As with all central planning, a one-size-fits-all approach from central planners in the public health field brings with it all the same downfalls of other blunt force central planning. This approach which we call by the public relations developed term “public health,” in our era, is a polar opposite of medicine, which at its best has an individualized approach going back more than 2500 years and pits doctor and patient as a team against the world.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/allan-stevo/looking-for-warriors-face-masks-giving-in-proceeding-boldly-against-evil/
By Allan Stevo
Mr. Stevo:
I read your article “Face Masks Refusal Says So Much, Because Courage Is the Prerequisite to All Virtuous Behavior.”
When the suggestion first started to wear a mask to help stop the spread of Covid, I was skeptical and not a believer. And did not wear one. Then it became a requirement. I was very reluctant . However, I did then do a lot of research regarding mask wearing for Covid. There are many articles and videos on this subject. And after reading on this matter, I became convinced masks could help, at least on some level, in helping stop the spread of Covid.
It is apparent you think masks are useless. I would like to believe this. But how do I combat videos such as this one at Men’s Health and It’s Okay To Be Smart that supposedly show masks stopping the droplets containing the virus from someone with the virus?
J.T.
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Dear J.T.,
Thank you for this note.
This Is A Poor Source
Men’s Health is a poor source for this type of information, but it depicts the popular sentiment that is now circulating, so I am grateful for the reference point.
The information at those links is spread with a lack of understanding by those writing on the topic, or is alternately spread with some dishonesty. It’s not clear which is more common. Certainly it is both dishonest and irresponsible to write for an audience about a topic which the writer is unable to comprehend the magnitude of. Articles like the one linked are reverberators of unhelpful information taken out of context and obedient to a status quo.
Confirmation Bias: Beware Of Information Obedient To The Status quo
When information is obedient to a status quo, it deserves a special level of skepticism to avoid the bias known as confirmation bias, an easy bias to fall into.
Mechanistic Studies Are Accurate “In Theory”
The link you sent points to mechanistic studies. Mechanistic studies are not useful in prescribing behavior on this matter because they use theory to attempt to depict reality instead of actually measuring reality to the best of our ability. Sometimes we cannot measure the results of an experiment very well. With face masks we can. Mechanistic studies are commonly cited because they fit the narrative that everyone must be masked. They are not commonly cited because they are the best depictions of reality, which should be the meritocratic basis for citing a study.
Better Sources: Look For Randomized Controlled Trials With Laboratory Confirmed Results
If you desire to avoid the confirmation bias that has accompanied face masks in this heavily politicized electoral year, I recommend you look for randomized controlled trials with laboratory confirmed results. These are attempts at measuring reality to the best of our ability. Studies like these have often been ignored and even censored in 2020 because the results so clearly counter the politicized narrative that all must be masked.
Mechanistic studies consistently tell us what can be summarized as “Face masks should in theory work to prevent Covid-19 transmission,” while randomized controlled trials with laboratory confirmed results consistently tell us what can be summarized as “In reality however, masks do not in fact work to prevent Covid transmission and may increase transmission, making face masks not neutral but harmful.”
There Is No Need For A Narrative Of Divisiveness, Yet This Is What We Have
There is no need for divisiveness on this topic. The two types of studies are very helpful when read alongside each other and the results integrate quite nicely.
It should be no surprise that theory and reality in this field are divergent, since theory and reality are divergent in many fields. Scientific journalists covering the topic out of a sense of honesty for the subject matter would have no problem integrating these two types of studies, by saying: “In theory face masks should work to prevent the spread of Covid, in reality they don’t work to prevent the spread of Covid.” There’s nothing complicated about constructing such a sentence. There’s nothing complicated about presenting the idea in a way that anyone over the age of eight could easily read it.
Beware Of Those Telling You How A Theory Is So Complicated There Is No Way You Would Possibly Understand
I have long found that theories that cannot be described to an eight-year-old are either fallacious or poorly understood by the speaker. Simplicity of communication is obtainable to he who understands his subject matter and possesses a sincere desire to communicate.
Instead, this topic of face masks and Covid is covered with great divisiveness. Anyone who suggests that an unmasked person is putting others in harm’s way or does not care about another is doing their audience a great disservice. Either they don’t respect their audience enough to understand their subject matter or they don’t respect their audience enough to cover the subject matter honestly.
For A Person Trying To Make Sense Of Efficacy, Xiao Presents The Most Useful Face Mask Research Of 2020
Xiao in the May 2020 issue of Emerging Infectious Disease is the best study of the year on the topic. For those interested in delving deeper, I address that topic further in a recent article entitled “Reminder: The CDC Says Face Masks Don’t Stop Covid.” I cover the same topic in greater detail in my recent book Face Masks in One Lesson. I strongly recommend Xiao’s journal article.
