8.8.22
“Documented Proof: Masks Do Not Work – Never Have”
From America’s Frontline Doctors – AFLDS
[COMMENTS FROM DONNA GARNER: I went through this pdf court filing brief, excerpted portions, and took out the citations to make the excerpts easy for the public to read. To view the entire legal brief for yourself, please go to the AFLDS link.]
“On August 8, 2022, AFLDS attorneys David Dalia and Lauren Bradford filed an Amicus Brief with the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Health Freedom Defense Fund’s Federal Mask Mandate Case. AFLDS is excited to be able to show our support through this amicus curiae brief which presents scientific data proving that masks do not work.”
This amicus curiae brief demonstrates that it is the overwhelming weight of the available scientific and medical studies made on the subject of the wearing of masks, that masks simply don’t work.
As the viral particulates are so much smaller than the mask pores, it is akin to putting up a chain link fence, in the vain hopes of keeping out mosquitos.
Indeed, and as will be shown, masks are actually harmful to humans in many ways.
Masks are medical devices. These harmful effects of masks include increased risks of contracting bacterial pneumonia, decreased oxygen levels to the brain, and delayed speech developments in children, to name but a few.
There is no scientific, legal, or rational justification for a transportation mask mandate, as masks don’t work.
A “mask mandate” is therefore fundamentally irrational.
Further, such a “mandate” overrides informed patient consent. Consent can never be coerced.
“Mandatory” mask wearing has also become the source of numerous disruptive and sometimes violent conflicts between passengers and transportation workers, and among transportation workers themselves, creating veritable chaos in the skies.
Furthermore, face masks are considered medical devices, which are only in use subject to an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
As such, their use is subject to the ethical and legal principles of fully informed and voluntary patient consent, which includes the requirement that the patient be advised “of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.”
In contrast, the federal transportation mask mandate invalidated by the District Court herein relied upon a form of coercion to enforce compliance with wearing ineffective and potentially dangerous masks. Being denied access to necessary transportation services as a penalty for declining the experimental medical device is a form of coercion which invalidates voluntary patient consent.
…regardless of the ineffectiveness and potential dangers of “mandatory” mask wearing, the President and the CDC lack the constitutional and statutory authority to issue such a sweeping edict on such a major question affecting millions of travelers, which major question demands legislative authorization.
Finally, the CDC neglected to follow the notice and comment procedures as required by the Administrative Procedures Act, (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 551-559.
As many courts have recognized, the pandemic public health emergency was first introduced in 2020 and has long since passed, removing the justification for an emergency exception to the APA.
All studies prior to the outbreak of the alleged severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), or cause of the coronavirus disease, colloquially known as COVID-19, did not show a benefit of masks in preventing viral spread.
In fact, during the pandemic, although 80% of U.S. states mandated masks, research showed that masks did not reduce the spread of the virus.
No masks have been shown to protect against small particle viruses. Coronaviruses are 0.1 to 0.125 microns – 100 times smaller than fine dust particles.
CDC July 2020 statistics show that 85% of people who were sick with COVID-19 reported “always” or “usually” wearing a mask. Only 3.9% of COVID-19 victims reported never wearing a mask. These numbers were nearly identical in the control group – i.e., those not getting sick with COVID-19.
Another study done on active-duty U.S. Marines required that the Marines be pre-screened, quarantined in barracks, wear masks (except when sleeping and eating), practice social distancing, and disinfect their environment. Furthermore, they were supervised to ensure compliance. None of this had any effect on the development of disease or transmission.
The Center for Evidenced Based Medicine in Oxford England reviewed all the controlled studies on mask wearing and came to the same conclusion that showed there was no statistical benefit to masks.
Schools in Sweden were kept open for 1.95 million children, ages 15 and younger and masks were not enforced. As reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, Sweden had zero COVID-19 deaths among students, and teachers did not have an excess infection risk.
Moreover, Dr. Fauci, the current director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the president’s chief medical adviser, has stated that masks don’t work.
In a February 5, 2020 email to former Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, he stated, “masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.”
One month later in a March 8, 2020 interview on “60 Minutes”, Dr. Fauci again publicly stated, “people should not be walking around with a mask, there’s no reason.”
Surgical masks are worn by medical health care workers because they are designed to protect the patient from the doctors’ respiratory droplets and to protect the doctor from blood and bodily secretions. The wearer, however, is not protected from other people’s airborne particles.
Numerous studies conclude that masks do not prevent virus respiratory illness and only offer a false sense of security as they do not prevent transmission of viral particles.
