After reportedly voting to approve new recommendations on masking made by a hand-picked panel of experts, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reversed itself and told the experts to change their advice.
INVESTIGATION: CDC Upset Their Own Expert Advisers Not Recommending Masks, Demands They Recommend Masks | The Disinformation Chronicle, Substack | Paul D. Thacker:
February 6, 2024 - "Two years back, the [U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC)] picked a bunch of science experts and asked them to update the agency’s scientific guidance to hospitals on how to control infections. Hospitals and government agencies use CDC guidance to set their own policies, but the guidance for controlling infections has not been updated since 2007. Last November, the experts sent the CDC a 20-page document, with 4 pages of scientific references, updating the government’s advice for controlling infections. But the process took an odd turn, last week, when the CDC sent a letter back to these experts — again, experts that the CDC picked themselves — that asked the experts to redo their expert advice....
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CDE sign with discarded facemasks, Fresno, CA, 2020.
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"Last summer one of the CDC’s own scientists gave a presentation at one of the meetings the experts held. She told the experts that she examined whether N95 respirators work better at stopping viruses than masks. Despite people waving around studies and essays saying that N95s respirators work better at stopping viruses than surgical masks, CDC’s scientist reported that the evidence 'suggests no difference' in their effectiveness.'
"The CDC then posted on the agency’s website a 'systematic review' that CDC researcher[s] did to examine whether N95s work better than masks. For those who don’t understand systematic reviews, they are highly structured analyses that rely on the best available evidence, to provide the best available answers.... The CDC’s researchers found there is no difference, meaning respirators don’t seem to work any better than masks..... Complaining about the experts’ guidance in a blog post last week, the CDC warned them they had gotten the science wrong....
"Prior to 2020, hardly anybody recommended masks to stop viruses, because there’s no evidence they do so.... Even the CDC’s own guidance on virus control advised mask[s] only be worn by sick people to prevent them from infecting others, which is known as 'source control.' The masks are important for someone who’s infected, to prevent them from infecting someone else…...But for some reason, a 'masks work' political movement began to grow....
"Four years after the pandemic’s beginning, the CDC now openly cheerleads for masks, despite research the agency has published showing that masks don’t really protect people from catching viruses. And this is why the experts advising the CDC are getting all this pushback: they didn’t tell the CDC what the CDC wanted to hear.... They want the experts to write guidelines that recommends healthy people wear masks, even though research shows masks won’t really stop healthy people from getting sick....
"The CDC’s request for expert to redo their work raises obvious questions: Why does the CDC gather outside experts to provide advice, if the CDC then demands advice they already want? Even more important, Why is the CDC pushing masks after the CDC published a May 2020 policy review in the CDC’s very own journal /Emerging Infectious Diseases/ that did not find a 'substantial effect' for masks stopping transmission of respiratory viruses?...
"Politico first reported that the CDC’s advisors released and voted to approve their draft guidance last November, updating the agency’s 16-year old recommendations on controlling infectious diseases in healthcare settings. 'But some health workers aren’t happy about this,' Politico noted. "During the meeting’s public comment period, patients and providers called for masks to be worn in health care settings.' Following federal rules, the experts’ guidance then went through a CDC review, followed by 60 days of public comment. Under pressure from the nurse lobby, the CDC pivoted last week and demanded the experts make changes and promote masks....
"I’m not really sure what happened or what we do next. But something weird took place in America where liberal elites began messaging among themselves 'masks work.' They then grew this into a crusade. Again, I don’t know why. The future everyone should fear is that the fanatics chanting 'masks work' are going to get someone killed. When a new pandemic happens — and one will — they’ve taught people that a super deadly virus ... worse than COVID, doesn’t really mater. Just put on a mask and go about your business, because 'masks work.' What a horror story that will be."
Read more: https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/investigation-cdc-upset-their-own
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