Emerging Infectious Disease is a CDC journal of epidemiology. Attempting to avoid lip service or the lure of political correctness, Xiao and her co-authors looked at Covid as a serious concern and sought to distinguish superstition from efficacious approaches.
In Xiao’s Emerging Infectious Disease review of 14 randomized controlled trials with laboratory confirmed results, we see quite conclusively that
- 1.) Face masks do not reduce the spread of Covid-19 or other respiratory viruses,
- 2.) Hand washing does not reduce the spread of Covid-19 or other respiratory viruses, and
- 3.) Disinfecting surfaces does not reduce the spread of Covid-19 or other respiratory viruses. Fauci: The Bernie Mado… Ortleb, Charles Buy New $5.99 (as of 02:55 EDT – Details)
This information is so vitally important, and Xiao deserves reading by anyone with an interest in the topic. Again Xiao does not need to be seen as a contradiction of mechanistic face mask studies, but an elaboration that we can turn to in order to see that theory diverges from reality on this topic and that practice should be modified accordingly.
Xiao’s Conclusion: Face Masks Are Superstition At Best
The face mask is superstition at best. There is no question about that. This has been known for a long time and is even more obvious now after billions have been masked.
Xiao, takes this a step further. Xiao points out that the face mask is harmful and may increase the spread of Covid, especially when it is worn in disregard for the following protocol:
- 1.) Face masks are single use only,
- 2.) They are to be sterile when put on,
- 3.) They are to be put on with sterile hands,
- 4.) The nose and mouth should not be touched while wearing a face mask, and
- 5.) If the face mask becomes moist it should be changed immediately.
Xiao cites a 2009 World Health Organization circular on this topic. I’ve never seen a single person in 2020 follow this protocol and no one should not be expected to as they are not trained in the protocol. Notably, as much as this protocol is followed, face masks do not work to reduce the spread of Covid-19 or other respiratory viruses. That is the bottom line.
Face masks are superstition at best.
“At Best,” Is Not A Realistic Standard, There Is Much Downside To Masking
There is also much worse to be said about face masks. Xiao does not cover the vastly more harmful aspects of face mask wearing:
- 1.) Restriction of breathing,
- 2.) Restriction of waste removal,
- 3.) Medical impact,
- 4.) Individualized impact necessitating an individual approach,
- 5.) Deceased oxygen increased carbon dioxide in the micro environment of the face mask,
- 6.) Social impact,
- 7.) Developmental impact,
- 8.) Communicational impact.
This was outside of her scope. The entire picture is something that must be responsibly synthesized by doctor and patient for an individual approach.
Central Planning Makes Its Way To Medicine Under The Guise Of “Public Health”
As with all central planning, a one-size-fits-all approach from central planners in the public health field brings with it all the same downfalls of other blunt force central planning. This approach which we call by the public relations developed term “public health,” in our era, is a polar opposite of medicine, which at its best has an individualized approach going back more than 2500 years and pits doctor and patient as a team against the world.
“Public health” is a theory that came about in the second half of the 1800s on the English and later the American side of the North Atlantic and seeks to drive a wedge between doctor and patient in order to make it the decision of neighbor what medical treatment a patient receive. Rather than doctor and patient against the world, it is doctor as a servant of the plebiscite, imposing that will upon the patient. Public health has aspects of communism and utilitarianism mixed in with medicine to effectively make it the very opposite of medicine.
It may be no surprise to readers that those who advocate for one-size-fits-all central planning in the field of public health have the same opinion about that same technocratic-led one-size-fits-all central planning in government and economics. It is a truly vile field that seeks to use manipulation to control man. A VOYAGE IN IMAGINATIO… Holmes, Dr Joel S Buy New $9.95 (as of 04:21 EDT – Details)
Public health motivation theory is an openly discussed topic in the field that is fundamental to public health and so contrary to medical ethics for it seeks to frame and spin apparently unbiased education to achieve a predetermined outcome, making doctor into a salesman or pitchman rather than someone seeking to achieve informed consent for his patient, to whom he has that duty.
Public Health Has Become A Countermovement To Medical Ethics
Public health is in total contradiction to virtually all medical ethics, including the ethics around informed consent that grew out of the Nuremberg trials. It may be no shock therefore to recognize that the reincarnation of the most vile socialists of the past century — the national socialist of Germany, the Stalinist socialists of Russia, the Maoist socialists of East Asia, and their many compatriots — are kept alive and well in the field of public health. All of these men were young and charismatic in their time and praised in the pages of The New York Times. The same paper praises the public health politburo members of our day as heroes.
