Have you heard about the study conducted in June by the University of Florida that showed that masks for school aged children tested positive for a host of deadly bacteria including E. coli, several species of streptococcus and staphylococcus bacteria, and bacteria that cause meningitis, pneumonia, Legionnaire's Disease, diphtheria, Lyme disease, and meningitis?
If so, you thwarted the efforts of a certain search engine that rhymes with "snoogle" to suppress this critical finding. Not only will the auto-fill stop working once you start to type the word "mask" after "University of Florida," but once you type in "University of Florida mask pathogen study" it won't show you any results related to the study. Try a search engine that rhymes with "buck buck throw" and behold the very different set of results you're shown.
But even using this "better" search engine, your second result will be a link to some super sleuth "fact checking" by our totally objective and reliable friends at Snopes, who inform us that this was not a "standardized study." Luckily for you, I can use my scientific background to introduce a control group. I'm going to take some fresh masks out of their packaging...and.... wow! No pathogens! See, that wasn't so hard. Of course the other alternative is that the masks
do come pre-packaged with deadly pathogens with wouldn't surprise me at this point.
The idea that only randomized control studies are scientifically valid is dead wrong and, dare I say it, misinformation!! Observational studies are very useful and have scientific merit - the benefit of using a control group is that they can establish
causation whereas observational studies cannot. But we don't need to establish causation here, it's irrelevant
why a mask on a child's face is riddled with deadly bacteria.
The university immediately back-pedaled and claimed they can't vouch for the "chain of custody" of the masks and noted that, according to the CDC, "wearing a mask is among the most effective measures for preventing and mitigating the spread of COVID-19." Keep in mind that these masks were collected by parents of school children. Where exactly would these people get access to all of the bacteria? They rolled them around in a sewer or a pile of dog excrement? Even the WHO chimed in to discredit the findings. I will grant that the sample size is too small to draw universal conclusions, but what happened to "even if it only saves one life?" If the study is so invalid, why is our favorite search engine totally suppressing it?
BY JENNIFER CABRERA via rationalground.com A group of parents in Gainesville, FL, sent 6 face masks to a lab at the University of Florida, requesting an analysis of contaminants found on the masks after they had been worn. The resulting report found that five masks were contaminated with...
fos-sa.org
A laboratory at the University of Florida has recently analyzed a small sample of face masks and revealed the existence of 11 pathogens that includes bacteria causing diphtheria, pneumonia, and men…
fbanews.org
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/florida-lab-pathogens-masks/
Note the misleading headlines: "Did University of Fla. Lab Find 'Dangerous Pathogens' on kids masks?" (Answer is yes, and why the stupid quotation marks? They are dangerous pathogens.)
"At least six masks reportedly tested positive for potentially dangerous pathogens." Not reportedly. They did and you know damn well that they did.
More lies:
Despite hyperbolized accounts of the above bacteria in media reports, a majority of the pathogens are common and rarely cause severe illness or disease. And as the study itself noted, not all bacteria are harmful or pathogenic — many of those listed in the above table are part of the human flora on skin, saliva, or in the gut
Yes E. coli is found in the gut, but it's also deadly when ingested so this nonsenical "argument" can be disregarded. If these bacteria are so harmless then you wouldn't mind eating a cookie saturated with them, right?
The small-scale study did not differentiate the inside of the mask from the outside, so it is impossible to say whether the bacteria came from the skin and saliva of the child wearing the mask, or whether the mask had been contaminated through external contact.
So what? Who cares where it came from? If your child fell ill with any of these diseases would it be some sort of consolation to you if it didn't originate inside the child? Do you understand that the child will touch both the inside and outside of the mask? The point is that these things are magnets for bacteria. Irrelevant, emotional, and intentionally misleading, just like the rest of the filth.
Also note that this is the same university that published a study showing more acute respiratory illness events than participants ( 3267 vs. 2371) in a study comparing paper masks and N95 masks.
This cluster randomized clinical trial compares the effect of N95 respirators vs medical masks worn by health care personnel for prevention of workplace-acquired influenza and other viral respiratory infections in geographically diverse, high-exposure outpatient settings.
jamanetwork.com
Bottom line - lies and more lies. Not only are masks useless, but they are actually more likely to cause harm to the wearer. Avoid at all costs. Also avoid fact checking propaganda. Follow the science.