The peer-reviewed study “Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis” by Dr Baruch Vainshelboim has been retracted by the journal Medical Hypotheses on the instruction of the Editor-in-Chief.
The study argues that neither medical nor non-medical facemasks are effective in blocking transmission of viral and infectious disease such as SARS-CoV-2, and that in the long run they are likely to damage individual health.
The retraction notice reads:
This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.
Medical Hypotheses serves as a forum for innovative and often disruptive ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences. However, our strict editorial policy is that we do not publish misleading or inaccurate citations to advance any hypotheses.
The Editorial Committee concluded that the author’s hypothesis is misleading on the following basis:
1. A broader review of existing scientific evidence clearly shows that approved masks with correct certification, and worn in compliance with guidelines, are an effective prevention of COVID-19 transmission.
2. The manuscript misquotes and selectively cites published papers. References #16, 17, 25 and 26 are all misquoted.
3. Table 1. Physiological and Psychological Effects of Wearing Facemask and Their Potential Health Consequences, generated by the author. All data in the table is unverified, and there are several speculative statements.
4. The author submitted that he is currently affiliated to Stanford University, and VA Palo Alto Health Care System. However, both institutions have confirmed that Dr Vainshelboim ended his connection with them in 2016.
A subsequent internal investigation by the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher have determined that this article was externally peer reviewed but not with our customary standards of rigour prior to publication. The journal has re-designed its editorial and review workflow to ensure that this will not happen again in future.
If there are errors in the paper, the question is why these were not picked up and addressed with the author prior to publication in the usual manner. If some were missed and subsequently came to light, the journal could have asked for revisions to the paper to address the criticisms. That it chose to retract it completely suggests the move is political (though the allegations of dishonesty in affiliations may have played a part). There is no indication in the notice of any correspondence with the author in the matter.
The strangest criticism is the first: “A broader review of existing scientific evidence clearly shows that approved masks with correct certification, and worn in compliance with guidelines, are an effective prevention of COVID-19 transmission.” This is just a restatement, without references, of mask orthodoxy. Given that Dr Vainshelboim had provided a wide range of references in his review of the evidence, a rebuttal should surely have come in the form of a similar rigorous academic exercise, marshalling further evidence, not a bald 28-word sentence about what the evidence “clearly shows”. This is not the way robust academic research happens or science advances. The editors could have published a response, or another study drawing on further evidence that comes to a different conclusion. That they instead retract the article on account of criticisms from unnamed correspondents, drawing on unspecified evidence, is a disgraceful way to treat peer-reviewed scientific research and the scientists who produce it.
What exactly is this uncited evidence that “clearly shows” masks reduce transmission? Certainly not the only randomised controlled trial, Danmask-19, which found no significant protection for the wearers of surgical masks. And certainly not the real-world evidence comparing countries or states with mask mandates to those without.
Last week I noted a peer-reviewed study that claimed surgical masks filter out 95-99% of aerosol droplets. Yet the two papers it cited to back up this claim said nothing of the sort, with one concluding: “None of these surgical masks exhibited adequate filter performance and facial fit characteristics to be considered respiratory protection devices.” Perhaps this paper should be retracted as well for misquoting the studies it cites?
What about SAGE? What evidence do they draw on in their advice to the Government which underpins the UK mask mandates, including in schools?
It is a little known fact that SAGE admitted in January that masks give no protection to the wearer. As for protecting others, they cite a study which suggests masks prevent 6-15% of transmission. That’s all – a marginal amount. And that’s the official “Science” from the Government’s own advisers. A sceptical take would look at the real-world evidence from winter surges despite mask mandates and suspect that even 6% was too high.
One independent researcher wrote about SAGE’s evidence previously for Lockdown Sceptics:
SAGE released a document in January prepared by a sub-committee, which it endorsed, saying that masks were primarily a source control (cloth and surgical masks are thought to offer the wearer little protection) and citing an estimate for their typical impact on transmission of 6-15% (possibly as high as 45%).
