Masks in Surgery Do Not Prevent Infection
Face coverings in the operating room are “unnecessary,” “dispensable,” and “could be abandoned” according to decades of research
With the pervasive, cancer-like invasion of masks in every aspect of life, the debate yet rages over their effectiveness.
But those of us who’ve actually done the research, and continue to investigate the mask issue, have found ourselves atop a mountain of evidence, the true massive scale of which becomes clearer daily. Of course our fellow citizens avowing masks are just obeying and complying out of ignorance, but our elected and unelected officials cannot claim ignorance without admitting incompetence.
Especially medical professionals or health organizations including the Oregon Health Authority and Centers for Disease Control, who until 2020 never once told the general public to constantly wear masks for prevention of respiratory virus infection. These people are expected to already know the science, to have already done the research, to already have the information.
This mountain of evidence we’re revealing existed long before Covid-19. And we’re finding that the only reason the general public doesn’t know about it is that the OHA or CDC do not want them to know about it. Rather than give them the truth, the pro-maskers are only given ways to argue with us.
One of the main arguments maskers are told to use is the example of the operating room. You’ve heard the canned lines: “If masks don’t work then why do surgeons wear them?” or “Would you want to be operated on by a doctor without a mask?“
And that’s where we’re going today, my fellow anti-maskers: the surgery setting.
Now, at this point us anti-maskers have discovered that it’s basically an open or whispered secret in the medical field that masks are pointless. Let’s hear those whispers.
We start by going back to May 1980, in a study probably a bit overshadowed by the global news of the volcano eruption we were dealing with here in the Pacific Northwest. But in that little study they looked to see if infectious particles could get past a surgeon’s mask and infect a wound, over 20 operations. Answer: they do.
“At the termination of each operation, wound irrigates were examined under the microscope. Particle contamination of the wound was demonstrated in all experiments.“
Step forward just a year and in Volume 63 of the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1981, where we find another example of surgery wounds being infected despite masks. In this study surgeons performed serious surgeries such as bowel resections without masks. This killed the patients, right?
Wrong. By taking off their masks for these operations, they actually halved the number of surgery wound infections. Halved! As the authors state:
“There was no increase in wound infections when masks were discarded in 1980; in fact there was a significant decrease.”
Further, the authors make it absolutely clear that masks are not effective but rather, harmful:
“While it has been shown that facial movements behind a mask can increase wound contamination, it has not been shown that wearing a mask makes very much difference to the contamination of the theatre environment or that the number of airborne bacteria can in any way be correlated with wound infection … there is no direct evidence that the wearing of masks reduces wound infection.”
And they finish with this bombshell, now nearly 30 years old:
“The conclusion is that the wearing of a mask has very little relevance to the wellbeing of patients undergoing routine general surgery and it is a standard practice that could be abandoned.”
Next we go to 2001, in Der Anaesthesist where surgical face masks were examined during regional anesthesia. The authors interestingly note disadvantages to masks:
“deficient assessment of lip cyanosis, anxiety, retention of CO2, costs”
And as the for the results, masks or no masks, patients still found themselves contaminated with bacteria from staff:
“Surgical face masks worn by patients during regional anaesthesia, did not reduce the concentration of airborne bacteria over the operation field in our study. Thus they are dispensable.”
In 2000, a five-year look at the use of masks of patients undergoing continuous dialysis in Brazil’s Hospital São Lucas came to an end, with yet more bad news for maskers. After 94 patients were treated by maskless healthcare workers, none of them suffered a greater rate of the dangerous dialysis complication of peritonitis, than patients elsewhere being treated by masked staff:
“Peritonitis rates during the study period were not different from those reported by other centers, supporting the hypothesis that routine use of a face mask during CAPD bag exchange may be unnecessary.”
Next, just browsing the abstract of this 1992 study, which, like the 1981 surgery study, found that masks in surgery were pointless. After three thousand surgeries only a slight statistical difference was found between masked and unmasked staff and the number of surgical wound infections. And that difference found masks to be 1.2% more likely to cause infection rather than prevent it. As the authors state:
“These results indicated that the use of face masks might be reconsidered”
and that masks
“have not been proven to protect the patient operated by a healthy operating team.”
