Another Appalling Study Falsely Claims Masks are Effective
Flogging the dead mask horse in readiness for the next scamdemic.
The fraudsters behind the COVID scam just aren't giving up. They've come up with another study flogging the dead mask horse, claiming the harmful face coverings do indeed reduce the risk of respiratory ailments.
Right. And I just bought a BMX bike that can bunny hop the Eiffel Tower.
Seven of the 8 authors of this new propaganda exercise hail from the the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the Norway government's equivalent of America's (monumentally corrupt and wasteful) National Institutes of Health.
According to the paper’s fine print, one of those authors, Atle Fretheim, has also received financial support from the World Health Organization (WHO) to attend meetings it has hosted. Another, Christopher James Rose, is named inventor on a patent application related to vaccine development. Lars G Hemkens, meanwhile, works for an institution (RC2NB) that was contracted by WHO “for the development of study protocol templates to evaluate public health and social measures,” and has received “travel support” from WHO.
That right there tells you what the study is going to conclude before you've even read it, because along with the WHO, Norway has been a major and eager participant in the COVID sham.
Via its enthusiastic and continued support of the COVID and pandemic charades, Norway keeps some pretty shady company.
Norway and OH4S
Norway is one of 11 partner countries comprising OH4Surveillance (OH4S), whose purpose is “to set up and scale up One Health surveillance to priority pathogens in an efficient, coordinated and collaborative manner. The project includes capacity building and surveillance activities.”
Europe needs this, says OH4S leader Denmark, because “there is a pressing need for more rapid and effective responses to zoonotic diseases.”
In plain English: OH4S is another surveillance state operation that will make it even easier to foment “zoonotic” virus scares.
Norway and GAVI
Those of you who have been following this COVID scam from the outset will be familiar with GAVI The Vaccine Alliance. The stated mission of this heinous outfit is "TO SAVE LIVES AND PROTECT PEOPLE’S HEALTH BY INCREASING EQUITABLE AND SUSTAINABLE USE OF VACCINES" (ALL-CAPS in original).
SHOUT, SHOUT, let it all out, these are the things I can do without…
Just how sincere GAVI is about saving lives can be deduced from the fact it was co-founded by the following bastions of globalist megalomania and exploitation: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, World Health Organization, UNICEF and the World Bank.
The first two are relentless purveyors of health fraud and democide; the second two are major players in the global wealth redistribution scam known as "foreign aid” in which your tax money is used to further enrich the world’s uber-wealthy parasite class under the guise of eradicating poverty and hunger in developing nations. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund were founded in 1944; the UN was founded the following year. Eighty years later, Africa is still highly impoverished despite an abundance of resources and much of Latin America is still poor and openly corrupt. Meanwhile, the billionaire parasite class has steadily claimed an increasing share of the world’s wealth. Not a coincidence.
But I digress.
We were talking about Norway and its enthusiasm for aiding and abetting the perpetuation of scamdemics.
From the GAVI website:
Norway is one of the original six donors to Gavi and has steadily increased its strong long-term political and financial support. Norway’s support to Gavi is advocated at the highest level and is anchored in a strong cross-party political understanding of the value of investing in immunisation. Norway has taken a very active role in Gavi and was the co-host, with the USA, of a meeting in New York in October 2010, which opened for the first Gavi pledging conference.
Norway has pumped some serious coin into this “cross-party” (i.e. they’re all in this together) charade:
At the pledging conference in London in 2011, the Norwegian Prime Minister committed US$ 612 million in direct funding for the period 2011–2015. In addition, there were existing agreements of US$ 50 million to AMC and 1.5 billion Norwegian krone to IFFIm. In Berlin 2015, the Prime Minister announced a 50% increase in the Norwegian direct support to Gavi for the period 2016–2020, bringing the total future Norwegian contribution up to 6.25 billion Norwegian krone.
Additionally, in 2014 Norway committed 1.14 billion Norwegian krone for the period 2014–2019 to support the Vaccine Alliance’s effort to complement GPEI’s work, strengthening routine immunisation and introducing inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in Gavi-supported countries.
On 4 June 2020, during the Global Vaccine Summit, Prime Minister Erna Solberg announced a considerable increase in Norway’s commitment to Gavi for the strategic period 2021–2025. The total commitment of 10.05 billion Norwegian krone comprises 6.05 billion Norwegian krone in direct support and 4 billion Norwegian krone through IFFIm over ten years.
Norway has committed 1164.1 million Norwegian krone to Gavi COVAX AMC, as well as approved the transfer of US$ 6.25 million from Norway’s support to the PCV AMC to the Gavi COVAX AMC.
Norway and CEPI
Another globalist front organization set up to fight non-existent pathogens is the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a veritable septic tank of vaccine and pandemic shillery.
Chair of the CEPI Board is Jane Halton from Australia, a country that embraces globalist psy-ops the way Trump followers embrace cognitive dissonance.
Make no mistake, the globalist force is strong with this one.
Halton is a former Secretary of the Australian Department of Finance, which transfers wealth from taxpaying Australians to the undeserving parasite class locally and abroad.
A career bureaucrat with 34 years within the public service, Halton’s other previous roles include Secretary of the Australian Department of Health, most recently famous for telling people to take deadly pseudo-vaccines to save themselves from a non-existent virus. She’s also been Secretary for the Department of Health and Ageing, and Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
In 2020, she was appointed to ScoMo's National COVID Commission. Chair of the Commission was Nev Power, a former CEO of mining company Fortescue. Other members included Deputy Chair David Thodey (Chair of CSIRO and former CEO of telecommunications company Telstra), Paul Little (former Managing Director of transport company Toll Group), and Catherine Tanna (Managing Director of utility company EnergyAustralia).
Why was a National Commission supposedly dealing with preserving public health stacked with corporate CEOs with no medical knowledge, experience or qualifications and whose occupations had nothing to do with public health?
The answer, of course, is that ‘COVID’ had nothing to do with preserving public health. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Halton has held numerous international appointments including the Executive Board of WHO (2004–2007), President of the World Health Assembly (2007), Chair of the Executive Board of WHO, and Chair of the OECD Health Committee (2007–2012).
She was the Australian ‘player’ at the infamous GAVI/CEPI/Gates-sponsored Event 201 exercise that just happened, by way of stunning coincidence, to simulate a global pandemic involving a zoonotic bat virus - right before a BS global pandemic involving a zoonotic bat virus kicked off.
In keeping with the "do as I say, not as I do" mentality of Australia's a-hole class (politicians, bureaucrats, judiciary, police, big corp CEOs), Halton has held lucrative roles within the gambling and casino industry at the same time she has held senior roles within globalist health organizations.
She is a chair of the board at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which issued a 2017 report estimating "gambling-related burden of harm was 2.5 times more than diabetes and 3.0 times more than drug use disorder."
This didn’t stop Halton from taking a position with Australian casino heavyweight Crown Resorts. She was appointed to the Crown Resorts Board on 23 May 2018, and became Interim Chairman on 27 August 2021.
Oh, and before the woke crowd leave nasty comments below, Halton is described as “Chairman” in the Crown Resorts annual report I am quoting from.
That same annual report shows her remuneration from Crown Resorts - an entity which has caused a lot of gambling-related harms - was $249,917 and $339,348 for 2020 and 2021, respectively.
In keeping with the "transparency and accountability are for the plebs" mentality of Australia's a-hole class, Halton has not explained the rationale for holding these starkly conflicting and concurrent roles.
She also holds a Doctorate of Letters Honoris Causa from the University of New South Wales. If that sounds like a wank, it is: Honoris causa is is an academic degree for which the degree-awarding institution has waived the usual requirements the rest of us plebs must fulfill - you know, things like achieving a qualifying score, enrolling in a course, studying, and sitting exams. An honorary degree is a doctorate, awarded to individuals who have no prior connection with the institution in question.
If there's one thing the parasite class love, it's handing out BS titles and awards to each other.
Halton was awarded the Public Service Medal in 2002, the Centenary Medal in 2003, and the Geneva Health Prize in 2013. In 2016, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in the US. She was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in June 2015 and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2015.
These are the kinds of rewards that await those who fulfill their role as obedient puppets of the globalist string pullers. Meanwhile, those of us who tell the truth and point out the facts get trolled and harassed and accused of being controlled opposition by morons who give their money and support to controlled opposition.
But again, I digress.
We’re supposed to be discussing Norway here, not blokey sheilas from ‘Straya and people who love evil tech nerds and bloated orange deviants.
Norway is one of the co-founders of CEPI, along with India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and the World Economic Forum.
With only 5.6 million inhabitants, Norway might not be the biggest nor the most populous country on this crazy blue ball, but it is second only to Germany in terms of CEPI contributions. Since 2017, Germany and Norway have pumped the staggering sums of US $697 and $581 million into the shambolic CEPI.
Fellow inhabitants of the Land Down Under, where women growl and men chunder (and vice versa), who are struggling to pay for groceries, rent and tattoos will be reassured to learn the Government of Ausfailure has pumped US $84 million (AUD $127.5 million) of their money into the scam that is CEPI.
But hey, you can never be too careful when it comes to saving the world from viruses that don’t exist. In addition to funding the fraudulent war on humanity the non-existent Sars-Cov-2, other key projects of CEPI include “Disease X.”
Disease X takes the virus charade to a whole new level. Virologists have now gone beyond claiming existence of a virus that has never been isolated. They’re now claiming the existence of viruses that don’t yet exist! Kinda the same thing really, but now they’re openly stating it and still expecting us to nod along like a pack of brain-dead sheep.
“Disease X represents the knowledge that a serious epidemic or pandemic could be caused by a novel or as-of-yet unidentified pathogen,” explain the loons at CEPI, apparently with a straight face.
“We don’t know when or where the next Disease X will strike, only that it will.”
Honestly, anyone who still takes this idiocy seriously should go get their fifteenth booster shot ASAP.
And Now, For the Pièce de Ridiculous
So what does a country do after co-founding and sponsoring as many globalist scamdemic outfits as it can, and shoveling more money into CEPI than anyone else except Germany?
It conducts a mask study.
A bad one.
Published in BMJ on 24 July 2024, the paper described what the authors dubbed a “pragmatic randomised superiority trial,” which is geekspeak for “poorly conducted slop.”
Norway is a northern part of the northern hemisphere, where ‘flu season’ generally occurs between November and April each year. That’s a good six or so months in which researchers can test the efficacy of masks each year.
So when the Norwegian government - which has unlimited sums of money to throw away on pandemic-related charades - decides to do a mask ‘trial,’ guess how long a duration it chooses for the intervention period?
Fourteen days.
No, I’m not kidding.
The study claimed a 29% relative risk reduction in the incidence of self-reported symptoms in the mask group over this unusually short period.
Interestingly, the study protocol falsely stated that wearing face masks reduces self-reported respiratory symptoms by 30% (relative risk reduction) over a 14-day period.
A study protocol outlines the plan and framework for an impending trial, well before the trial kicks off.
So it seems the results of the trial were determined well before it even began.
How to Run and Report an Awful Mask Study
Participants were recruited via an online portal that was promoted via mainstream media, social media outlets and a webpage hosted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Those who wished to participate signed an online consent form and completed an online questionnaire prior to the start of the study.
So the researchers never physically met nor screened the participants in person. Which is fine, because we all know people never lie or exaggerate over the Internet, right?
According to the main paper, 2,371 subjects were randomised to the mask group, and 2,276 were randomised to the control group. Subjects in the intervention group were instructed to wear face masks when in public spaces near to other people for a period of 14 days.
The control group was instructed not to wear masks.
Participants in the mask group were emailed a voucher for a complimentary pack of 50 face masks, to be claimed at any pharmacy.
A follow-up survey was sent to all participants on day 17 of their participation in the trial.
The flow chart in the main paper shows 58 subjects in the mask group were "Excluded due to ineligibility" (being under 18 years) or "withdrawal of consent," compared to only 14 in the control group.
In the mask group, 479 subjects were "Lost to follow-up” compared to only 295 in the control group.
No explanation is proffered by the researchers as to why the mask group suffered such a disproportionate rate of ineligible applicants and subsequent dropouts.
When asked "Have you had any negative experiences participating in the study?", twelve subjects in the mask-free control group replied in the affirmative, with no further details furnished by the researchers. In the mask group, 143 participants replied in the affirmative. The most reported adverse event (80 participants) was unpleasant comments from other people when wearing a face mask and feeling “silly” being the only one wearing a face mask in public.
Forty participants reported that wearing face masks was uncomfortable or tiring owing to difficulty breathing, fogging of glasses, and poor fit.
The researchers claim that, overall, 163 (8.9%) participants in the mask group and 239 (12.2%) in the control group self-reported respiratory symptoms, delivering mask wearers a favorable odds ratio of 0.71.
Masks, we were supposed to believe, cut the risk of respiratory infections by almost a third.
Well aware that people like yours truly are prone to call BS on the relative risk ruse, the researchers also cite the absolute risk difference of −3.2%, which means out of every 100 people self-reporting symptoms in the control group, 96.8 people in the mask group will also self-report symptoms. This small margin could easily be a chance occurrence or due to errors in the study design (of which there are many), and is essentially meaningless.
The researchers, of course, will never admit this. Instead, they audaciously claim that the results are “equivalent to around 3300 fewer infections per 100 000 people.”
I shall now explain why this is pure and utter hogwash.
Modern Science: Shameless Like a Porn Star
The authors chose self-reported respiratory symptoms as their primary outcome. Far more objective measures, such as hospital admissions and infections confirmed by testing, were downgraded to “secondary” outcomes.
Why would the authors do this?
Because, having already been subjected to the most intense paranoia campaign ever unleashed on humanity, the study subjects had been pre-conditioned to believe that masks offer protection against respiratory infections.
This is very important when conducting a study that you’ve already decided beforehand is going to deliver a positive result for mask-wearing.
Indeed, Figure 2 of the main paper shows the only subgroup analysis for which a significant effect could be demonstrated was for participants’ beliefs about wearing face masks and risk of infection. Those who already believed face masks conferred a lower risk of infection were less likely to self-report a respiratory infection during the trial.
The far smaller number of subjects who did not already believe masks offered protection were more likely to self-report symptoms during the trial.
It’s not hard to see how these pre-existing beliefs could have greatly swayed the results, given that 81% of the intervention group reported wearing face masks at least 50% of the time during the trial, while 95% of control participants reported not wearing face masks.
But what happens when we look at far more objective measures that don’t rely on personal biases?
Wearing a Mask Makes No Difference
The most important and relevant outcome reported in the paper was the number of participants requiring healthcare during the trial. Of these participants, 29 (20%) in the control group and 23 (23%) in the mask group reported this was due to respiratory symptoms.
Twenty-one participants in each group self-reported 'COVID-19' either by PCR or antigen test. Given its lower number of completers, this conferred the mask group with an odds ratio of 1.07.
In stark contrast to what the researchers and mainstream media are claiming, the mask group showed a marginally higher albeit negligible increase in more objective outcomes. While I firmly believe the COVID-19 PCR and antigen tests to be bollocks, it’s hard to sway their results using pre-existing beliefs about masks.
While people can believe whatever they want about masks, seeking medical assistance for a problem usually occurs because symptoms have become to bothersome to ignore.
The lack of benefit for masks occurred despite the fact that, during the trial, control subjects were significantly more likely to attend cultural events and visit restaurants compared to the masked participants.
So when you consider that the mask-free subjects enjoyed a marginally lower rate of positive ‘COVID’ tests and seeking medical care, and they enjoyed a lower rate of adverse social and physical side effects from masks, and they got out and about and participated in life more than their masked-up counterparts, there is only one logical conclusion to draw from this less-than-optimal study:
It again indicates masks are not only useless for preventing respiratory infections, but that masks confer a higher rate of side effects than leaving your mouth uncovered so that it can inhale fresh air instead of synthetic fibers and stale, CO2-rich exhalations.
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
In response to leading articles, it is customary for medical journals to run an opinion piece or commentary on that article in the same issue. These pieces are usually authored by invited commentators, ostensibly esteemed professionals from the medical field.
For reasons unknown, for an opinion on the Norwegian paper BMJ chose three of the authors of that same paper.
As part of this bizarre exercise, Atle Fretheim, Runar Solberg and Lars Hemkens complain “The polarised discourse around face masks is hindering constructive debate.” They further complain of a “lack of nuance from many or most participants” in this debate.
What the authors are really saying is:
“Let us practice our pseudoscience in peace! Stop picking on us for making false claims about masks!”
The Norwegian researchers conducted an absurdly short study and made a subjective outcome the primary endpoint. Based on this highly subjective data, and by blissfully ignoring the more objective endpoints, they make grand and patently absurd statements about face masks being able to prevent 3,300 cases of respiratory illness per 100,000 people.