There is nothing heroic about men and women who bring tyranny to their homeland and seek to extinguish liberty from the globe, all the while claiming through cynical gaslighting that this utter destruction of human society is the only way to protect your loved ones and all that you hold dear.
It is hard to be appropriately pejorative about such behavior.
While They Are Effective Marketers, And Unethically Manipulative, The Field Of “Public Health” Has Not Hid Its Intent
For more than 170 years, the forefathers of the public health field have publicly stated their desire to eliminate the structures of society and all people hold dear — church, free expression, self-defense, private property, livelihood, business, family.
Should anyone be surprised that in 2020, the year that the public health professional was allowed to take over society, we ended up with exactly the kind of life that the public health profession and their forefathers have been promising for 170 years?
Listen to them. They are telling you their plans. They have never hid it.
He who follows a single one of their orders, the face mask included, betrays freedom. You enable the most disgusting evil in the world.
Face Masks Should Not Be Worn By Any Person Of Conscience
The face mask is a total joke of a medical intervention advanced by the clown of a man we call Fauci. It is with great sadness that I’ve seen even a single American adopt this medical intervention. Sadly, this adoption of face masks have been far more impactful to society than just a single American engaging in this harmful superstition.
That would be forgivable. That would be so minor as to be unnoticed. We are past the point where anyone should say “Anyone who wants to should wear a face mask.” The toxic symbol of obedience should be eradicated with the greatest level of societal pressure that a peaceful people can tolerate. 2020 is very different and the comfort of supplicating oneself to the masses is so impactful, so harmful to all that I hold dear and so deceitfully done in the name of protecting all that we hold dear.
No person of conscience should wear the mask even a single minute more. Not a minute. To do so is to give tacit approval to a great lie and to send ripples of harm through society as you empower such a lie.
I do not wear a mask. I will not wear a mask. I seldom allow anyone in a mask to speak to me without first removing their mask. I hold some degree of contempt for those who wear masks.
Heroes Walk The Earth
Readers of these pages refuse masks in their businesses for the liability it creates for them as a fainting hazard. They refuse service personnel who come onto their property masked. They sue government agencies that force them to be masked. They take their children out of schools where they are masked and brainwashed about Covid. They scold managers for requiring their employees to be masked. They push against the illogical and unjust. They inform their bosses that they can fire them if they need to, but they will never again wear a mask. Had 2020 not come as it did, I would never have met these brave souls who so boldly walk the earth and demand freedom for themselves and others.
If you are not already behaving like these brave readers, it is not too late. You, too, can set a higher standard and demand such freedoms in your own life.
Sheeplike Behavior Happens, But Tacit Approval From Those Who Know Better Is So Much Worse
No adult should be given a bye for the sheeplike behavior they engage in. Sheeplike people exist though and that is a reality of life. Those who know better and refuse to go through the discomfort of acting on their realization are truly awful.
Humanity needs those who see the reality of this behavior to act in defense of reason and liberty. So many do not. They abrogate that role. They burn down society because they refuse to act to protect it.
Minor discomfort and subtle displays of courage are all that is required for them to behave accordingly to advance freedom for themselves and others. It is a testament to how little society must mean to them or how costly subtle displays of courage must appear to them if they are unable to summon the ability to no longer fly this disgusting flag on their precious faces.
No decent liberty-lover would fly a Nazi flag or a Soviet flag out of sincerity, but many fly a far more pernicious symbol.
Courage Is An Axiom
There is clearly a disconnect for so many Americans to so potently represent such an awful symbol and to carry it around with them — not on an armband or embroidered to a hat — but on their precious faces, covering their precious mouths.
Out of many conversations, the most clear sense I’ve been able to make of that disconnect is the far greater prevalence of cowardice in the United States than I had previously realized.
There I reach an axiomatic disconnect with the mask wearer, for if you have no courage, you are not a man to be trusted, you are not an adult who has come of age, you are playing the role of the perpetual child that modernity wants you to be and wants to convince you that you are.
There is a question left up to each of us to answer: “Am I too cowardly to be inconvenienced in the name of human freedom?”
People who I once viewed as heroes have answered that question in ways I would never have expected.
I hope that you have decided to never again wear a mask.
If You Criticize A Governor While Obediently Wearing A Mask, You Have Not Turned The Mirror On Yourself
See the rest here
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