Jump back to 1989, in another study on masks in a clinical setting. As you may know, heart catheter insertions do have a risk of infection. You’d think after 504 surgeries that at least someone would have been infected by a maskless or capless doctor. Nope. It was found the risk of infection from an unmasked person was nonexistent:
“No infections were found in any patient, regardless of whether a cap or mask was used. Thus, we found no evidence that caps or masks need to be worn during percutaneous cardiac catheterization.”
A similar study on heart catheterization also found the same thing 12 years later, in more than 850 patients undergoing the procedure. The authors found a similarly insignificant difference in surgery site problems, and even of those, the authors say “none of these could be ascribed to definite infection.” And as with the 1989 heart catheter study, this one also unequivocally came to the same conclusion:
“The routine use of caps and masks does not seem to have that much beneficial impact on the occurrence of procedure-related inflammations or infections in the cardiac catheterisation laboratory.”
And finally we look at a systematic review of mask use during surgery, done just back in 2016. The authors narrowed their search down to three randomized controlled trials involving 2,106 people. Here, yet again, the determination that masks are not needed during surgery to prevent infection:
“There was no statistically significant difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group in any of the trials.”
And they conclude with yet another bomb:
“…it is unclear whether the wearing of surgical face masks by members of the surgical team has any impact on surgical wound infection rates for patients undergoing clean surgery.”
If the case for masks is “settled,” as pro-maskers claim, then how could a maskless surgical team have no statistical impact on surgical wound infection? Only one way: masks are not effective.
There are more and more of these studies and trials being revealed each week it seems, and these are by far not the only ones. And as you can see, this science is not even remotely new, and any doctor or medical professional today has zero excuse for not being aware of at least one of these studies.
And yes, even the CDC has admitted in many ways that masks actually don’t work, I’ll wrap up here with a little tidbit on their “guidance” on masks for C19.
Their idea of a “contact” with an infected person is when you’ve been closer than six feet to someone who’s symptomatic, or has tested positive, for more than 15 minutes. And if you have, you should get tested and quarantine for 14 days.
The kicker is that they openly admit masks don’t matter:
“This is irrespective of whether the person with COVID-19 or the contact was wearing a mask or whether the contact was wearing respiratory personal protective equipment (PPE)”
When decades of studies, trials, and science prove masks don’t prevent infection, and then the very CDC openly confirms this, there can be no debate any longer:
Masks simply do not work.
Addendum: For a few months I’ve been aiming to write about how masks worn by surgeons or surgery staff relate to wound infections during surgery, and as other more prominent and respected bloggers or reporters than this one have begun rolling out pieces on it, I felt it’s finally the right time to roll out my own. But to be sure, I am most certainly not the first to write about the studies, trials, and meta-analysis discussed here and I sincerely thank everyone across the world who’s worked to bring this science to light!
probably they have some value to muffle the spitting greedy surgeons from gibbering too much and slobbering on their victims
indeed!
Real science and common sense never prevails in a cult.
Evidence, Smevidence! Wear your masks!
The CDC guidance link you included, however, also says this:
“Growing evidence of transmission risk from infected people without symptoms (asymptomatic) or before the onset of recognized symptoms (presymptomatic)…”
What evidence? The WHO claimed that four separate studies affirmed asymptomatic transmission is not a significant driver of the pandemic. Yet it is the primary support for masking mandates – “My mask protects you, your mask protects me”. The very great majority of those who test positive are asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms. We are continually told that ‘we are still learning about this virus’, despite coronaviruses having been around for decades, and all the new things we are ‘learning’ seem coincidentally to support ever-stricter public-health directives and the suggestion that COVID (a) cannot be beaten, and (b) will be around forever, so only vaccination will save us.
The continuing efforts to strangle it through suppression are instead keeping it burbling along at a fairly stable level, and every time restrictions are relaxed, there is another ‘outbreak’ which is billed as a “new wave” when it is actually just the consequence of it being exposed to a larger proportion of vulnerable victims.
