Robust Findings that Masks Don’t Work are Ignored by News Media

Imagine that a newly published comprehensive review of mask-wearing by a prestigious medical publication concluded that mask wearing offered us significant protections from COVID. You'd see those findings echoed by most major news organizations. Biden's attorneys would trumpet those findings in Biden's attempt to reverse the 11th Circuit ruling, so that he could make better arguments requiring airline passengers to put their damned masks back on. Well, the opposite has happened.

I personally know Dr. Kristen Walsh. She is a dedicated pediatrician. She is one of the many practicing physicians who read the January 30, 2023 Cochrane Library review of evidence as to whether masks prevented the spread of COVID. Walsh's Feb 1, 2023 article is titled: "New meta-analysis should end discussion of mask mandates in schools." An excerpt:

From where I sit, as a primary care doctor practicing in an academic clinic setting, this review was big, huge science news. It gathered and studied 78 randomized controlled trials, both pre- and mid-COVID, and addressed COVID, flu, and other respiratory viral illnesses. I was surprised (and not in a pleasant way), therefore, to see almost complete media silence after the review was released. I didn’t see anything about it on cable news; no articles in well-known newspapers. The tweet from the Cochrane Database announcing the review only had 68 likes and 24 retweets after 24 hours. “How is this possible?” I thought. “Why does no one care whether masks work or not?” Probably because the answer was pretty much: not.
Upon reading Walsh's Substack article, I did my due diligence, searching the websites of the NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC and NPR. As of today, you will not find a single word about the Cochrane Review declaring that there is no evidence supporting the use of masks to prevent COVID.

Why the silence? I would start my answer with the COVID edition of the Twitter files. I would add that we are looking squarely at a sad example of the sunk costs phenomenon: Most legacy news outlets (and their pals in the U.S. Government) are determined to keep riding their severely flawed COVID narrative because they fear the ridicule they would face if they did an about-face. They have shown themselves to be obedient servants to the stern dictates of the Trusted News Initiative, to the Biden Administration and to the U.S. Security State, which has dedicated at least eighty FBI agents to the task of making sure that highly decorated doctors and researchers (and ordinary people) stop thinking for themselves for safety's sake. We are being protected from facts regarding the failures of masks for the same reason that we are being protected from other COVID-related facts and opinions, including the recent shocking revelations of Jordon Walker, Pfizer's Worldwide Director of R&D Strategic Operations and mRNA Scientific Planning.

Walsh is not alone in recognizing the import of this comprehensive Cochrane review. Dr. Vinay Prasad's Feb 2 article is titled: "The Cochrane Review on Masks is Damning: Masks have no good data to support them: It is a religion, not a science." Here is an excerpt from Prasad's article:

Let me be clear: The science did not change. Public health experts started lying. We never had good data that mask mandates help, or that mask advice (a softer policy) improves outcomes. Yet it was widely pushed— most likely to distract from true federal failures. After vaccination, not only do we not have evidence. . . Here is the big summary finding. With 276,000 participants in RCTs or cluster RCTs, masking does nothing. No reduction in influenza like or Covid like illness and no reduction in confirmed flu or COVID. That’s stone cold negative. . . . This is why Fauci said what he said initially on 60 minutes. He wasn’t lying. The best evidence showed no benefit. That was before we saw a concerted campaign to promote cloth masking— a bizarre way to treat anxiety. People routinely wore cloth masks outside— something that was less 21st century and more 3rd century, akin to animal sacrifice, and dancing to make the rains come.

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The Pot Shot Version of the Ad hominem Attack

Today I posted the following on my Facebook account:

I often post quotes, article excerpts or videos featuring the writings or conversation of others. I post these because I find them interesting and, sometimes, inspiring. Quite often, people respond in the comments by pointing out that that person once did something they disapprove of. They often write something like "I don't like that person."

I don't understand this way of thinking. There are many brilliant but flawed people out there. In fact, each of us can see one of those significantly flawed people in the mirror every morning. When I share information on FB, it is because I find the information interesting. I am not saying "This is a perfectly well-adjusted person who is always correct and who has never done anything I would ever question." For instance, there are severely flawed artists (e.g., Michael Jackson) whose work I admire greatly. Same thing with writers, podcasters, politicians and activists. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Is this a problem? Hell, yes. Was he also brilliant? Did his genius help establish this amazing (though flawed) country you call home? Absolutely. When I celebrate Jefferson's amazing accomplishments am I trying to say it's OK to own slaves? Some people apparently think so, because they've been renaming schools that bore Jefferson's name. This is performative, not serious thinking.

All of the people I find interesting are flawed. I am flawed, you are flawed. People of prominence often stumble in big public ways. If you've never gone out into the world to attempt something brave and ambitious, you are flawed in that way too. Can we have an understanding, then, that I am already aware that everyone I mention in my posts is a flawed human being, and many of them have fucked up more than once? Sometimes they've fucked up in intensely cringe-worthy ways. Many of them have fucked up, realized they've fucked up and already admitted that they've fucked up. Pot shots are especially strange in those situations. When you watch a movie, do you sit there obsessing that some of the actors are personally flawed human beings? Or do you enjoy the movie on its own merits? Why do you give your favorite actors a pass?

