I Won’t Talk to ‘Fact Checkers’ About Our Mask Study | Hacker News Reader

I Won’t Talk to ‘Fact Checkers’ About Our Mask Study

dailysceptic.org

8 pointsnhchris10 comments

Written by a co-author of a recent Cochrane study (considered the highest bar in quality for medical studies)

I was not aware this was considered the "highest bar". Can you elaborate? I've seen so much vitriol against it, it's hard to square your statement and the amount of denialism about its results.

A 2004 editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal noted that Cochrane reviews appear to be more up to date and of better quality than other reviews, describing them as "the best single resource for methodologic research and for developing the science of meta-epidemiology" and crediting them with leading to methodological improvements in the medical literature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochrane_(organisation)#Recept...

Active for 30 years specifically dedicated to reviewing medical issues, members in 190 countries

https://www.cochrane.org/about-us

20 years of journal volumes to be found in their database of systematic reviews of medical practices, several thousand articles by my superficial count

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/table-of-contents?volum...

As of 2019, their impact factor is 7.890, 10th among all top medical journals (out of 165), 5 year impact factor of 7.974. Even a non-medical like me have heard of them described as the premier journal for medical reviews, and a role model for other disciplines looking to reproduce the same success in reviewing research findings around a particular topic.

https://www.cochrane.org/news/2019-journal-impact-factor-coc...

Does the country you’re posting from block access to search engines? This took less than 3 minutes of search. If you can’t web search because of censorship, how can you post on HN? And if you only have 11 karma, as it seems from your username, why aren’t you showing up as a green font? I’m puzzled, dang.

This seems a bit short sighted. The paper takes a position that was generally advocated for by anti-vaxxers, flat earthers and Qanons. Of course people are going to want to check things. In the real world you've got to work to overcome previously held positions.

> In the real world you've got to work to overcome previously held positions.

That work is conducting rigorous studies and meta-analyses, not talking to dishonest journalists whose goal is to twist the findings, instead of report them honestly.

The article addresses this, with the example of Tamiflu, where layers of "fact checking" were abused to inflate its effectiveness and keep spending government funds on it. Talking to spin-doctors just gives them ammo. If they can't twist your words, they just ignore them. There is no up-side.

So you fall for his spin of dishonest fact checkers.

The study has such doesn't say masks don't work because it can't differ between masks are useless or people can't use them properly or all the time neeeded.

The paper doesn't seem to take a particularly anti-vaxxer position. This guy, who is the lead author, seems to be really leaning into it though, using words like "feardemic".

The plain language summary in the actual report:

> We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.

> Hand hygiene programmes may help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.

More detail:

> The observed lack of effect of mask wearing in interrupting the spread of influenza‐like illness (ILI) or influenza/COVID‐19 in our review has many potential reasons, including: poor study design; insufficiently powered studies arising from low viral circulation in some studies; lower adherence with mask wearing, especially amongst children; quality of the masks used; self‐contamination of the mask by hands; lack of protection from eye exposure from respiratory droplets (allowing a route of entry of respiratory viruses into the nose via the lacrimal duct); saturation of masks with saliva from extended use (promoting virus survival in proteinaceous material); and possible risk compensation behaviour leading to an exaggerated sense of security (Ammann 2022; Brosseau 2020; Byambasuren 2021; Canini 2010; Cassell 2006; Coroiu 2021; MacIntyre 2015; Rengasamy 2010; Zamora 2006).

He had his work delayed 7 months due to politics, and then ignored while watching the world go mad, claiming to be following the science, when it was all a "timeline" trick.

I think it's important to understand his story as an irreproachable scientist that, it appears, has spent 16 years studying 72 studies, and whose expertise should have been #1 in the world (or high up). Instead, he had to give up on "science communication" because the media was purposefully angling for a narrative, and coming to the opposite conclusions after talking to him, and using his name as a veneer of legitimacy.

A really good case study in disinformation could be made out of this story.

The weird thing is, if he thinks a) this a feardemic, b) masks probably don't help then combining those two he should be reasonably happy.

People go out into the world wearing masks and washing their hands and it maybe helps, maybe doesn't.

How does announcing "masks don't help protect you from COVID (as far as we can prove)" help to reduce fear of COVID?

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