Preamble and sources

Sorry, the title is clickbait(ish), masks aren’t literally killing you, but they are significantly damaging everyone’s physical and mental health, and potentially have some very serious long-term health consequences.

Study source:
Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis

Download links:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/pdf/main.pdf (PDF)
10.1016/j.mehy.2020.110411 (DOI)
https://archive.vn/TYTS5 (archive)

Article


Huge news.

Stanford University released a comprehensive new(ish) study titled ‘Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis’ summarizing available scientific data, including numerous meta-analyses, on the “safety and efficacy of wearing facemasks” and their “physiological and psychological effects and the potential long-term consequences on health.”

Here’s the conclusion, if you don’t want to read the whole thing.

“The existing scientific evidences challenge the safety and efficacy of wearing facemask as preventive intervention for COVID-19. The data suggest that both medical and non-medical facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease such SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting against the usage of facemasks. Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety and depression. Long-term consequences of wearing facemask can cause health deterioration, developing and progression of chronic diseases and premature death. Governments, policy makers and health organizations should utilize prosper and scientific evidence-based approach with respect to wearing facemasks, when the latter is considered as preventive intervention for public health.”

And here’s an image summarizing potential short-term and long-term ailments of prolongued mask usage:

Huge respect to the study’s author for going against the grain, I’m sure they made a lot of enemies by publishing this, considering that the most powerful people in the world are behind the COVID agenda (aka Agenda 21 aka The Great Reset).

Some highlights from the study are quoted below.

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99% of the detected cases with SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic or have mild condition, which contradicts with the virus name (severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2)

the case fatality rate is considerably less than 1%. This was confirmed by the head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from US stating, “the overall clinical consequences of COVID-19 are similar to those of severe seasonal influenza”, having a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%”. In addition, data from hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and general public indicate that the majority of deaths were among older and chronically ill individuals, supporting the possibility that the virus may exacerbates existing conditions but rarely causes death by itself

facemasks restrict breathing, causing hypoxemia and hypercapnia and increase the risk for respiratory complications, self-contamination and exacerbation of existing chronic conditions

current standard of care practice for treating hospitalized patients with COVID-19 is breathing 100% oxygen

A meta-analysis among health care workers found that compared to no masks, surgical mask and N95 respirators were not effective against transmission of viral infections or influenza-like illness

meta-analysis found no protective effect of medical mask or N95 respirators against SARS virus

Wearing facemask mechanically restricts breathing by increasing the resistance of air movement during both inhalation and exhalation process

when breathing occurs through facemask […] trapped air remaining between the mouth, nose and the facemask is rebreathed repeatedly in and out of the body, containing low O2 and high CO2 concentrations, causing hypoxemia and hypercapnia

The adverse physiological effects were confirmed in a study of 53 surgeons where surgical facemask were used during a major operation.

After 60 min of facemask wearing the oxygen saturation dropped by more than 1% and heart rate increased by approximately five beats/min

Another study among 158 health-care workers using protective personal equipment primarily N95 facemasks reported that 81% (128 workers) developed new headaches during their work shifts as these become mandatory due to COVID-19 outbreak.

82.2% of the N95 wearers developed the headache already within ≤10 to 50 min

results showed that there were no difference between wearing cloth masks, medical masks and no masks for incidence of clinical respiratory illness and laboratory-confirmed respiratory virus infections. However, a large harmful effect with more than 13 times higher risk [Relative Risk = 13.25 95% CI (1.74 to 100.97) was observed for influenza-like illness among those who were wearing cloth masks

cloth masks have significant health and safety issues including moisture retention, reuse, poor filtration and increased risk for infection

Psychologically, wearing facemask fundamentally has negative effects on the wearer and the nearby person. Basic human-to-human connectivity through face expression is compromised and self-identity is somewhat eliminated

These dehumanizing movements partially delete the uniqueness and individuality of person who wearing the facemask as well as the connected person

reduced human-to-human connections are associated with poor mental and physical health

Poor social connections are closely related to isolation and loneliness, considered significant health related risk factors

Another meta-analysis of 148 prospective studies (308,849 participants) found that poor social relationships was associated with 50% increased mortality risk. People who were socially isolated or fell lonely had 45% and 40% increased mortality risk, respectively. These findings were consistent across ages, sex, initial health status, cause of death and follow-up periods

An umbrella review of 40 systematic reviews including 10 meta-analyses demonstrated that compromised social relationships were associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality, depression, anxiety suicide, cancer and overall physical illness

wearing facemasks causing hypoxic and hypercapnic state that constantly challenges the normal homeostasis, and activates “fight or flight” stress response

Encountering people who wearing facemasks activates innate stress-fear emotion, which is fundamental to all humans in danger or life threating situations, such as death or unknown, unpredictable outcome. While acute stress response (seconds to minutes) is adaptive reaction to challenges and part of the survival mechanism, chronic and prolonged state of stress-fear is maladaptive and has detrimental effects on physical and mental health. The repeatedly or continuously activated stress-fear response causes the body to operate on survival mode, having sustain increase in blood pressure, pro-inflammatory state and immunosuppression

Long-term practice of wearing facemasks has strong potential for devastating health consequences. Prolonged hypoxic-hypercapnic state compromises normal physiological and psychological balance, deteriorating health and promotes the developing and progression of existing chronic diseases

Cellular hypoxia has strong mechanistic feature in promoting cancer initiation, progression, metastasis, predicting clinical outcomes and usually presents a poorer survival in patients with cancer.

With respect to mental health, global estimates showing that COVID-19 will cause a catastrophe due to collateral psychological damage such as quarantine, lockdowns, unemployment, economic collapse, social isolation, violence and suicides

Chronic stress along with hypoxic and hypercapnic conditions knocks the body out of balance, and can cause headaches, fatigue, stomach issues, muscle tension, mood disturbances, insomnia and accelerated aging

This state suppressing the immune system to protect the body from viruses and bacteria, decreasing cognitive function, promoting the developing and exacerbating the major health issues including hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer disease, rising anxiety and depression states, causes social isolation and loneliness and increasing the risk for prematurely mortality

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The main mask-o-phile criticism of this study is that it isn’t peer reviewed. This would be a fair criticism, if peer review wasn’t so often a process of establishment gatekeeping that inserts politically correct narratives into studies while removing all “problematic” information. I’ve seen numerous preprints change for the worse after peer review.

Another criticism is that the study has been “deb00nked” but all I could find was some nonsense by Politico. This study isn’t for people who trust the Official Fact Checkers™ but for your free-thinking buddies and family members, who aren’t mentally-cabbaged automatons. A lot of people are too far gone, but more and more people are waking up to the bullshit every day. Remember to stay healthy, work out, get lots of VITAMIN D and zinc.