The following demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the majority of masks worn by the general public and condoned by the CDC. The size of a particle in barrier intervention matters. Viruses are smaller than bacteria and are approximately 0.1 micrometers (µm).
In comparison, wood smoke particles are 0.4-0.7 micrometers and easily penetrate cloth masks.
Further, a randomized controlled study of masks done of hospital personnel (who were supervised and controlled in the mask wearing) showed cloth mask wearers are six (6) times more likely to contract a respiratory illness than those without a mask.
Additionally, surgical masks are not efficient at preventing emissions from infected patients, as they are designed to protect patients from a surgeon’s respiratory droplets, and are not effective at blocking particles smaller than 100 µm. For example, a 2011 randomized Australian clinical trial of standard medical and surgical masks showed that medical masks offered no protection at all.
Wearing a mask outside of a surgical or health care facility offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to COVID-19 as one that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). It is scientific nonsense that wearing a mask when entering a medical office or restaurant is necessary, but considered safe to remove it while being examined or seated at a table.
As pointed out by Physics PhD Professor Dennis Rancourt, “Such small particles (2.5 µm) are part of air fluidity, are not subject to gravitational sedimentation, and would not be stopped by long-range inertial impact. This means that the slightest (even momentary) facial misfit of a mask or respirator renders the design filtration norm of the mask or respirator entirely irrelevant.”
The World Health Organization stated: “At the present time, the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence and there are potential benefits and harms to consider.”
The Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases states: “We don’t routinely recommend the use of face masks by the public to prevent respiratory illness. And we certainly are not recommending them at this time for this new virus.”
Masks cannot prevent viruses from spreading. The overall evidence is clear: Standard cloth and surgical masks offer next to no protection against virus-sized particles or small aerosols.
A recent study published in July 2022 concluded that both sides of a mask get quickly contaminated with pathogenic bacteria, growing fungi colonies that can be a direct source of infection to the respiratory and digestive tracts and skin.
Additionally, toxic mold, fungi, and bacteria can pose a significant threat to the immune system by potentially weakening it. And alarming reports reveal that extremely dangerous graphene, fiberglass, and plastic fibers from masks are being absorbed into the lungs.
In essence, masks are potentially dangerous medical devices that can put an individual at risk for viral infection, and, if so, they will have a far worse outcome.
According to some researchers, masks actually increase COVID-19 deaths. A study by Dr. Zacharias Fögen conducted in Kansas revealed that counties with a mask mandate had significantly higher case fatality rates than counties without a mask mandate. Dr. Fögen coined this phenomenon the “Foegen effect.” He explained that deep re-inhalation of droplets and virions caught in masks may make COVID-19 infection more likely or severe.
Breathing is adversely affected by masks, as shown by researchers in Germany who showed that cardiopulmonary performance is impaired by masks.
Even simple cloth masks can cause shortness of breath especially during activity.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) assesses safe CO 2 limits to be 2000 ppm. However, recent measurements of CO 2 inside cloth masks revealed levels of 10,000 ppm in some cases. This is especially important for anyone with underlying cardiopulmonary insufficiency.
Increased CO 2 levels have also been shown to alter expression of genes in bronchial cells adversely affecting “innate immune response, host defense, lung edema clearance”, and is an independent risk factor for death for pneumonia.
This propensity of masks to quickly become infectious bacteria traps illustrates that masks are unsanitary.
Sanitary mask disposal is also a major problem. It is estimated by some researchers that millions of surgical masks can be consumed worldwide in one (1) day. Thus, discarding a single-use mask could, under ambient conditions, slowly degrade into smaller particles (5 mm) and form a new source of microplastics causing environment pollution and threatening living organisms.
This huge consumption of surgical masks contributes to microplastic pollution in the land environment and possibly universally permeates the aquatic ecosystem as well.
It has been shown that masks neither protect the mask-wearer from infection, nor prevent a mask-wearer from infecting others.
Therefore, the transportation mask mandate is fundamentally irrational at its core, as the mandate in no way accomplishes its intended purpose.
Masks are also actually harmful and unsanitary in many ways.
Further, the President and the CDC lack the constitutional and statutory authority to enact such a mandate on this major question affecting millions of travelers, and for the other reasons enumerated herein.
The “mandatory” wearing of masks is anathema to our system of informed patient consent and medical freedom.
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12.20.21 – “More than 150 Comparative Studies and Articles on Mask Ineffectiveness and Harms” -- by Paul Elias Alexander – Brownstone -- https://brownstone.org/articles/more-than-150-comparative-studies-and-articles-on-mask-ineffectiveness-and-harms/