Bump. Here's one more paper:

Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis.

And a great write up about the paper can be found here: https://www.thewashingtongazette.com/2021/04/medical-journal-warns-about-maskss.html

True, this is not a conventional journal and that is precisely why it exists. It was founded out of a concern that valid scientific observations that depart from current trends will not make it through the conventional peer review process with a thesis that is radical or breaks an emergent mold. The journal, published by the Elsevier Public Health Emergency Collection, has a prestigious editorial board that utilizes high standards in selecting material for publication, and can provide a home for unorthodox scientific papers. Indeed, given the state of censorship and the vast scientific confusions that have followed in the wake of lockdowns, such journals are needed more than ever.

Tellingly, this paper is written by a single author, which is to say that one person has stuck his neck out to take responsibility for its contents. John Ioannidis has demonstrated that a feature of problematic studies is that they are performed and reported on by large teams of researchers rather than a single author. This makes sense: large teams can distribute responsibility for truth claims. Not so with single author papers. This enhances, but does not prove, the credibility of published research by single authors.

The well-published and cited author Baruch Vainshelboim works in the Cardiology Division, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System/Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, United States, and has had an affiliation with Pulmonary Institute, Rabin Medical Center, Beilinson Hospital, Petach Tikva, Israel. He obtained his Ph.D. (Universidade do Porto) in clinical exercise physiology in pulmonary rehabilitation and hence has a strong interest in the relationship between health and masking.

The entire paper is worth reading. It cites most known studies and knowledge in the scientific literature prior to the Spring of 2020, including the WHO: “Facemasks are not required, as no evidence is available on its usefulness to protect non-sick persons.”

The author goes on to explain a myriad physiological dangers associated with mask wearing:

"In addition to hypoxia and hypercapnia, breathing through facemask residues bacterial and germs components on the inner and outside layer of the facemask. These toxic components are repeatedly rebreathed back into the body, causing self-contamination. Breathing through facemasks also increases temperature and humidity in the space between the mouth and the mask, resulting in a release of toxic particles from the mask’s materials. A systematic literature review estimated that aerosol contamination levels of facemasks including 13 to 202,549 different viruses. Rebreathing contaminated air with high bacterial and toxic particle concentrations along with low O2 and high CO2 levels continuously challenge the body homeostasis, causing self-toxicity and immunosuppression."

And some psychological harms of masks:

"As described earlier, wearing facemasks causing hypoxic and hypercapnic state that constantly challenges the normal homeostasis, and activates “fight or flight” stress response, an important survival mechanism in the human body. The acute stress response includes activation of nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, and the immune systems. These include activation of the limbic part of the brain, release stress hormones (adrenalin, neuro-adrenalin and cortisol), changes in blood flow distribution (vasodilation of peripheral blood vessels and vasoconstriction of visceral blood vessels) and activation of the immune system response (secretion of macrophages and natural killer cells). Encountering people who wear facemasks activates innate stress-fear emotion, which is fundamental to all humans in danger or life threatening situations, such as death or unknown, unpredictable outcome. While acute stress response (seconds to minutes) is an 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 sustained increase in blood pressure, pro-inflammatory state and immunosuppression."

And the conclusion:

"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 as 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 facemasks can cause health deterioration, developing and progression of chronic diseases and premature death. Governments, policy makers and health organizations should utilize proper and scientific evidence-based approach with respect to wearing facemasks, when the latter is considered as preventive intervention for public health."

This article represents a new challenge to the pro-masking position. It argues that masks are not merely a “talisman,” as the Journal of the American Medical Association said in April 2020 (before the authors were forced to retract three months later). The situation is far worse: masks are not just useless, but actively damaging to individual health and social well-being.

To be sure, anyone is free to challenge the conclusions, attack the extensive footnotes, take issue with the interpretation, or otherwise blast what is clearly a hypothesis. However, the journal editors chose to publish this unconventional perspective because it is consistent with vast amounts of the consensus at this time last year, before the orthodoxy suddenly changed, and the evidence that has accumulated during the past twelve months. In addition, taking this position today involves serious professional risk: NYU communication professor Mark Crispin Miller is being investigated merely for suggesting that his students think critically about masks by reading studies that conclude masks are not an effective means of curbing the spread of respiratory viruses as well as those that reach the opposite conclusion.