Herd immunity would achieve the same effect as a vaccine, and without having to blow huge wads of tax dollars on vaccine and economic aid to distressed businesses. Yes, some people would die, just like some do of influenza every year, but you would probably save as many lives by concentrating on protecting the high-risk population and letting it rip through the rest who are almost certain to get it, but almost certain to not die of it and to come out of it with the same immunity they would get from a vaccine.
Do you have any evidence that proves that humans develop immunity to COVID-19 after being exposed to it? I can wait. There are a number of reported cases of people being infected multiple times, and usually their symptoms are worse on successive infections. You seem to be betting the ranch on something that may not be possible and needlessly risking the lives of millions of Americans. We’re now losing more than 3000 Americans to COVID-19 every single day. We launched 2 costly and seemingly never ending wars after we lost less than 3000 American lives on 9/11. Why was it worth fighting the first and second longest wars in US history over the loss of <3000 American lives but not worth our attention when more than 3000 Americans are dying every single day???
Yes, well, I’m not at all interested in getting into a lengthy flame war with you. Your mind is obviously made up, so please yourself – prance around in your face-panties all you like; wear two, just to be sure. I have been watching the ‘new cases’ in my region since mask mandates went into effect for all public indoor spaces, and I faithfully wear my useless mask everywhere I have to because that’s the rule; I just have zero confidence that it is doing anything to protect me. The mandate has been in effect for considerably longer than a full incubation cycle, but the new cases are still >500 per day, just slightly below their November peak. Mandatory masking is having no significant reductive effect on the pace of spreading.
If there is no reason to believe humans develop immunity from having COVID and recovering from it, then there is no reason to imagine a vaccination will have any lasting effect, either.
right ?!
It won’t help if you wear your mask around your neck or under your nose like many are doing. The reason why this pandemic won’t stop is because there are so many just like you who aren’t doing their part in stopping it. This will stop when people stop spreading the virus to each other, not until then. The longer you guys continue spreading it around, the longer we’ll be forced to wear these crappy masks, so if you don’t like wearing them, do what you need to do to help stop this pandemic…
You’ll probably get infected and be one of those screaming that you’re not actually dying of COVID-19 and that the doctors and nurses are trying to kill you because they won’t treat what you really have. And if you’re lucky enough to be counted, that’s what people will remember about you. Don’t die on a weekend or holiday because there’s a very good chance that you won’t be counted. It will be like you never existed…
Listen to the virologists who say the virus will spread with or without lockdowns or masks, just like the common flu. But your mind is obviously made up. I am against both policies, but am in favour of building up my immunity with vitamin D3 and Zinc, et al.
Which virologists are you referring to? Mark quoted a link to an article that was published when there were only 15 deaths in the US and doctors and scientists were still scrambling to determine how to deal with it. We now know a lot more about COVID-19 and how it spreads. Trump even admitted that it’s a deadly pathogen spread through the air in his interview with Bob Woodward, then turned around and lied to the American people that it was just a hoax and nothing to worry about. You appear to be one of those fooled by Trump’s many lies…
D3 and Zinc won’t help you if you’re infected with COVID-19. Why not just drink bleach and stick a light stick up your butt like Trump suggested???
FYI: You can spend more time out in the sun if you want to effectively increase your D3 levels…
So you’re saying that you don’t want your surgeon to wear a mask when (s)he’s operating on you? Any surgeon who would take your boneheaded advice should lose their medical license…
I don’t think anyone said that. If medical personnel feel safer wearing them, knock yourself out. If anyone wants to wear them, go thou and do likewise. But stop with the voodoo mask mandates and ordering people to wear them, exhorting them all the time to ‘believe the science!’ There is no science which demonstrates that masks do anything useful to prevent infection by a contagious airborne respiratory virus. Take a look at the rhetoric directed at ‘anti-maskers’ and ‘covidiots’ – a group the media has given the general public the go-ahead to hate. I’ve read that they should be denied medical services if they get sick. I don’t know about you, but I’ve paid into those services all my life; now I’m supposed to stand aside while medical assistance is reserved for the virtuous who do as they are told without demur.