That document says in relation to source control: “Analysis of regional level data in several countries suggest this impact is typically around 6-15% (Cowling and Leung, 2020, Public Health England 2021) but could be as high as 45% (Mitze et al., 2020).”
A 6-15% reduction seems to be a lot lower than NERVTAG, SAGE and the Government have previously suggested – barely relevant. Moreover, the Cowling & Leung paper says: “While most research on face masks has involved surgical type face masks, it should be presumed that reusable cloth masks could provide similar benefits if they have a sufficient number of layers and preferably a filter.” So the 6-15% estimate seems to be for surgical masks. Cloth masks in reality usually have few layers (maybe only one) and no filter. So their effect is likely smaller still.
The Cowling & Leung paper is here. It is an editorial not a research paper in its own right.
The 6-15% estimate actually comes from a December 2020 review paper by Brainard et al.
They say: “Conclusion: Wearing face masks may reduce primary respiratory infection risk, probably by 6-15%. It is important to balance evidence from RCTs and observational studies when their conclusions widely differ and both are at risk of significant bias. COVID-19-specific studies are required.” They also say “The environmental and economic costs of regularly using face masks are notable, and only partly abated by reuse.”
Not exactly strong support for wearing masks!
If there is evidence which “clearly shows” masks work then perhaps the Editor-in-Chief of Medical Hypotheses would be kind enough to publish a review of it, in the traditional fashion, so we can all benefit from it. While he’s at it, he might let SAGE have a copy, as they seem not to be aware of it either. But could that be because it doesn’t exist?
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Disgusting – Science replaced by $cience.
Seconded! I was going to say – ideology not science. What about this: “and worn in compliance with guidelines…” In what universe are face masks worn in compliance with guidelines. People are constantly fiddling with them with their bare fingers around the nose and mouth area, which in turn have been in contact with various surfaces and items.
Saw a child fiddling with and blowing into a voice altering machine on sale in Waterstones today. After that, I don’t think a mask would have made much difference. Btw, those of us who are not chronically unhealthy should be coming into contact with germs to strengthen our immune systems.
Science replaced by ideology/religion.
Look for a “donation” from Gates, they’re everywhere else
Gaslighting.
A great article, thanks. I’m surprised they didn’t finish off by sending a team to the doctors house, to check the premises for peculiars and his body for warts.
Hey, the warts are probably due to be disappeared, along with the rest of the body!
“Analysis of regional level data in several countries suggest this impact is typically around 6-15% “
A long, long way from RCT evidence.
… and, going back slightly further, there is the review done to inform the WHO strategy document, which dismissed the idea as a viable NPI.
The attention-seeking public health frauds and crap epidemiologists need to be put back in their box.
They need to be put in pine boxes, 6 feet under…..
Like the paper face masks – 6′ under in a pine box is a waste of wood.
Why did the WHO change their position again?
Why is there even a WHO. Surely scientists and medics around the world can converse with each other without a political intermediary
Of course masks don’t work, it crazy to believe they would and for very simlar reasons (leakage) that olckdowns don’t work, the only interventions that do work are vaccine and medicinal treatments, the other things are pointless exhibitions that show only that all the mammels are socials beings, and that’s JUST THE WAY IT IS. No amount of
tomfuckelery could not change the facts of life, shame of the cretins who think our fate reats in our own hands, since nature is far to smart to deal humanity a special trump card, except that we alone have proved ourselves are smart enough to make vaccine.
How much alcohol have you had to drink tonight?
Not up to your usual standards of drivel.
Computers don’t drink alcohol, he’s ingested spyware.
We know that fon is a bot,
For its comments we care not a jot.
It’s really obscene
To push a ‘vaccine’
That purports to.be one, but is not.
