CDC Recommends Mask Wearing Despite Evidence They Do Not Work and May Cause Harm
- by Carolyn Hendler, JD
- Published December 18, 2023
- Environment
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH is recommending that Americans wear masks to help protect against respiratory diseases such as RSV, COVID-19, pneumonia and influenza that federal health officials say are on the rise again.1
Dr. Cohen advised:
To protect yourself and your family this holiday season, take the steps that we do every year to protect ourselves. Get your updated COVID and flu vaccines and your RSV vaccine if you’re over 60. It’s not too late to get vaccinated if you haven’t already. Use additional layers of protection like avoiding people who are sick, washing your hands, improving ventilation and wearing a mask.2
According to the CDC officials, 15 states along with New York City are reporting high or very high levels of respiratory illness, including 26,000 hospitalizations and 1,600 deaths this season, with hospitalization rates for RSV at 2.4 per 100,000.3
In total, 31 states either recommend that people at high-risk wear masks or refer to the CDC’s recommendations on mask wearing.4 Many counties near San Francisco, California are mandating that health care workers wear masks.
In Los Angeles County, health care workers were given a choice to either get the flu shot together with the updated mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) COVID shot, or be forced to wear a mask at work. Los Angeles County health officer Muntu Davis, MD, MPH said, “We felt the best thing to do at this moment was to have our healthcare workers … get vaccinated,” despite the lifting of the nationwide requirement that health care workers at institutions receiving federal money get vaccinated for COVID.5
No Scientific Evidence Masks Prevent Transmission of Infection
A study published earlier this year by the Cochrane Collaboration, an independent charitable medical research organization, looked at 78 studies of more than one million people around the world and determined that surgical masks decreased the risk of getting “COVID or a flu-like illness” by a statistically insignificant five percent.6 The study authors concluded that the risks of wearing masks outweighed any potential benefit of wearing one.7
Dr. Tom Jefferson, a British epidemiologist and lead author of the Cochrane study on mask wearing warned, “There is just no evidence that they—masks—make any difference.” He added that even N95 masks, “make no difference.8
Prolonged Mask Wearing May Lead to Carbon Dioxide Poisoning
Meanwhile, a German study has shown that masks may actually cause harm when worn over long periods of time due to carbon dioxide poisoning. The space between the mask and the mouth may lead to a buildup of carbon dioxide contributing to oxidative stress, decreased cognition, testicular issues in men and even still births in pregnant women.9
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