Facemask discarded on a street in Quebec
- Give the false impression that a balance of evidence now proves that masks reduce the transmission of COVID-19
- Falsely assimilate commentary made in scientific venues with "evidence"
- Hide the fact that a decade's worth of policy-grade evidence proves the opposite: that masks are ineffective with viral respiratory diseases
- Hide the fact that there is now direct observational proof that cloth masks do not prevent exhalation of clouds of suspended aerosol particles; above, below and through the masks
- Deter attention away from the considerable known harms and risks due to face masks, applied to entire populations
In short, I argue: op-eds are not "evidence", irrelevance does not help, and more bias does not remove bias. Their mantra of "a growing body of evidence" is a self-serving contrivance that impedes good science and threatens public safety.
I prove that there is no policy-grade evidence to support forced masking on the general population, and that all the latest-decade's policy-grade evidence points to the opposite: NOT recommending forced masking of the general population. Therefore, the politicians and health authorities are acting without legitimacy and recklessly.
The article is organized into the following sections:
- Introduction
- Competence to talk about face masks and COVID-19
- Government responses have been a public-health and safety catastrophe
- The "growing body of evidence" mantra needs to stop
- So, what actually is the "growing body of evidence"?
Comment: Well done to those few outlets courageous enough to publish his work, and of course to Denis Rancourt, whose efforts to speak out about the actual science of mask-wearing we first noticed in May, when we published his first review of the scientific literature on the efficacy of facemasks: Facemasks aren't just 'another fracture point in the culture war' - they constitute a public health crisis in itself, and the longer they're mandated, the more likely they will statistically become more deadly to human health than Covid-19.
Also by Dr Rancourt: