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A new study published in the Journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety this week, titled “Wearing face masks as a potential source for inhalation and oral uptake of inanimate toxins – A scoping review.” Hint: It’s not too good for mask maniacs.

The study was a “scoping review” that examined the potential toxic effects of face masks on human health by rounding up other studies. Researchers analyzed twenty-four relevant studies, focusing on the content and release into people’s bodies of known toxic substances from face masks.

Especially extended mask wearing.

The scientists found evidence of concerning levels of several toxic substances in face masks, including:

Microplastics and nanoplastics

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

Phthalates and phthalate esters

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)

Heavy metals (lead, cadmium, cobalt, copper, antimony)

Titanium dioxide particles

Coincidentally, I’m sure, microplastics were in the headlines this week thanks to a different study by completely different researchers:




These researchers found that a half a percent of autopsied brain matter from “normal individuals” aged 45-50 were made out of plastic. That is double the amount of brain plastic from autopsies conducted in 2016. Nobody has connected the dots to masking.

Call it mask brain. In passing, the toxic mask study mentioned chronic “mask-induced exhaustion syndrome” (MIES), which looks increasingly suspicious after combining the two studies.

Anyway, the mask study concluded that, while masks can helpfully filter large particles, they may less helpfully introduce toxic substances into folks’ airways and gastrointestinal tracts:

Conclusion
Undoubtedly, mask mandates during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic have
been generating an additional source of potentially harmful exposition to
toxins with health threatening and carcinogenic properties at population
level with almost zero distance to the airways.

Even more remarkable than a negative mask study being published at all, the researchers didn’t even have to say the magic words! Just the opposite: “On top of that,” the researchers noted, “there was and still is no empirical evidence for the effectiveness of the masks in limiting the spread of viruses in the general populace.”

Looking back, it seems more obvious than ever to me that the main purpose of introducing masks — at the height of summer — was to perpetuate fear. ...

Five Years On, Let's Not Forget the Victims of Mask Mania

On June 4th 2020, Grant Shapps (then Transport Secretary) announced that the wearing of face coverings
would soon become compulsory when travelling on public transport. The next day, this mandate was
extended to healthcare for staff, patients and visitors and, the following month, masks became
mandatory in all shops, on pain of £100 fines for the non-compliant. At this time, hiding one's face behind
strips of cloth or plastic was portrayed as an act of virtue, and the masked compliers were perceived as
occupying the moral high ground. To impose a public health restriction in the absence of robust evidence
for its effectiveness was bad enough. But, even more shameful, was the total disregard of the harms of
community masking.

So, on this five-year anniversary of forced mask wearing, let us pause and spare a thought for the multiple
victims of mask mania.

As he puts it, let’s not forget:

the swathes of babies and toddlers who failed to bond with their faceless care givers, thereby stunting their longer term cognitive and emotional development…

the many victims of historical physical and sexual abuse who were further traumatised by the mask requirements…

the 18 million UK adults with hearing difficulties who — because masks muffled voices and made it impossible to lipread — were plunged into a communication vacuum…

the patients with existing respiratory problems whose breathing difficulties were exacerbated, those who were put at greater risk of contracting pneumonia and other bacterial infections, and those who were exposed to the inhalation of micro-plastics…

the millions of distressed and frightened NHS service users and care home residents who, as a consequence of the often stymied relationships resulting from masked protagonists, experienced sub-optimal care…

the rational minority who, because they opted not to wear a mask, were harassed and abused by others. On one occasion such an assault led to the death of a young woman…

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1mt96fl/why_are_so_many_of_the_young_people_i_still_see/

Why are so many of the young people I still see wearing masks queer?

Governor Ron DeSantis has now named six of the state’s seven current high court justices. That’s good enough, but it was much better than it even appears. Yesterday’s appointment was of perhaps my personal favorite appellate judge, Adam Tanenbaum, whom the paper described as “a staunch conservative.”

It’s only January, but I will already award the label “staunch conservative” the prize for understatement of the year. Even though Judge Tanenbaum recently ruled against me in a local elections case, I will never forget the very first time he ruled in my favor: my successful mask case. Here’s my favorite paragraph from his order, where Judge Tanenbaum described Alachua County’s mask ordinances as “diktaks”:




If you’ve never read Judge Tanenbaum’s order, you’ll love it. Here is a link from my personal dropbox. It wasn’t always easy to find. The big legal databases refused even to assign the opinion a citation number for two years. They covered the story up to the ruling, but not much afterwards. ...

The significance of Tanenbaum’s mask decision, rendered the following June, has never been fully appreciated. This was the very first case (and to this day, I believe, the only mask case) where an appellate court in the United States ruled against one of the central pandemic mitigation policies on constitutional grounds. Even though it wiped out mandatory masking in 33 counties in Florida, and caused the rest of the Sunshine State’s 67 counties to begin quietly retreating from their own mask orders, media stubbornly refused to report on it.

But the damage, as they say, was done. It was a game-changer. All across the country, news spread among lawyers who were fighting pandemic rules: it was possible to win. It encouraged more lawyers to join the fight. It began turning the tide. Just two months later, on the strength of my mask victory, I won the nation’s first broad injunction against a municipal “vaccinate or terminate” mandate.

The lawsuits began to multiply, and you know the rest of the story. The pushback took time to pick up speed, but for the pandemic powers, it was all downhill from this key case, judicially speaking.

As you can imagine, even though Judge Tanenbaum’s order carefully skirted the radioactive issue of whether the useless things work or not, he still took furious flak and was savaged over his “anti-masking” decision. After all, at the time, it was June, 2021— the peak of mask and vaccine mania. He was the first appellate judge to rule against any significant pandemic policy. To say the least, it required a rare kind of selfless, heroic bravery.

But now, Governor DeSantis, bless him, has elevated this courageous and brilliant jurist to the Florida Supreme Court, over a wide field of competition. Both Governor DeSantis and Judge Tanenbaum deserve substantial credit for turning the tide and ending the pandemic nightmare. Once again, I thank them both on everyone’s behalf.