👏👏👏👏
In vino veritas. He is right that vaccines do work (up to a point obviously, they also have some risks of their own, and nobody should have one if they don’t want it) but that masks and lockdowns don’t. That’s what the evidence says and since this was a discussion of science vs The Science you can’t ignore evidence.
But the covid jabs are not vaccines they are gene modifiers.
Meh I’d call them vaccines– you get jabbed with them, hopefully survive, and they usually make the real disease much less severe. Yes they do use some newer technology but we don’t need to be too pedantic about that.
There are various different technologies for traditional vaccines, the oldest, and the one from which the word is derived, consists of just giving you cowpox so you have cross-immunity to smallpox. But there have already been many newer technologies since then of which vector and mRNA are the latest.
They don’t modify your genes although they do use genetic code to work.
There are also drugs which have proven to be very effective in treatment, so I would rather use those than an experimental gene therapy with possible severe immediate side effects and unknown long term consequences.
And we are all catching weird conditions from its victim’s shedding
‘mammels’?
olckdowns?
Just for the record
orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n04.shtml
It seems that vitamin C and vitamin D and zinc and selenium and magnesium work quite well.
Incidentally, I heard about this after the friend of a nun I know recommended this resource. But perhaps when she commended her friend, she was on the make. Despite her vow of poverty. Well, for myself I will trust her over some faceless salesman for a pharmaceutical company until I have compelling – compelling, mark you, evidence to the contrary.
Erm?
A journal which publishes controversial hypothesis to encourage discussion is withdrawing such an article.
Ok, so there might have been a few facts which were “truth adjusted”, but in general, is this not a paper which does exactly do what it says on the tin?
It’s hardly controversial. Masks have never been recommended as a means to stop viral transmission until some idiot last year thought it would be a great way to keep the scare going.
I should add that then the US decided to politicize the whole thing and now we have “you’d have to be a stupid trump supporter to not wear a mask”
Isn’t there a word for people who try and terrorise us?
Well heres one Trump supporter who does not wear a muzzle. I do not waste my money for a start, so never bought one
Yes – “some idiot” you must mean Faux chi who said muzzles don’t work, then said they do a week later.
Incidentally the old truism still applies, follow the money. China has exported more than 500 million of the little darlings so far and rumour has it there is a floating used mask island the size of Britain off the coast of California.
That is great news about the mask island. Do you think it can help replace some of the coral reefs that are being destroyed by that Global warming thingymagig?😷😁
All the cretins who who protested plastic straws are strapping on their disposable masks.
Hahaha!
As someone pointed out in a question as to why fully vaccinated Democrat leaders are still wearing masks, face masks are the equivalent to MAGA hats and are worn to show allegiance to the woke orthodoxy.
Please don’t equate the masked cohort to the MAGA!
At a get-together today, doctors and nurses were talking about the “pandemic’s” chronology. In hospitals across the country, the wearing of masks was in the early days declared a “uniform violation.” What changed? Political opportunity. Still, it’s all about politics. And death, of course.
“approved masks with correct certification, and worn in compliance with guidelines” – I doubt there’s anything like conclusive evidence in support of these, but this is a far cry from “face coverings” in the community, and hence completely irrelevant to a defence of policy.
Unintendedly , they hereby also describe exactly why masks don’t work in practice even if they could in theory (still a big IF).
Absolutely no one uses them correctly.
It is impossible to do so.
You would have to exchange it as soon as you spoke a word and you needed to wash you hands 3x per exchange procedure.
And that leaves wearing them under the chin, pulling them out of a pocket, hanging them over the rear view mirror, putting them on the table etc., which is how I see them used 99% of the time and which immediately destroys their functionality and turns them into dangerous weapons of mass contamination, aside.
When the time of reckoning comes, we will not forget the collaborators. Thank you Will for your articles here, I admire anyone who sticks their neck out in search of the truth.
