Starting the new school year I found out tnat our children are required to wear masks in school – all day! They are allowed to remove them for a few seconds at a time and during mealtime. This at last prompted me to look at the scientific data in several peer reviewed medical journals and determine whether there’s good science justifying such cruelty. The verdict is very clear (see below for links to sources):

• Masks are ineffective: there is zero evidence that masks reduce the spread of influenza-like illnesses.
• They put our children at risk: use of cloth masks increases the risk of contracting a respiratory infections as much as 300%.

The effectiveness of masks is being supported, as Oxford University’s Center for Evidence-Based Medicine states, by “lower quality evidence.” (see table 5 below). This is a polite academic term for junk science.

There are other problems as well. Health workers who use face masks are significantly more likely to report having headaches. Also, dermatologists have been reporting a notable increase in skin conditions linked with face mask use.

Conclusion: the health of our children is being jeopardized for no good reason. I believe it is incumbent upon us as parents to demand that the policy be urgently reconsidered.

Cloth masks: three times higher risk of respiratory infection!

A report published in British Medical Journal (BMJ Open: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577) in April 2015 found that hospital workers who used cloth masks were three times more likely to contract influenza or influenza-like illness than the control group. The study was a collaborative effort between Sydney’s UNSW School of Public Health and Community Medicine and the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Professor Rania MacIntyre[1] and her team looked at 1607 hospital healthcare workers across 14 hospitals in the Vietnamese capital split into three groups: those wearing medical masks, those wearing cloth masks and a control group based on usual practice. The workers used face masks on every shift for four consecutive weeks. The study found that respiratory infection was much higher among healthcare workers wearing cloth masks – three times higher compared to the control group.

There is much speculation about why masks exacerbate respiratory infections, but they tend to go along three lines of reasoning:

• Skin infections: mask use causes skin lesions, which favors infection and contagion
• Psychological stress: emotional / psychological stress has significant adverse impact on the immune system
• Oxygen / carbon dioxide imbalance: extended use of masks reduces oxygen intake and leads to carbon dioxide saturation which has adverse effect on the immune system.

This last possibility was explained in the following video which, unfortunately is only in Spanish and I haven’t yet been able to find a translation or an english version. However, the doctor explains that oxygen concentration of less than 18%, which is what our children are breathing under their masks, leads to increased concentration of CO2 in their blood which causes immunodeficiency disorders and can result in infections with complications. The doctor cites as his source the Guyton and Hall Textbook on Medical Physiology.

The image below shows a face mask worn by a child for 3 hours:

Meanwhile, there is no evidence at all that masks reduce the spread of infection

The evidence from 18 known randomized control trials (RTCs) involving over 26,000 subjects have found no benefits to using face masks. RTCs are the gold standard in science and not one single one shows any significant benefit to using face masks. A recent report in the Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence Based Medicine stated that benefit of masks has been supported recently by poor quality evidence. That’s another name for junk science.

Skin problems

This summer my niece (10 years old) got a bad skin reaction on her face, for the first time in her life. Her parents thought it was from wearing the mask, even though she only wore it to go into shops and commercial centers. When she stopped using the mask, her skin recovered in just a few days. The image below shows a few examples of this.

Mask-ne

As it happens, dermatologists are reporting an increase of patients with these reactions, and they even coined the name for the condition: mask-ne (a variation of acne). Dr. Nicola Ralph, a consultant dermatologist with the Institute of Dermatologists in Dublin believes these breakouts are “essentially a form of Acne Mechanica” and explains that the problem is caused “by a combination of friction/rubbing from the mask, which causes local pressure on the sebaceous ducts (sweat glands) and irritates the skin barrier. The warm, moist micro-environment under the mask dilates the pores, increases sebum (oil) production and causes clogging of the ducts with bacteria and sebum (oil)”, she says.

So why are children being subjected to such unreasonable measures?

Unfortunately I can only speculate here, but since science, reason and common sense are out the window, speculation is what we’re left with.

At the start of this summer a friend warned me that the plan, when the school year starts, was to put children under masks and as soon as a child shows symptoms of an influenza or respiratory infection, they would isolate the child, possibly his or her whole class or even school adnd oblige everyone, including parents to be tested for Covid, and if the vaccine is available to oblige the parents to take the vaccine before they can be reunited with their child.

I didn’t know what to think of this warning – it seemed over the top ominous. But how can I dismiss it when the authorities clearly aren’t restrained by either science, common sense or even a sense of human decency?

If I was able to dig up science on masks, it’s inconceivable that public health authorities are unaware of this science. At least since Dr. MacIntyre’s study in April 2015, our health authorities have been aware that use of cloth masks puts our children at 300% higher risk of contracting respiratory infection.

But they are doing it to the children anyway! Could this be what Bill and Melinda Gates meant when they said that this second wave would get our attention this time?

When measures with no foundation in science and which actually put our children’s health at risk are being mandated, we as parents have every right to ask questions and demand answers. Not only are the mandates cruel and unusual, they are being implemented arbitrarily with an arrogant rigidity as though we, the plebs have no say in it and are out of our place to demand answers. It is only natural for us to suspect dark and sinister motives behind these measures

A caprice, for good measure

Through this whole farce, I’ve noted that at every time some new normal has been instituted, our authorities made sure to take something away from us, for good measure. So, when the beaches were reopened in late spring, “NO SMOKING” signs were posted. All of a sudden, for the first time ever for some reason, people are not allowed to have a smoke at the beach. See my article, “A day at the beach in the brave new normal.“

Last week my squash club opened after being shut for over six months. In addition to the usual nonsense (we must wear a mask to walk around and arrows and lines on the ground direct which way we may walk), they’ve forbidden the use of the sauna. And for the poor children, as the school opened this week, new signs in the park in front of their school say that ball games are forbidden.

None of these measures seem reasonable, but they tell us volumes about the direction in which the New Normal is going – clearly we’re meant to get used to restrictions and to understand that we may only do things with the permission from the authorities. If they forbid something, then we may not do them and the authorities do not owe us any explanations. Compliance is the only acceptable response.

Sources

The 4 tables below summarize the peer reviewed literature on the subject with links to sources (table 4 is omitted – it’s the French version of table 3).

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[1] Prof. MacIntyre is a renowned expert on emerging infectious diseases, infection, biosecurity, biodefense, influenza, vaccination, epidemiology, outbreaks, epidemic control, pandemics, travel and border control.