While this information was making the alternative news rounds in late spring, it is now long forgotten.
In our 23 June issue:
“Board-certified neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock, in reviewing 17 scientific studies, found evidence that wearing a face mask for an extended period of time has shown to cause serious health problems, including:
- A drop in oxygen levels (hypoxia)
- A serious health issue called hypercapnia, the result of elevated carbon dioxide toxicity
- Re-breathing germs and viruses already in the body, raising the concentration in lungs and nasal passages
- Headaches, vertigo, double vision, inability to concentrate, tinnitus (a ringing or buzzing in the ears), seizures, or suffocation due to displacement of air.”
In our 21 July issue:
“The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS) published substantial research on 1 June showing the ineffectiveness of masks to meaningfully slow down the spread of COVID-19. Some of the facts presented include:
- While cloth masks might capture 10-30 percent of some virus droplets in the air, all of the cloth masks and materials had near zero efficiency at 0.3 µm (micron micrometer), a particle size that easily penetrates into the lungs.
- N95 masks protect health care workers, but are not recommended for source control transmission.
- Surgical masks are better than cloth but not very efficient at preventing emissions from infected patients.
- Cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control or as personal protective equipment (PPE).
- Masks may confuse that message and give people a false sense of security. If masks had been the solution in Asia, shouldn’t they have stopped the pandemic before it spread elsewhere?”
In our 18 August issue:
As reported in Infection Control Today (ICD), Lisa Brosseau, a nationally recognized expert on infectious diseases who taught for many years at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said, “What we’re seeing is a lot of magical thinking. A lot of wishful thinking. Cloth masks are wishful thinking. First of all, for healthcare and community, but also do they work as source control? Or do they work as personal protective equipment? Or both? And at the end of the day, cloth masks in my opinion don’t work in any form.”
In our 22 September issue:
The Brussels Times reported that 70 doctors signed the letter to Ben Weyts, the country’s Education Minister, claiming that mask-wearing as a defense against contracting the coronavirus could be more harmful than good.
“Mandatory face masks in schools are a major threat to their development,” the letter read. “It ignores the essential needs of the growing child. The well-being of children and young people is highly dependent on emotional attachment to others.”
Kang Lee, Professor of Applied Psychology at the University of Toronto, told The New York Times last week there are three issues regarding mask-wearing that could become an issue for students under the age of 12.
The three issues include: The student could have a difficult time recognizing people, he/she may miss social cues from those they’re interacting with, and the child may develop issues with speech recognition. “Masks are not a great thing for communication in young kids,” Dr. David Lewkowicz, a senior scientist at the Haskins Laboratories and the Yale Child Study Center, told The Times.
The Brussels Times article reported doctors have seen an uptick in children “with complaints due to the rules of conduct that have been imposed on them.”
These children reportedly have mentioned an increase in anxiety, sleeping issues, and “germaphobia,” where they have a fear of germs and a compulsion to keep washing their hands.
The doctors who signed the letter went further than just pointing out the development issues for children. They also questioned the wisdom of wearing masks in the first place. “There is no large-scale evidence that wearing face masks in a non-professional environment has any positive effect on the spread of viruses, let alone general health,” the letter read, according to the report.
In our 6 October issue:
On 23 July, Tom Jefferson, honorary research fellow, and Carl Heneghan, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) at the University of Oxford, published an article in which they wrote, “The increasing polarized and politicized views on whether to wear masks in public during the current COVID-19 crisis hides a bitter truth on the state of contemporary research and the value we pose on clinical evidence to guide our decisions.”
Published on the CEBM website, the authors note that after reviewing 12 studies on the effectiveness of wearing masks, only one of them included the inexpensive cloth masks most people are wearing. That study, done in Vietnam, “found ILI (influenza) rates 13 times higher in Vietnamese hospital workers allocated to cloth masks compared to medical/surgical masks.”
The authors cite a June report by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health that states, “Health authorities have given conflicting recommendations regarding the use of facemasks by asymptomatic individuals in the community to reduce the spread of COVID-19.”
The Institute adds, “The undesirable effects of facemasks include the risks of incorrect use, a false sense of security (leading to relaxation of other interventions), and contamination of masks. In addition, some people experience problems breathing, discomfort, and problems with communication.” The Norwegian Institute report concludes, “There is no reliable evidence of the effectiveness of non-medical facemasks in community settings.”
In our 20 October issue:
Tammy Clark, who has worked with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for over 20 years, said, “We’re starting to see some very serious adverse health effects caused by the wearing of masks, and that’s where I’m really speaking up about this because I’m the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) expert and this is what I do… the average public are not hearing this.
We’re starting to see some very serious adverse health effects caused by the wearing of masks, and that’s where I’m really speaking up about this… You don’t just put people in face masks, cover their mouths and noses, and expect people to breathe normally and safely like that. When we started hearing about masks for everybody, especially with children, that really concerned me.
What we’re doing is we’re putting children that now need fresh oxygen and probably oxygen therapy more than anybody, at risk and they’re running their immune system down when these are the very people that need their immune system functioning at a very high level, lots of fresh air lots of fresh oxygen sunshine. I’m not hearing anybody talk about immunity boost… our bodies can handle viruses if our immune systems are functioning as they should.”
TRENDPOST: Regarding the ineffectiveness of masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus and the freedom-robbing mask mandates imposed by power-hungry politicians, in the 19 May issue of the Trends Journal, we quoted Dr. Ron Paul, physician, former congressman, and Founder of the Institute for Peace and Prosperity:
“American should pause and reflect on the lies they are being sold. Masks are just a form of psychological manipulation. Many reputable physicians and scientists have said they are worthless and potentially harmful. Lockdowns are meant to condition people to obey without question. A nation of people who just do what they are told by the ‘experts’ without question is a nation ripe for descent into total tyranny. This is no empty 72 warning – it’s backed up by history. Time to stand up to all the petty tyrants from our hometowns to Washington, D.C. It a time to reclaim freedom.”