The Norwegian researchers blissfully ignore the gathering volume of evidence already showing face masks to be a failure in preventing respiratory illness. They ignore the well-publicized 2023 Cochrane review that found no evidence of benefit for masks.
They cite the atrocious Bangladesh Mask Study in support of their results, mentioning not even one of the study’s many, many flaws (see here and here).
They then have the temerity to complain that those of us who refuse to accept this agenda-driven, cherry-picked, pseudoscience are being overly harsh and that we lack “nuance.”
Dear Atle Fretheim, Runar Solberg and Lars Hemkens: I invite you to pull your heads out of your pampered, self-entitled, reality-evading, taxpayer-funded keesters and carefully watch the following videos. They graphically show the kind of “nuance” that arises from mask pseudoscience.
Let’s start with exhibit A, which should give a good indication of why police in Australia are widely known as “the filth.” It shows a bunch of thugs from the NSW Police goon squad known as Raptor, viciously assaulting two unarmed men at a service station in Guildford for the heinous crime of not wearing masks:
Here is some footage of “nuanced” Victorian filth assaulting unarmed women for not wearing useless masks:
Here are a bunch of idiots (police) in Singapore, jostling with a man in the middle of a busy intersection and even tasering him in an attempt to get him to put a mask on:
In Ontario, a 73-year old man refused a mask offered by an elderly store-employed COVID Nazi. This led to an altercation, followed by the man leaving the area and later being shot dead by police.
This is just a tiny sampling of the violence and brutality caused by mask mandates, in which people who just wanted to go about their business unaccosted were harassed, abused and assaulted by state-sanctioned thugs and ignorant, obnoxious busy-bodies.
All thanks to a ‘public health’ strategy that has repeatedly failed in clinical trials to show any efficacy.
It’s about time that face masks are relegated to their rightful home: The scrap heap of history.
As long as people are brainwashed and indoctrinated to believe the bullshit story of the germ theory, and believe in the proven fraudulent scientific process of virology, they will be easily led to believe in the equally fraudulent act of mask wearing.
Good to see our charming ‘Jane’ gets a mention. So much conflict of interest, including this: https://biotechdispatch.com.au/news/csl-and-cepi-agreement-on-covid-19-vaccine-for-australia
CSL is the company involved in the ‘infected blood’ scandal in Australia. (Which I’m fully aware is more likely a contaminated blood scandal, even though I lost a friend trying to explain why he didn’t have Hep C.)
Their offices and laboratory are in Melbourne, along with all the other big vaccine companies and ‘health’ research institutions, and CSIRO is in Geelong.
When I started looking into the TGA, Department of Health, Jane Halton and their connections in the vaccine and ‘health’ research institutions in early 2020, I had to give up. The map would easily have covered my study wall and probably would have stretched around the doorframe and into the lounge room. One early conclusion I did reach tho’, is that Melbourne and its satellite cities have steadily, over the past 30 years, been set up to be ‘Pandemic Central’ by the globalists, which would explain why it was the most locked down city in the world AND the most draconian in its response to the Convid. Thankfully I got out of there in 2019 (we knew what was coming, just didn’t know when exactly 😅). I did, however, go back nearly every weekend from August 2020 onwards, right into mid-2021, to join the few brave souls marching on the streets. Although, for many of the 2020 rallies, it was more a case of running from robocops (the ‘Public Order Response Team’) and mounted VicPol.
Now, I never go back to Melbourne, the last occasion being August 27th 2022 when I tried to help organise a rally against The Great Reset titled The Great Resist. It was poorly attended and the ‘average’ Melbournians we passed as we walked through the now decimated CBD looked how I expected them to look - like they have PTSD. Which, of course they do, but they have no idea they do and are in firm denial about the preceding two years.
Melbourne is truly a city destroyed: the beautiful Victorian buildings nearly all gone and replaced by hideous skyscrapers; a CBD with multiple closed shops, offices and venues; homeless people everywhere (and it was already bad before the plandemic); and rampant crime and SMART city infrastructure to combat on every pole, shop front and street corner. All by design and as we predicted and warned about in 2020. You can’t help people with Stockholm Syndrome tho’, can you.