Why Masks are Ineffective, Unnecessary, and Harmful

Who needs evidence? LOL

An Evidence Based Scientific Analysis of Why Masks are Ineffective, Unnecessary, and Harmful

Jim Meehan, MD is an ophthalmologist and preventive medicine specialist with over 20 years of experience and advanced training in immunology, inflammation, and infectious disease. He has performed well over 10,000 surgical procedures. His research experience includes investigating associations between military vaccinations and Gulf War Syndrome. Dr. Meehan is also trained in internal medicine, addiction medicine, endocrinology, integrative medicine, functional medicine, and nutrition.

Dr. Meehan is a former editor of the medical journal, “Ocular Immunology and Inflammation.” Dr. Meehan has peer-reviewed thousands of medical research studies. With this experience and expertise, Dr. Meehan has dedicated his career to protecting his patients and the public from the fraud, corruption, and pseudoscience so often used by agents and agencies whose motives and interests have resulted in American medicine and pharmaceutical drugs becoming the third leading cause of death in the United States.

Key Points

• Decades of the highest-level scientific evidence (meta-analyses of multiple randomized controlled trials) overwhelmingly conclude that medical masks are ineffective at preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, including SAR-CoV-2.
• Those arguing for masks are relying on low-level evidence (observational retrospective trials and mechanistic theories), none of which are powered to counter the evidence, arguments, and risks of mask mandates.
• The majority of the population is at very low to almost no risk of severe or lethal disease from CoVID-19. Children are at an extraordinarily low risk of dying from CoVID-19. Based on CDC published data, 99.99815% of children that contract CoVID-19 survive.
• Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among children in schools and daycares is very rare.
• Masks worn properly are well documented to cause harm to their wearers. Masks worn improperly, re-used, or contaminated are dangerous.
• Any reasonable risk to benefit analysis of medical masks concludes that the risks overwhelmingly outweigh the benefits.
• Children are at imminent risk of harm from mask mandates.

Outline

1. Evidence Based Medicine: How we (should) make decisions in science and medicine
2. Masks are Ineffective
   
   a. Mixed Messages from the Experts
   
   b. The Evidence Against Masks
   
   c. The Evidence For Masks
   
   
3. Masks are Unnecessary
   
   a. Fear and Politics are Subverting Science and Reason
   
   b. Masking Children in Schools is Unnecessary - So Says The Science
   
   
4. Masks are Harmful: 17 Ways that Masks Can Cause Harm
5. Masking School Children is Ineffective, Unnecessary, and Harmful
   
   a. Mandatory masks in school are a ‘major threat’ to children's’ health, doctors warn
   
   b. Forcing Children to Wear Masks in Schools is Unnecessary
   
   c. Forcing Children to Wear Masks for Long Periods Risks Causing Them Physical Harm
   
   d. Forcing Children to Wear Masks for Long Periods Risks Causing Them Mental and Psychological Harm
   

Evidence Based Medicine: How we (should) make decisions in science and medicine
High-level versus Low-level Evidence - the Hierarchy of Medical Evidence


Advocates for mask mandates simply don’t have the highest-levels of scientific evidence to support their arguments. They can only cite low-level science - retrospective observational studies.

Evidence hierarchies are often applied in evidence-based practices and are integral to decision making in medicine and the practice of evidence-based medicine (EBM). The following is from the Wikipedia definition and description of this issue: https://www.meehanmd.com/blog/2020-...asks-are-ineffective-unnecessary-and-harmful/

 

These get so tiresome.
Every time an outbreak starts they put masks on us and close the bars and it goes away.
Then you get a rash of this kind of BS and we start all over again.

 

they dont drop the mask mandate when they open public places, people are wearing the masks and we still have outbreaks.

The mask mandate is in effect before and after the public areas are opened.

 

how do you know it is the mask and not the closing of the bars that is the driver?

 

The White House gave us a great example

They rarely wore masks and look...35 people in the WHITE HOUSE got the virus

Now Pence has five staffers infected and they're acting like nothing happened

 

And we get this bullshit from an EYE DOCTOR?

Jesus you people are getting desperate

 

You are always so uninformed, Lesh.

https://www.med.umich.edu/kec/pdf/coronavirus-and-your-eyes-aao.pdf

 

Which has nothing to do with an EYE DOCTOR putting out a bogus "study"

 

Masks work.

Kansas proves it (if what happened in the White House isn't enough)

https://ipsr.ku.edu/covid19/images/MaskMandateUpdate.pdf

 

~ They act like adults - as we all should .

 

Masks are the sacrament of The Church of the Poisoned Mind, and superstition and ignorance are the dogma of that church. Saint Anthony Fauci is its High Priest.

 

Actually they are acting like children

"But we don't WANNNA wear masks!!!!"

 

What did happen then Lesh? Some folks were infected. Then what? And when none of them die, what is your point? Folks get colds, the flu, lots of transient illness, and folks recover. Do they not? So what is your point here?

 

So wear yours. You understand that it doesn't protect you, though, right? It might be somewhat effective at protecting others from you. But you wearing one doesn't protect you. You know that right? You have the right to not go out, into public, you can live that way if it appeals to you. If that's what you want to call living, so be it.

 

Colds? Flu?

You think that's what this is?

Two Hundred Twenty Five THOUSAND people have died from this "cold"

Of course THEY didn't have access to the kind of care the White House gets...

1,000 died of that "cold" just yesterday

 

And half a million folks die from heart attacks, and another half million folks die from cancer, and on and on. And we've NEVER shut down the economy because folks are dying from those conditions, have we? I know, these aren't "infectious", things, and that's what you're really afraid of, right? The idea that someone else could effect you. And yet, you have no qualms about demanding and effecting everyone else around you to curb their behaviors to protect yourself. How much more selfish can you get?

Oh, and tell us. of this 1k people, how many actually died independently from the Covid? 60? 40? I bet you don't actually know. But sure, 1000 people died yesterday. How many other folks died yesterday? do you care? So think about this. On average between 7500 and 8000 people a day die. Over half of those deaths are cardio vascular, cancer and strokes. That's what an average day looks like. Did it occur to you to wonder why those daily death rates for the US aren't any higher than normal?

 

People in close contact spreading it doesn't rule out distancing as the operative control instead of masks. I haven't heard one credible source say it is okay not to distance as long as you wear a mask.

 

After Kansas Governor ordered a state wide mandate of masks, the individual counties revolted. The result was that some counties followed the mandate and other counties didn't. This shows the efficacy of mask wearing.

 

When was the order given? The graph doesn't prove anything. Correlation over a short period of time (or any period of time does not prove causation). Plus where is all the data after 8/03? It's now ~ 2 months later. And how do you explain the difference between the two curves before 7/12? And do you understand the implications of a seven day rolling average on a data plot?

 

exactly

people catch colds all of the time and Covid is not a death sentence

 

Exactly. That is why surgeons do not operate when they have viral infections. They are in a super clean environment with ~ 12 air volume changes through HEPA filtration systems but aerosols from normal breathing go right through medical quality surgical masks.

 

The order was issued July 1

 

And those numbers will be going up along with domestic abuse, child abuse, drug overdose, suicide, alcohol abuse deaths because the hospitals and schools were basically shut down to all other serious conditions.

 

Why doesn't the chart start at 6/1 and end at 10/15? When data is charted or given for such a limited time frame that doesn't include the event which is claimed to cause a change it is almost a given that the news organization is "lying with statistics". There is a book on the various ways in which that is done written IIRC in the 1950's.

 

Statistics never prove, they offer correlation.

That's a striking correlation, and you will need more than whining to make it go away.