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).
I agree wholeheartedly on what you ask for in your last paragraph. However, I’m afraid that most healthcare providers find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. Nearly all physicians are threatened with loosing their licenses if they don’t push and support the mandate. Docs with outpatient practices face defunding and the closure of their practices. Those physicians employed by a hospital system face loss of practicing privileges. Hospitals themselves face loss of staff if compliance isn’t followed. These people have bills, loans, mortgages, etc to pay, so the loss of any income can be life changing.
As I said, I agree with you. But standing up and debunking this totally false narrative is not as easy a task as we would like.
Carol, Sad but true. That is why I suggest starting with masking -- this does not have the same political/financial overlay that spikeshotting does and therefore is more likely to be tolerated. And there is endless solid literature to defend it whereas the spikeshot-related literature is just beginning to emerge.
It’s because the whole Industrial Medical Healthcare Complex is seriously broken, has been for years, and it is unlikely or even incapable of doing ‘triage medicine’ on itself!
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.
You're totally right. How about the now forever practice of mandated masking in anything "medical" which my primary care doctor recently told me he fully expected to be the norm going forward since it's been "so successful in preventing disease spread." This evidently also extends to physical therapy in a gym-like space larger than a football field with 30' ceilings.
No ardent masker would even read either Vinay or the Opinion piece in the SD paper. My plan is to let my votes do the talking and comply only when I absolutely have to. Short of that, it all feels hopeless.
I happen to live in San Diego where SDUSD has implemented it’s totalitarian mask requirement protocol for summer school. (And knowing the School Board Members & President, they will
likely try to roll over the policy into the 2022/2023 school year.)
The ‘studies’ that this mask enforcement is based upon are outdated and do not reflect the current numbers regarding Covid cases. (As stated by Dr. John Ayers of UC San Diego.) Also the effectiveness of a mask (cloth or paper) as a ‘mechanism’ to ‘stop the spread’ does absolutely nothing! (Also noted by Dr. John Ayers UC San Diego.)
And let me tell you the community here in SD has stood up against the SDUSD Board and President regarding all manner of ‘policies’ they have enacted that were based on inaccurate and baseless ‘studies’ for the past year!
It is obvious the Board of SDUSD doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the children in their District…it’s all about POWER and the public be damned, to call them out on it. They are not interested in listening to their constituents! And BTW SDUSD is the 2nd Largest School District in the State of CA, just behind LAUSD!
Masks. Just watch how surgical paper masks fit and it's obvious that exhaled air flows out the sides and inhaled air comes in the same way. Cloth masks just let everything coming from the lungs and upper respiratory to flow out of the mask and allow everything through. It's become a talisman for many, a sort of facial safety binky that makes many feel better. Consider Japan. Love masks, indoor and out, yet 230,000 cases a day now. Would seem, based on simple numbers in a nation of obsessive mask wearers, that all the masking just doesn't work.
Thank you for continuing to bring such material to light. Among other things, it is a comfort when we live in a dense fog of pseudo-scientific nonsense supported by politicians and their handmaids—ignorant public health officials.
Set in stone, inertia cannot end - masks will be forever. Masking makes no objective sense but supports a psychological need on too many fronts. I had hopes that fear would abate and it has for so many of us, but others remain trapped and officials cater to the lowest who can complain.
Only ridicule - masks with a silly logo can resolve the issue.
From the notes to the Vietnam study … “Competing interests: CRM has held an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant with 3M as the industry partner, for investigator-driven research. 3M has also contributed masks and respirators for investigator-driven clinical trials. CRM has received research grants and laboratory testing as in-kind support from Pfizer, …”
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).
I agree wholeheartedly on what you ask for in your last paragraph. However, I’m afraid that most healthcare providers find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. Nearly all physicians are threatened with loosing their licenses if they don’t push and support the mandate. Docs with outpatient practices face defunding and the closure of their practices. Those physicians employed by a hospital system face loss of practicing privileges. Hospitals themselves face loss of staff if compliance isn’t followed. These people have bills, loans, mortgages, etc to pay, so the loss of any income can be life changing.
As I said, I agree with you. But standing up and debunking this totally false narrative is not as easy a task as we would like.
Carol, Sad but true. That is why I suggest starting with masking -- this does not have the same political/financial overlay that spikeshotting does and therefore is more likely to be tolerated. And there is endless solid literature to defend it whereas the spikeshot-related literature is just beginning to emerge.
It’s because the whole Industrial Medical Healthcare Complex is seriously broken, has been for years, and it is unlikely or even incapable of doing ‘triage medicine’ on itself!
Yes, how is it possible to reverse this disregard for science among scientists?
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.
You're totally right. How about the now forever practice of mandated masking in anything "medical" which my primary care doctor recently told me he fully expected to be the norm going forward since it's been "so successful in preventing disease spread." This evidently also extends to physical therapy in a gym-like space larger than a football field with 30' ceilings.
No ardent masker would even read either Vinay or the Opinion piece in the SD paper. My plan is to let my votes do the talking and comply only when I absolutely have to. Short of that, it all feels hopeless.
The problem is even some non-believers are STILL performing, ‘so others feel more comfortable’. Rod Dreher nails it when he says ‘live not by lies’.
I tell people "by that logic you should announce to others you are not a rapist and are not carrying weapons" so they feel comfortable.
I happen to live in San Diego where SDUSD has implemented it’s totalitarian mask requirement protocol for summer school. (And knowing the School Board Members & President, they will
likely try to roll over the policy into the 2022/2023 school year.)
The ‘studies’ that this mask enforcement is based upon are outdated and do not reflect the current numbers regarding Covid cases. (As stated by Dr. John Ayers of UC San Diego.) Also the effectiveness of a mask (cloth or paper) as a ‘mechanism’ to ‘stop the spread’ does absolutely nothing! (Also noted by Dr. John Ayers UC San Diego.)
And let me tell you the community here in SD has stood up against the SDUSD Board and President regarding all manner of ‘policies’ they have enacted that were based on inaccurate and baseless ‘studies’ for the past year!
It is obvious the Board of SDUSD doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the children in their District…it’s all about POWER and the public be damned, to call them out on it. They are not interested in listening to their constituents! And BTW SDUSD is the 2nd Largest School District in the State of CA, just behind LAUSD!
Masks. Just watch how surgical paper masks fit and it's obvious that exhaled air flows out the sides and inhaled air comes in the same way. Cloth masks just let everything coming from the lungs and upper respiratory to flow out of the mask and allow everything through. It's become a talisman for many, a sort of facial safety binky that makes many feel better. Consider Japan. Love masks, indoor and out, yet 230,000 cases a day now. Would seem, based on simple numbers in a nation of obsessive mask wearers, that all the masking just doesn't work.
Thank you for continuing to bring such material to light. Among other things, it is a comfort when we live in a dense fog of pseudo-scientific nonsense supported by politicians and their handmaids—ignorant public health officials.
Unfortunately he bought the bogus hcq trials.
Set in stone, inertia cannot end - masks will be forever. Masking makes no objective sense but supports a psychological need on too many fronts. I had hopes that fear would abate and it has for so many of us, but others remain trapped and officials cater to the lowest who can complain.
Only ridicule - masks with a silly logo can resolve the issue.
From the notes to the Vietnam study … “Competing interests: CRM has held an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant with 3M as the industry partner, for investigator-driven research. 3M has also contributed masks and respirators for investigator-driven clinical trials. CRM has received research grants and laboratory testing as in-kind support from Pfizer, …”
Gary Taubes said it best decades ago:
Epidemiology is pseudoscience. The wins are few; the travesties too many to count.
We should move toward the obsolescence of the field.
Thank you.