(LifeSiteNews) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has a new ally when it comes to stopping schools from forcing kids to wear masks.
Professor Vinay Prasad, a medical doctor who teaches epidemiology at the University of California San Francisco, said the costs of masking kids outweigh any benefits.
“The potential educational harms of mandatory-masking policies are much more firmly established, at least at this point, than their possible benefits in stopping the spread of COVID-19 in schools,” Prasad wrote recently in The Atlantic. “States and communities that are considering masking policies just to be safe should recognize that being overly cautious has a cost, while the benefits are uncertain.”
He broke from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) which has said that there is not currently proof that masks harm child development.
“Early childhood is a crucial period when humans develop cultural, language, and social skills, including the ability to detect emotion on other people’s faces,” Prasad wrote. “Social interactions with friends, parents, and caregivers are integral to fostering children’s growth and well-being.”
Even pro-lockdown governments like the United Kingdom have not urged masking for kids, the oncologist and hematologist noted.
“In addition to recommending masks for young kids, CDC guidelines also urge masks for most vaccinated caregivers who work in infant day-care centers,” Professor Prasad said. “This advice also deviates from standard practice in other nations, including the U.K. Many studies support the importance of babies seeing caregivers’ faces, and prior to the arrival of COVID-19, many American professional organizations, including the AAP, strongly agreed.”
“Do the benefits of masking kids in school outweigh the downsides? The honest answer in 2021 remains that we don’t know for sure,” Prasad concluded.
He is not the only one to raise questions about alleged benefits of masks.
LifeSiteNews has identified 47 different studies that question the efficacy of masks. In addition to not being effective, masks come with many costs.
Consequences include “lowered oxygen levels,” “impeded breathing,” and “yeast infections.”
Critics have recently commented on a series of studies on masks that reportedly show benefits.
A recently released study of Bangladeshi villages has been touted by mask advocates, for example. But they are reading too much into it, according to a Brown University health economist.
“The overall effects of this study are miniscule—0.07% absolute reduction in seroprevalence,” Emily Burns wrote on Twitter. “What the study ACTUALLY measures is the impact of mask promotion on symptom reporting,” Burn said. “Only if a person reports symptoms, are they asked to participate in a serology study—and only 40% of those with symptoms chose to have their blood taken.”
A fellow Ivy League professor also weighed in on the Bangladesh study.
“Odd that mask advocates are excited by this study,” Professor Martin Kulldorff said. “As a vaccine advocate, I would be horrified if a vaccine trial showed 11% efficacy. Based on the 95% confidence intervals, we do not even know if surgical mask efficacy is more than 0%.”
Prasad also criticized the mask study.
The study, according to his analysis, found that only surgical masks provided benefits. He said the U.S. has been recommending “the wrong masks” by telling people that cloth masks worked.
“A vast majority of people” have been wearing cloth masks, Prasad said. He noted that most kids wear cloth masks and the study does not “extrapolate” to children anyways.
He urged further study of this issue.
See LifeSite’s extensive resources on masks.
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