If you replaced ‘anti masker’ with ‘woman’ or ‘black’, you would be swinging from a lamppost by sunset.
That’s exactly what they’re saying. They’re saying that surgeon’s masks are unnecessary even though there’s more than a mountain of evidence that proves that they are. You silly anti-maskers don’t really care about the truth though, which is why I asked if the author was willing to let his surgeon perform his next surgery without wearing a mask. Doctors take a lot of precautions to protect their patients from themselves, including wearing masks and working in a frigid environment. There was a time when people didn’t understand that people were dying from microscopic viruses but we know better now. It’s shocking how many flat earthers still exist even though this is the 21st century…
Nobody said that surgeons should not wear masks. The author said that the difference in bacterial infections – a whole different subject, by the way, since bacterial particles are about three times the size of viral aerosol particles – was statistically insignificant whether medical personnel wear them or not. Saying something is unnecessary is not even close to saying it should be discouraged, and patients have no input to medical procedures anyway – doctors never ask if the patient wants them to wear a mask, and would be unlikely to pay attention to any patient who said “I don’t want you to wear a mask”.
If there’s a mountain of evidence that masks work, why did the New England Journal of Medicine – allegedly one of the world’s most respected medical references – claim that wearing a mask outside of a health-care setting offered ‘little, if any protection from infection’? But that’s exactly what they said.
“We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.”
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
The authors go on to say that masking is an essential part of PPE for medical workers, but they’re not talking about those dozy cloth rectangles with ear loops and the logo of your favourite sports team you see all the twits wearing on the street. They’re talking about N-95 respirators or better, which are fit-tested.
Silly rabbit. If something is deemed unnecessary, then it’s being discouraged. You’ve bought into the lie that masks don’t help, which has encouraged you to avoid wearing them…
This comes from your link, an article published early on in the pandemic when medical professionals were still trying to figure out what they were dealing with. The article was published May 20, 2020:
If you go to a party, sit indoors in a restaurant, go to a packed church service, fly on an airplane, etc, there’s a very good chance that you’re going to be exposed to COVID-19 if you’re not wearing a mask. There are plenty of examples of how this works by those who have been infected at Trump’s many super spreader rallies and parties. Herman Cain waved his rights and took the risk at one of Trump’s Oklahoma rallies, and he died. Trump ended up in the hospital and received medical care and treatment not available to his brain dead cult. Chris Christie is now a strong advocate for social distancing and mask wearing after he contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalized. We know that one of the Secret Service agents who protected Trump lost his foot and part of a leg and continues suffering from the effects of his COVID-19 infection…
If you’re fighting against measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, you’re part of the problem, not the solution. You and those just like you are going to guarantee that we’ll be wearing these crappy masks far longer than was ever necessary and guaranteeing that far more Americans are going to die for no good reason other than personal vanity and selfishness. We’re losing over 3000 lives per day now. By next week, 4000 Americans will be dying every single day. Those numbers will continue climbing until everyone does their part to help stop the spread of the virus…
Here’s a more current article published by the New England Journal of Medicine:
drivel
voodoo is unnecessary—in your case it should be encouraged along with astrology—“the dunce metaphysic”. (Adorno) it will protect from LGBT infiltration into your DNA
I wasn’t aware that voodoo is considered a medically accepted procedure. Good to know. I’ll remember that the next time I run into a witch doctor…
I wasn’t aware that voodoo is considered a medically accepted procedure. Good to know. I’ll remember that the next time I run into a witch doctor…
Two words: “placebo effect”.
I had a nurse friend who had the nerve to tell me that a lot of drugs didn’t work for me because I didn’t believe enough in them. If a drug requires a belief system to work, then it doesn’t work…
Take your mask and your flu virus and shove ’em up your ass.
Let’s see your “evidence”. Post links, please.
masks in surgery will likely reduce bacterial infections to some degree, but not viral infections…if the robots wish to display their obsequious fascistic nature by wearing masks I can only hope that their mobile phones will provide them sexual pleasure also