There never is a time of reckoning. The very same people ie Neil Fergusson and Imperial College have been involved in every single health scam and destructive policy concerning our animals and our way of life since 2003. The fact that successive governments have not dealt with these frauds should tell us that politicians understand the road to wealth is the hand in glove relationship between global corporations and taxpayer’s stolen labour.
Effectively fraud on a huge scale by the ‘middleman’ sales team called the Establishment. We would do very well by cutting this monolith by two thirds but turkeys never vote for Christmas
Foot and mouth outbreak was 2001, so make that 20 years of malign tosh.
How about since 1534?
Oh, I don’t know. With a few exceptions, most totalitarian regimes tend to end very badly for the leadership, e.g. Saddam, Gaddafi, Mussolini.
The 4th Turning suggests that that reckoning is around 50 years away, at the earliest, and only if the enslavement can eventually be broken, an ever bigger IF in modern times, for various reasons.
Interesting that a supposedly scientific journal should forget the very basis of hypothesis testing that is central to scientific method.
You have to show that a hypothesis stands in terms of probability – not the reverse, just because the null hypothesis simply doesn’t suit your predilections and prejudices
I wonder how many articles have been retracted post-covid because they don’t toe the party line, compared with pre covid. Now there’s a potential PhD thesis for you!
Yes, a PhD on the subject of propaganda and censorship under tyrannical regimes.
Vaccine refuseniks the new recusants.
With a follow up PHD on why the first PHD was retracted and the author jailed.
Much of science resembles advanced fantasising. See my comments on one of the articles below. Although to be fair this is not very advanced.
Cancel Culture moves into science.
Been here for years, us pro-lifers have long known that it is hard to get stuff published that threatens the mainstream position. The politicising of science has come home to roost, sadly. People really do need to stop treating science like politics or we’re all done for.
Here’s an excellent article about just that:-
https://unherd.com/2021/05/how-science-has-been-corrupted/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=9cf558c468
The comment at the bottom by Alan Thorpe is worth reading too.
Yes Hugh. Do you remember Climategate, where Phil Jones and his collaborators from the university of East Anglia threatened (and succeeded) to get the editor of a science journal fired if it published any articles questioning the great global warming fraud?
Then this year we have the censorship and deplatforming of any one who questions the illegitimate occupancy of the Casa Blanca
The correct way to refute a hypothesis is to publish a counter-argument, not to censor.
The fact that they choose to censor, can be taken as evidence that no valid counter-argument exists.
Mask maniacs shoot themselves in the foot. Again.
The Science clearly shows that telescopes, when correctly used, see that the moon is made of green cheese.
No. Absolutely not. You are wrong. It is Emmental. Everybody knows that. I have a postcard from Elvis to prove it too.
I got one of those, mine’s the one where Elvis and Michael are posing with the rest of Sage and Matt Hancock. Bubbles was Chairman that day.
I won’t accept that unless Lord Lucan and Bigfoot sign as well.
No Annie, I just exist on vintage Chedder and have signed up for Mr Musks next space flight.
Interesting background on the journal and editor-in-chief in question:
Medical Hypotheses – Wikipedia
New Medical Hypotheses Editor Promises Not to Stir Up Controversy | Science | AAAS (sciencemag.org)
Basically, Mr Manku was brought in to the journal with a message to tone down.
He works at Amarin Corporation, a pharma company with HQ in Dublin, Ireland and listed on the NASDAQ. It seems Amarin is based largely on one product, Vascepa, a cholesterol treatment that appears to be a variant of fish oil. Last year Amarin lost its patent …
It’s confirmed: Amarin loses Vascepa patent appeal, putting generics defense on life support | FiercePharma
… and its stock price took a nasty tumble:
amarin corporation stock – Google Search
Since then, Amarin has been desperately trying to link its flagship medication to the covid bandwagon:
Kaiser to launch study of Amarin’s Vascepa in COVID-19 (NASDAQ:AMRN) | Seeking Alpha
Which, of course, means it is very much in the interests of Dr Manku’s employer to maintain all aspects of the fear narrative surrounding SARS2-cov, including masks, social distancing, lockdowns …
What did Deep Throat tell Bernstein & Woodward?
