Patrick Wetmore: Rooting out disinformation and debunked facts

To The Daily Sun,

In response to Ms. Carol Zink’s Letter titled “Do Research before passing information along to others,” I find the notion humorous. Translation, if your information doesn’t mirror that of the liberal/progressive fake news America last mainstream crowd than it's “disinformation.” Or it’s been “debunked” by some leftist communist sympathizers at Facebook or other leftist sitting behind a keyboard in a basement somewhere.

It hasn’t been debunked. In fact, there is decades-old research and information that supports the fact that mask wearing is absolutely ineffective against the protection of viral illness.

Denis G. Rancourt, PhD, and a researcher from the Ontario Civil Liberties Association has a great piece titled, “Face masks, lies, damn lies, and public health officials: a growing body of evidence." The following is an abstract from the 37-page PDF:

A vile new mantra is on the lips of every public health official and politician in the global campaign to force universal masking on the general public: “there is a growing body of evidence.” This propagandistic phrase is a vector designed to achieve five main goals: give the false impression that a balance of evidence now proves that masks reduce the transmission of COVID-19; falsely assimilate commentary made in scientific venues with “evidence;” hide the fact that a decade’s worth of policy-grade evidence proves the opposite: that masks are ineffective with viral respiratory diseases; hide the fact that there is now direct observational proof that cloth masks do not prevent exhalation of clouds of suspended aerosol particles above, below and through the masks; and deter attention away from the considerable known harms and risks due to face masks, applied to entire populations. The said harms and risks include that a cloth mask becomes a culture medium for a large variety of bacterial pathogens, and a collector of viral pathogens; given the hot and humid environment and the constant source, where home fabrics are hydrophilic whereas medical masks are hydrophobic. In short, I argue: op-eds are not “evidence,” irrelevance does not help, and more bias does not remove bias. Their mantra of “a growing body of evidence” is a self-serving contrivance that impedes good science and threatens public safety. I prove that there is no policy-grade evidence to support forced masking on the general population, and that all the latest-decade’s policy-grade evidence points to the opposite: NOT recommending forced masking of the general population. Therefore, the politicians and health authorities are acting without legitimacy and recklessly.

The entire publication can be found at this link: rcreader.com/sites/default/files/Denis-Rancourt-Face-masks-lies-damn-lies-and-public-health%3Dofficials-a-growing-body-of-evidence-August-03-2020.pdf

Patrick Wetmore

Plymouth