(The Exposé ) January 2024 we are still reading that hospitals have asked visitors to its A&E department to start wearing face masks again. How can we ever trust medical professionals ever again knowing that they enforced measures that were not only unnecessary and useless, but also detrimental to our health and well-being? (see – The-Cloth-of-Compliance-is-Risking-the-Health-of-Our-Children.) Yet years down the line, those who we would expect to know better have shown they don’t, and are once again simply following orders and ‘questioning nothing.
What hope have we got then when those orders come from the top and they are the ones questioning the evidence and undermining the scientists who provide it? Michael Nevadakis, PhD senior reporter for the Defender reports on an investigation by Paul D. Thacker in the Disinformation Chronicle who found that this is exactly what the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have done. The CDC has rejected their own scientists’ studies on the effectiveness of facemasks in favour of political guidance.
CDC’s Own Scientists Found Masks Ineffective for COVID — But Agency Recommended Them Anyway.
According to an investigation by independent journalist Paul D. Thacker published this week in the Disinformation Chronicle,, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention openly questioned the findings of its own scientists’ studies contradicting the agency’s public messaging about mask effectiveness.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) own scientists conducted studies showing N95 respirators are no more effective at stopping viruses than surgical masks — yet the agency issued guidance contradicting those and other studies showing both types of masks are ineffective at stopping the spread of COVID-19, according to an investigation by independent journalist Paul D. Thacker.
The investigation, published this week in two parts on The Disinformation Chronicle, details how CDC leadership openly questioned the findings of CDC scientists’ studies contradicting the agency’s public messaging about mask effectiveness.
During the pandemic, mask advocates “shifted goalposts and demanded N95 respirators,” Thacker said, claiming they perform better than surgical masks at stopping the virus.
However, Thacker said CDC scientists found no difference between N95 and surgical masks in the ability to stop the spread of respiratory viruses. The findings of the CDC studies are consistent with other peer-reviewed studies on the efficacy of masks in preventing COVID-19, according to Thacker.
“But the CDC responded by saying people can’t say that,” Thacker told The Defender.
To shut down the controversy, the CDC, in its Jan. 23 post on preventing the transmission of pathogens in healthcare settings, warned researchers that to suggest facemasks and respirators are the same “is not scientifically correct,” Thacker wrote.
CDC ignores own studies questioning N95, mask effectiveness
According to Thacker, CDC guidance for controlling the spread of infections had not been updated since 2007. This prompted the CDC, in 2022, to select “a bunch of science experts,” and ask them “to update the agency’s scientific guidance to hospitals on how to control infections.”
In November 2023, the experts produced an 80-page systematic review and meta-analysis, examining whether N95 respirators were more effective than surgical masks. The review found that while N95 respirators are better at filtering particles, the finding that they are more effective at stopping viruses “has been less conclusive.”
The systematic review also examined the “effectiveness” of N95 respirators and surgical masks “under ‘real world’” conditions and found “no difference” between the two.
The review also found numerous symptoms reported by N95 mask users, including: “difficulty breathing, headaches, and dizziness; skin barrier damage and itching; fatigue; and difficulty talking.”
According to Thacker, the CDC is not pleased with these findings, suggesting in its recent update that its own scientists were wrong.
“Although masks can provide some level of filtration, the level of filtration is not comparable to NIOSH Approved respirators,” the CDC said.
The post also stated, “The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the approach we take in healthcare settings to protect healthcare personnel, patients, and others from transmission of respiratory infections.”
More evidence contradicting the CDC’s public position came at a June 2023 CDC meeting in Atlanta, when Erin Stone, MPH, a public health analyst in the agency’s Office of Guidelines and Evidence Review, presented the findings of a meta-analysis on the effectiveness of N95 respirators and surgical masks.
According to Stone, the data “suggests no difference” in their effectiveness.
Yet, in November 2023 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee, CDC Director Mandy Cohen sidestepped questions regarding mask effectiveness and refused to deny she would reinstate mask mandates for children.
According to Thacker, in December 2023, just six days after Cohen’s testimony, The BMJ’s Archives of Disease in Childhood journal published a study finding that “mask recommendations for children are not supported by scientific evidence.”
“Recommending child masking does not meet the accepted practice of promulgating only medical interventions where benefits clearly outweigh harms,” the study authors noted.
Thacker: CDC guidance based on politics, not science
Thacker said the CDC contradicted its own findings on mask efficacy even in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Soon after the pandemic started, the CDC began promoting masks to stop the spread of COVID,” Thacker wrote. “And it did so despite CDC publishing a May 2020 policy study in their own journal, ‘Emerging Infectious Diseases,’ that did not find a ‘substantial effect’ for masks in stopping the transmission of respiratory viruses.”
#WearAMask 😷 in public to help #SlowTheSpread of #COVID19. When choosing a mask, make sure it fits snugly against your face, covers your nose and mouth, and has multiple layers. More on masks: https://t.co/iOQv5OMdKA. pic.twitter.com/hOBrfVsFb4
— CDC (@CDCgov) April 3, 2021