Follow the money
Good bit of research.😷
I think most thinking people have worked out by now that masks are primarily a phsychological control, they have no medical benefit or reason. They were never intended to be a medical, reasoned method of controlling the virus: they are there to control you. They are not at all dissimilar to the striped pyjamas and yellow badges of the Jews; they dehumanise and reinforce the fact you are controlled and must co-operate.
I watched a video last night from Israel and they are literally forcing people into two queues, Clean and Unclean. They have introduced electronic wristbands which only the Clean get. Israel are being closely monitored for how well these actions work. The video shows plenty of smiling people showing off their wristbands. This is coming here, Gove has just been to Israel to see it all in action. Think that is far fetched? So was the idea of millions taking body altering untested drugs not so long ago.
Second video down:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/mike-yeadons-warning-vaxpasses-could-put-us-under-total-control/
Not surprising, if you know the history of the Israeli state. But astounding if you know the pre-history and the selections carried out at the Auschwitz arrival ramp, and the detailed evidence to the Nuremberg trials.
It’s the latter aspect that I find the most mind-bogglingly horrific, that it could happen with the Israeli people, of all people in the world, knowing their history. It defies belief, like we’ve been dropped into some dystopian movie or something.
I can fully see it happening here, because the government are determined that it should.
I’m also sure that the government didn’t come up with all this on their own. Someone is pulling their strings, although Gove and Hancock seem only too willing to go along with it, and with Tony Blair, who seems to escaped from his crypt again.
The only thing that gives me hope is the UK’s record of being absolutely **** at organising anything. It would still be terrible but hopefully we might be more like fascist Italy than Nazi Germany in the murderously organised stakes.
A good article that, I thought 🤔
They’re tribal indicators and nothing else at this point so god help us.
I note they say ‘approved masks with correct certification, and worn in compliance with guidelines, are an effective prevention of COVID-19 transmission.’. What people are actually wearing is an uncertified bit of cloth stuck over the face with no guidelines. Very little exhaled air goes through the cloth, the majority escapes round the side, and aerosol droplets will certainly not be caught by any old bit of cloth. Even for people wearing an approved FFP2 respirator it must be properly fit tested because facial movements, particularly talking, break the seal and allow air to escape.
https://youtu.be/btWfAXQ8wYg
this video by Dr Peter Lee needs to be watched by everyone. This government is fully tied into the globalist agenda.
It was very enlightening. Thanks for the link.
Simply take your mask off. That is it. Take your freedoms back.
The almost paraphilic obsession we have with masks is baffling to me. I’ve attached a picture of someone vaping whilst wearing one of these surgical masks.
You can clearly see the mask is not acting as a filter. It is acting more as a barrier.
Masks could only conceivably work if they were capturing and keeping a significant enough fraction of the viral particles in your breath.
There are other videos of people in very cold conditions wearing masks – and you see the same thing. The masks merely act as barriers and the breath more or less bounces off the inner surface and escapes at the sides.
It’s no surprise to me that not a single* RCT on the effectiveness of surgical or cloth masks has demonstrated any significant benefit.
*I think that’s true – but if not, it’s certainly the overwhelming majority
And if that wasn’t the case, people would suffocate whilst wearing a mask. As it is my hairdresser told me of an old lady who passed out whilst wearing her mask during a styling session. She was told by the medics not to wear a mask again.
A good article here:
https://www.aier.org/article/the-dangers-of-masks/
Argentina.World record in wearing masks since April last year? Should they have had two masks instead?
No.
Probably four.
Just to be on the safe side.
“A broader review of existing scientific evidence clearly shows that approved masks with correct certification, and worn in compliance with guidelines, are an effective prevention of COVID-19 transmission.”