I don't share information about people BECAUSE they are flawed. Rather, I am sharing their work and observations because I have found that work to be interesting or admirable. I work hard to try to make sense of an extremely complex world and my thought process never stops evolving. I often disagree with things I have stated in the past and you have too. We do this all the time and there is no way to stop doing this. That's how people think and that is why we have conversations--to help each other when we fall off the tracks.

It is the easiest, lowest and most ignorant form of criticism to sit back and point out people's imperfections. This insidious pot shot form of ad hominem is ubiquitous on FB. I assure you that I could engage in taking pot shots at others every hour of every day, with very little effort, but it would do nothing to encourage meaningful conversation or human flourishing.

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Our Rational Distrust of Public Health Officials Based on COVID Pronouncements

Our public health officials have earned our distrust. Vinay Prasad John Mandrola, writing at The Free Press:

We believe the feverish speculation that Covid-19 vaccines have led to increased sudden deaths is largely due to a trust problem with our public health leaders. And Americans have good reasons for their skepticism.

For example, when the evidence emerged that myocarditis in young males was linked to the mRNA vaccines, the Biden administration denied it: We have not seen a signal and we’ve actually looked intentionally for the signal in the over 200 million doses we’ve given,” Rochelle Walensky, CDC director, said last April. This was despite the fact that it had been reported by researchers in Israel two months earlier.

When further studies confirmed a link to heart inflammation in younger males, instead of acknowledging that the evidence was concerning and requiring changes to vaccination recommendations to protect this group, officials pivoted. They asserted that vaccine-related myocarditis was not a big concern. Walensky described the myocarditis findings as “these mild, self-limited cases.” They also pushed the line that infection with Covid-19 itself—as is true of many viruses—can cause myocarditis, and that this was a far bigger danger.

We dispute both claims. The majority of young people with vaccine-related myocarditis are hospitalized, and then given long lists of activities to avoid. That is serious. And the evidence for the assertion that a Covid-19 infection is a big heart risk for young people is unconvincing.

Another front on which the government has not been forthcoming is the question of whether or not the vaccines actually prevent the spread of the disease. Last January, Walensky finally acknowledged what millions of people who had gotten the shots, then came down with Covid-19, could have told her—that the vaccines do not prevent people from getting or spreading the illness. Walensky herself contracted the virus for a second time last October, a month after she was boosted with the new bivalent vaccine she wants everyone to take.

People expect leaders to incorporate changing information into their messaging. For instance, since the vaccine does not prevent transmission, there was no longer a societal benefit in getting vaccinated. It should have become a personal health decision. But this message never came—just the opposite. Our health officials have been pushing boosters on everyone from kindergarten on up.

Even worse, many colleges, following CDC guidance, are mandating the new bivalent booster for all students. That means that these schools are violating the rights of bodily autonomy in young people, and increasing their risk of a vaccine side effect for no purpose.

Yet another unanswered question is why U.S. public health leaders, unlike many others around the world, do not consider natural immunity from contracting Covid-19 when making vaccination recommendations. Our officials simply ignore the growing evidence that a Covid infection confers resistance to reinfection as effectively, or even more so, than vaccines.

News this week about the FDA indicates that a change is coming to the current vaccination recommendations. Officials are expected to call for an annual dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, similar to the flu shot schedule. But there is no indication this guidance will be accompanied by the long-overdue studies looking into whether these vaccines provide sufficient protection to make any risks worthwhile.

Trust, once lost, is hard to regain. People feel that their medical leaders are withholding basic facts, denying reality, disregarding new information, or worse, causing them harm.

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What it Means to be “Woke”

The term "woke" refers to something real. It is important to get clear on what that thing is because we are in the throes of a powerful social movement that is working very hard to evade criticism by refusing to allow us to utter its name.

I have used "woke" for the past few years and I'm not giving up on this perfectly adequate term. There are other almost synonymous terms such as "social justice movement," but nothing quite captures Wokeness like Woke. I'm sticking with "woke," even though the Woke now accuse those who use this term of being insulting or bigoted. The "woke" will be insulted no matter how far down we go down the line of cascading euphemisms, however. This succession is sometimes referred to as a "euphemism treadmill."  Another example of the euphemism treadmill can be found with the history of the word "retarded."  At its core, "retarded" means slow thinking.

Many people have used the term "retarded" to describe a real life phenomenon that can be plainly seen in some people, unfortunately. Others have used it as an explicative and a pejorative, to hurt someone's feelings, often directing this insult at people who are not diagnosably slow in their ability to think.  The fact that the word "retarded" can be used to both describe a real phenomenon and as an insult has resulted in the concoction of a comically long list of synonyms. Every time a new euphemism is invented, someone uses the newly created euphemism as an insult and then people go back to the blackboard to create a new synonym for slow thinking.  

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A Sighting: Excess Deaths and their Potential Connection with the COVID Vaccine Being Discussed on Legacy News Show

Russell Brand discusses this breakthrough--excess deaths being discussed on legacy media (BBC) and their potential connection to the COVID vaccine. Brand's full interview with Dr. Malhotra can be viewed on Rumble, starting at minute 19:00.

Here is Brand's Rumble Interview of Dr. Aseem Malhotra:

In his interview, Malhotra quotes Gandhi: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” He indicates that we are not, finally, in the "fight" stage.

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