can be harmful, why are they back?
Persons with power, particularly left-leaning, deal with the facts about masking in one of two ways: willful ignorance or intentional rejection and opposition.
Willful ignorance is a form of scotoma: we see what we want or expect to see rather than what is really there. Those who are voluntarily blind to the facts simply do not see or accept the truth. These “facts,” this so-called evidence (above), cannot be true because Washington said it was misinformation. So, they must be false facts.* In contrast to these well-intentioned idiots, there are radical ideologues, those who know the truth but speak (and do) falsely.
*There is no such thing as a false fact. A fact reflects reality, a bit of truth. By definition, a “false” fact is that which is unreal, doesn’t exist, not true, an error or a lie.
The true leftist ideologue is an authoritarian who knows that advancing his or her beliefs is more important than being truthful. Yes, masks don’t work but they are great virtue signals, showing who is a true believer and who has no virtue. Masks are the inverse of the Nazi-era yellow star that Jews had to wear to identify them as bad guys. Today’s facemask shows one is a good guy, an unhesitating follower of federal wisdom.
The conscious rejecter of mask truth could be employing the Democrats’ double down strategy. When something fails to achieve the desired outcome, do it again, bigger, better, louder, and with new fabricated data. Albert Einstein might call this insanity, doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.
To those with open minds who have learned the facts about masking, wearing a facemask is a sign of stupidity, unwillingness to think for oneself, possible radicalism, and a most un-American bowing down before ideological tyrants.
Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Pathology, and Decision Science; former Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; former Director, New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange; and author of 12 books including multi-award winning, Curing the Cancer in U.S. Healthcare: StatesCare and Market-Based Medicine.