That statement is correct as far as it goes as in ‘with correct certification and worn in compliance’.
The problem is that people don’t do that. They don’t do it all the time, they don’t change the masks enough. They don’t wear them properly. They don’t stay away from people.
All we get is restatements about people wearing masks in laboratory conditions from those who know very well that the assumptions in the experiment design are not replicated in the wider environment. Which is just another way of saying “masks work for the pure”. It has become an emblem of the new Puritan religion. Those who believe they are better than everybody else because they follow dogmatic dictat.
System effects dominate, and yet it doesn’t seem to matter how much field data is supplied that there is little or no real world effect, the true believers keep repeating the same nonsense.
Humans do this all the time. They get addicted to phrases and beliefs.
“That statement is correct as far as it goes as in ‘with correct certification and worn in compliance’.”
Any evidence you can link to?
…and let’s not forget the bleeding obvious. If no one has got WuFlu then no one is passing on WuFlu! Masks or not!
We already know that masks are not effective. Dr Jenny Harris told us so at an early Downing St press briefing and gave a detailed explanation as to why this was the case. The WHO changed its position on masks overnight due to political pressure. This is censorship not ‘scientific’ editorial oversight.
The journal said not just that masks reduce transmission, but that they prevent it. It is claiming that mask are 100% effective. That is clearly preposterous.
Perhaps the greatest casualty of the pandemic has been science and common sense. O er 30 years ago I demonstrated the myths associated with infections in surgery which included preoperative shaving and addressed the validity of mask wearing. It is ill understood that the academic world currency is publications which generate grants and Kudos . The content ,veracity and effect of the publications can easily become overlooked – in normal years a specific area may have a few hundred publications COVID19- had over 100,000 in a disease where the long term is only a year. Masks worn by the general public have not been shown to either reduce transmission or infection mortality – in infectious disease the multifactorial elements are too vast to isolate any specific aspect even with questionable statistics. When I questioned why a medical colleague was wearing a mask in the open she responded that she knew it was not of value but it made her feel safer. Mask have moved from science to being a “comfort blanket” for the worried well. The attached image is from a lecture Myths Masks and Medicine – it is a very old argument.
and in surgery they’re trying to stop bacterial infections (something the zombies obviously don’t understand when they ask “so why do doctors wear them then?”). If a mask can’t block bacteria it’s not going to stop a very much smaller virus.
Apparently it’s not true that surgeons routinely wear masks,
Two surgeons, who later became the heads of the Royal College of Surgeons, rah a trial of minor surgery with or without masks.
The frequency of wound infection was slightly higher in the masked group.
https://europepmc.org/article/MED/1853618
Academic kudos, academic job security, and academic funding all depend on how much you publish and how often your publications get cited. I once asked a Cambridge professor, ‘What if your paper is cited 500 times and they all say it’s rubbish?’ ‘Still counts,’ he replied.
The Science says what the government wants it to says regardless of what actually happens
Just to put this in some perspective the Impact Factor for this journal which is a measure of its value in scientific terms(-ratio between the number of citations received in that year for publications in that journal that were published in the two preceding years )is 1.3 which is very low and indicates it is irrelevant.
Regarding the mask mandate and the winter surge. I’ve discussed this with people. Every one of them has said
“iTs PeOpLe WhO dOnT wEaR tHeM!”
I mean, can these people hear themselves? One man goes into a Tesco of 150 masked up people without a mask and he, not only has the virus asymptomatically, he also manages to super spread it! Because on the rare occasions that I have been to Tesco myself, there isn’t anybody without a mask.
Collecting a drink in a cafe, going to the toilet in a pub, standing outside school. Everyone (except me, and then not always even me, depending how combative I’m feeling) has a mask on.
We all know most of the spread occurs in hospital. But then I suppose the patients are not wearing masks. That must be the reason why…
Good for you! You’re not alone, though. There aren’t many of us, but they do appear now and then.