ID Epidemiologist sets the record straight
This is how you interpret evidence
An infectious disease epidemiologist at UC San Diego, Dr. John Ayers sets the record straight about the evidence for masking.
As I read this article I realized that Dr Ayers was spot on. Let me point out a few things he understands well, which many ‘experts’ have simply gotten wrong.
“Pre-pandemic, masking was discouraged by experts because the evidence then was negative on the protective effects of masking for the wearer. For instance, a randomized study of health care providers who wore cloth masks for four weeks in 14 hospitals in Hanoi, Vietnam, during 2011 found they experienced higher rates of respiratory illness, laboratory-confirmed viral infection and influenza-like illness than controls — who followed usual practice while working. Guidance by the World Health Organization in January 2020 stated that “cloth (e.g. cotton or gauze) masks are not recommended under any circumstance.”
No doubt about it. Pre-pandemic the consensus was not to advise community masking. That’s why Fauci was telling the truth in the original 60 minutes interview, and later when he endorsed cloth masking, he was lying. The noble lie was exactly the opposite of the one you think.
“With an abundance of uncertainty early during the pandemic, community masking using cloth or reusable surgical masks was encouraged in the hope that despite the lack of supporting real world evidence, there may be a community benefit if we all mask.”
Absolutely, it was a lobbying campaign among some concerned scientists which let to the #masks4all movement. It was nicely captured in the Mask Debacle by Jacob Hale Russell. But it was propaganda, and not new evidence, that drove this.
“Observational studies that compared community practices supported this hope. However, this type of evidence is biased. Communities with higher masking rates are different from those with lower masking rates. For instance, communities with higher masking rates may have higher rates of working from home, social distancing and other protective practices. These differences, instead of masking, may be responsible for community infection rates.”
Bingo— as I have said, and shown many times in these pages, these are deeply flawed, and unreliable studies. Several times here, I have shown you the problems with widely cited mask studies.
“Randomized controlled trials are the evidentiary gold standard. Treatments are assigned randomly to infer their “true effect” in the population. Trials are the basis of Food and Drug Administration full approvals and are intended to provide resolution for important scientific questions.”
Yep, we have to look at the RCTs, and here is what they find…
“Fourteen of 16 trials performed before the pandemic found the recommendation to wear a mask did not significantly reduce infection rates compared to unmasked controls. Two trials on community masking have been performed during the pandemic. A trial in Denmark called DANMASK showed the recommendation to wear surgical masks did not reduce infections. A trial in Bangladesh showed reusable cloth masks did not reduce infections.”
That conclusion and reasoning is remarkably similar to our paper on this topic.
Both articles are worth your time.
Vinay has come a long way in this regard -- he used to say it was "bioplausible". I have never even reached that point, because rabbits' feet are "luckoplausible", too. The evidence has been there for decades that masking has no discernable effect.
The fundamental crisis that we are all seeing now has its roots in the epidemiologic community NOT coming out right away and saying "NO, this is balderdash". By just standing aside (most of them) and not crying foul right out the gate, the path was prepared for an increasing number of greater lies -- all of which were bought hook, line, and sinker by most and those who didn't buy them were silenced.
The harm has been untold. If we do anything, it should be getting EVERY doc, and certainly every epidemiologist who should have read this literature, to get up and say "What you were told about masking was a lie. Masks have never had any value. Ignore any directions to the contrary -- they are not supported by science". If enough people (Makary is saying this bluntly these days, but so many are silent) got up and shouted this from every rooftop, eventually it would be too many to be silenced.
Short this, we are just in for more of the same. The masking case is clear and has been known for generations. It is time to stand on good medical principles -- or there will likely not be another opportunity as the government cookbook tells you what to say/do. (Of course, vaccine mandates and de-licensing are the obvious, and happened, end point of this -- but wait until it is applied to everything by the megalomaniacs who think they know better than each individual doctor/patient relationship.)
I am begging all the doctors that read this blog to take off the masks and disallow them in your office (I have never had them in there) and to start explaining the difference between truth and lies to your patients. Otherwise, medical practice will fall just like public health is falling (and it should).
How many more years will this pseudoscience prevail though? It’s become part of the unscientific zeitgeist - you’d have more luck convincing the general public that nuclear energy is safe, roundup doesn’t cause cancer, or the marvel movies aren’t very good than getting to realize their talisman is this generations rabbits foot.