Pima County Supervisor Steve Christy cited a bogus study making its way around right-wing websites when he made a run at lifting Pima County’s mask ordinance at yesterday’s board meeting.
Christy’s motion died for lack of a second.
In justifying his push to lift the ordinance that requires Pima County residents to wear face masks in public when they can’t physically distance from other people (and also requires businesses to ask customers to wear masks), Christy cited a study he said was from “the Medical Center at Stanford University” that purported to show that wearing masks did nothing to stop the spread of COVID and could in fact be hazardous to people’s health.
Christy asked Dr. Francisco Garcia, the county’s chief medical officer, if he was familiar with the study.
Garcia said he was aware of that study and “the variety of different studies that come to different conclusions.” Garcia added that the Arizona Department of Health Services has advised that wearing marks is an effective “mitigation strategy against the coronavirus.”
“I guess these Stanford guys don’t know what they’re talking about,” Christy responded.
But as it turns out, Christy appears to have been hoodwinked by the alleged Stanford study, which has been making the rounds on right-wing websites and social media.
An AP fact check published yesterday reveals that the study is bogus.
“In reality, the study is not affiliated with Stanford and is based on debunked claims about face masks, including the false notion that wearing a face covering decreases oxygen levels and increases carbon dioxide levels,” AP reported.
Titled “Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis,” the study was first published in the medical journal “Medical Hypotheses.” One doctor who blogs about medical misinformation told AP that the journal published “fringe science and hypotheses.”
The study’s author, Barach Vainshelboim, claimed to affiliated with Veterans Affair Palo Alto Health Care System, but a spokesman for the agency told AP no one with that name worked there. Likewise, a Stanford spokesman told AP that Vainshelboim had never been employed by the university, although in 2015, “he was a visiting scholar at Stanford for a year, on matters unrelated to this paper.”
Likewise, PolitiFact said the “paper about mask wearing was not from Stanford and makes false claims.”
Asked about the paper, Christy said he thought it was legitimate because it was published on the website of National Center for Biotechnological Information website, which is a branch of the National Institute of Health.
“The study was sent to us,” Christy said. “We found no reason to doubt something published on the NIH website.”
After Christy’s motion to lift the mask mandate failed, Supervisor Matt Heinz said Christy was right about most face masks not stopping viral particles, but pointed out that the masks do block many of the respiratory droplets that the virus will catch a ride on.
“You’re not worried about the virus itself flying around,” said Heinz, a medical doctor. “That’s not how this virus is really transmitted. It’s transmitted via respiratory droplets—these itty bitty droplets of respiratory water that people exhale when they cough or they sneeze.”
After the meeting, Heinz said “junk science” studies like the one Christy cited add to the public’s confusion.
“It really highlights the problem with convincing people who to trust and then getting that trusted information out there,” Heinz said. “And then the problem is, sometimes when you get the correct information out there from a trusted source, there’s just so much other contamination, like this junk science study that was cited, that it makes it very, very difficult for people.”
Heinz said he believes medical misinformation about the dangers of vaccines was responsible for vaccine hesitancy in the community, which in turn made it harder to reach herd immunity and further reduce the spread of the virus.
Heinz said he could understand how Christy could have fallen for the bogus study.
“It could trick anybody,” Heinz said. “It could especially trick people who don’t have a background in health care. But that’s why it’s incumbent on us as public officials to make sure that kind of information is solid and supported.”
This article appears in Apr 15-21, 2021.
So Mr. Christy had no opportunity to ask a physician or otherwise fact check an article before proposing a sweeping change in the rules? He couldn’t have even gone to the trouble of doing a full Google search on the subject? Sorry, I think dumb is dumb and he should be ridiculed and probably voted out of office at the next opportunity.
How did Steve Christy get elected as supervisor of Pima County? How did a Republican ever get elected as county supervisor in a Liberal county ? As soon as I read that he was touting a study that masks are ineffective I knew immediately that he was one of the Republican mental midgets like Desantis and Abbott. Any intelligent being on the planet knows that masks are effective against many viruses. We have known that for over a hundred years. Regardless of what they say I will wear my mask till Covid-19 is a memory.
But Ducey can’t f##t without seeing if the two peabrains, DeSantis and Abbott have done it just before Ducey does a “me too, me too”, on the same subject. By the way, the same “study” Christie city was used by DeSantis in a video roundtable, taken down by YouTube as being false and dangerous misinformation. As is predictable, DeSantis whined about censorship.
Not surprising that Christy was DUPED, since he willingly allowed himself to be duped. The Republican playbook is that you believe whichever facts support your biases and worldview, no matter how ridiculous, facts and science be damned.
Thank God we have other thinking, feeling supervisors on the Board, including a real doctor, who can speak truth to such DUPES.
Many of us would have followed Dr Fauci but we have lost all sense of trust because of his constant flip flops and investment information that has come to light. You guys get your shots, wear your masks and do whatever else they tell you to do.
But know your like of a spine is hurting this country.
Youre not worried about the virus itself flying around, said Heinz, a medical doctor. Thats not how this virus is really transmitted. Its transmitted via respiratory dropletsthese itty bitty droplets of respiratory water that people exhale when they cough or they sneeze.
After the meeting, Heinz said junk science studies like the one Christy cited add to the public’s confusion.”
No, Heinz is wrong. It is he who is confused. We have very good research showing that the masks that people wear are not only completely ineffective at preventing Covid19 infection, they put people more at risk because they believe they are protected.
The Dutch did a huge random assignment study. In that study, there were three groups. 1) people randomly assigned to not wear masks, 2) people randomly assigned to wear masks who, self admittedly, were not perfect about always wearing them and 3) people who were randomly assigned to wear masks and described themselves as “always wearing the mask”.
There were no statistically different infection rates between the three groups. But, the group that had the highest infection rate was group 3, the group describing themselves as “always wearing their mask”.
This study contrasts with a random assignment study done very early in a Wuhan hospital. That study was much more intense because it randomly assigned hospital workers, all working daily with Covid infected patients, to groups. The groups wearing N95 masks remained infection free.
Published in the Journal of Hospital Infection, that was an amazing study that informed all of China’s response to Covid. All 42,000 healthcare workers pouring into Wuhan from other provinces to combat Covid were equipped with N95 masks. Not one of them was ever infected. China realized the importance of this study and proven result and quickly purchasing every N95 mask out of world supplies.
So, how do you make sense of two very contradictory studies? One where masks are completely ineffective and another where masks are completely, 100% effective?
Heinze’s comment is incorrect. The exhaled virus comes in two classifications, not the single class, coated in moisture, that he states. The exhaled Virus is largely dehydrated, less than one-tenth of a micron (millionth of an inch).
The dehydrated virus sails by the thousands right through the worthless masks that the typical person is wearing. That’s why it provided absolutely no protection in the second wave. All these people, thinking they were protected, put themselves even more at risk and the second wave of infections peaked at over 100% higher in January than the first wave in May.
This entire article is a brainless sneer. Ignorant people, made ignorant by ignorant “scientists” sneering at a common man making a point he can plainly see.