Shawn Stevenson: Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. We are about to go on an adventure. Hopefully, you've already heard that we launched a documentary recently, and it is just taking off all over the internet. And the name of the documentary is called, "Mask Facts: The Science and History of Masks in Medicine." And as you know, right now, we are dealing with a nationwide and a worldwide pandemic. And we're looking for solutions and we're looking for things that have real efficacy to protect our citizens and to also maintain a level of health and to create a system where we don't go through this again. That's what it really is at the end of the day, because in truth, the next virus is coming, COVID-20, COVID-21. Just like the flu virus, these viruses mutate, as we're going to talk about today. And we're going to be dealing with more infectious diseases in the future. This is how life works. And so we want to look at what are some real clinically proven, real-world solutions to keep our citizens healthy.

And so we launched this documentary, and again, it just sky-rocketed. It's over half a million views already this week and it's just been a few days but something happened. Something happened that I'm going to share with you a little bit later in the show. But as of now, you could check out the full documentary at themodelhealthshow.com/maskfacts. And as I mentioned today, we're going to go on an adventure. We're going to go through some of the data that was in the documentary, but also we're going to dig a little deeper, we're going to expand on some things, and we're going to have a good time.

And really, we want to look at the beginning of this utilization of mask in medicine. Where did this start? And I think it's important to understand that humans have been wearing masks for forever, for thousands of years, whether it's for ritual, whether it's for celebration, and also war. That's a time that different types of masks have been used. But the specific use of masks in medicine actually started around the 1600s when physician Charles de L'Orme created the earliest versions of a hazmat suit. Alright, at this time, he was looking at how can we protect the physician that was dealing with... What we're talking about, this is the time of the black plague, right? We were dealing with the plagues. It was called the plague doctor. And so it featured a waxed overcoat, a lengthy cane to examine people. Can you imagine somebody examining you and poking you with a cane from six feet away? How disrespectful.

So they had a cane and also there was this menacing beaked mask that was part of this particular hazmat suit, this form of protection. And the interesting thing is that this mask had a very different purpose than you might suspect. Because at this time, physicians all over believed in something called the miasmatic theory of disease. And basically the miasmatic theory of disease means that disease is passed from person to person or from the environment to person through the inhalation of "bad air." Alright? This is coming from the environment, not necessarily person to person but coming from the environment and inhaling "bad air" was the primary cause of disease, alright?

Now, the mask was not necessarily used to prevent the physician from inhaling bad air. What the beaked mask was actually for was to crowd out the bad air and instead inhale good air. And what they were doing was stuffing the mask, a beak to keep it away from the person, and they could even light it on fire like in Billy Madison. There's a scene where they're taking bags of poop and they light it on fire on people's porch. So they can actually stuff the beak with herbs and spices, shout out to KFC, and then they can inhale this good air to help crowd out the bad air. That was the technology, that was their approach, and they felt it was effective. So this actually continued for quite a while with this miasmatic theory of disease. You might think that this is a long time ago because it sounds a little strange, but the miasmatic theory of disease did not become obsolete until the 20th century. That's when it actually finally became obsolete, and the germ theory of disease really started to take hold.

And this was around the 1900s, physicians were now beginning to wear preliminary versions of surgical mask with a primary function of protecting the patient from contamination and surgical site infection. So kind of what we're looking at today, it was used to protect the patient from the physician and them not spraying out on them during their procedure and increasing their risk of infection. Now eventually, this became common practice for healthcare workers to wear a mask in the surgical setting. Now, as more hygienic practices began to be incorporated into operating rooms and hospitals, several scientists sought out to discover whether or not the ritual of wearing a mask in surgery had a high level of effectiveness in preventing infection, which is their intent. Surprisingly, several studies including a meta-analysis, and this means multiple studies, a conglomeration of multiple studies examining this issue. And this was published in Cochrane systematic review, very prestigious, found that when physicians wore a mask or didn't wear a mask, "There was no statistically significant difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group in any of the trials."

Now what this means is that even over a 100 years after the inception of the mask in surgery, the researchers noted that at best, "It is unclear whether wearing surgical face masks result in any harm or benefit to the patient undergoing clean surgery." But I want to look a little bit further because this just didn't make sense. How could this not be proven to be helpful at least? And so another study, this was published in the Journal of Hospital Infections, appropriate title, and they also concluded that the use of surgical masks in surgery are obsolete and unnecessary. Researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy summarize it by saying that, "Clinical trials in the surgery theater have found no difference in wound infection rates with and without surgical mask. Despite these findings, it has been difficult for surgeons to give up a long-standing practice."

This is really important, just as a background and basis for the use of a mask in medicine. This is the history of it, and it became very integrated and deeply ingrained in medicine, in healthcare for the purpose of protecting the patient. But these studies repeatedly found that it just wasn't found to be very effective at doing the thing it was intended to do. It's called a surgical mask, because its intent was to be used in surgery. However, today, it's taken on a new form. It's taken on a new role and responsibility, which is to help to prevent the transmission of infection in the general population. So now let's take a look at the effectiveness of a surgical mask in doing this new job that is being utilized for and what the data says.

Now, first of all, it just appears to be pretty obvious. If you cover your mouth, you cover your nose, you're going to block out pathogens. You're going to be able to block out the transmission of your aerosols and your droplets. And basically, these new terms that a lot of people are hearing about today, you're going to be able to block it and you're also going to be able to prevent some of the stuff that you could potentially be breathing in as far as viruses and other pathogens. Now the real core issue that we have to examine first is that even though this appears to be obvious, the way that viruses in particular operate is far from obvious. Virus particles are infinitesimally small. This is actually the most abundant thing on our planet, is virus particles. There's more virus particles than anything else. There are more virus particles than there are... It's like to the 10th power, 10,000th power more virus particles on Earth than there are stars in the known universe. They're everywhere.

In fact, we have, each of us collectively, upwards of 300 to 400 trillion virus particles in and on our bodies right now. They're everywhere, and we've talked about this recently on other episodes that viruses have been so integrated into the human genome that when The Human Genome Project was done, they found that about 8% of the human genome is actually viruses. We are, in essence, literally part virus. And now we... Of course, we're dealing with a "novel" which means new virus that we're trying to adjust to. And again, you think that... You would think that covering your face and somebody else covering their face is going to reduce that transmission. So I just wanted to share a meta-perspective on viruses, and now let's zoom in a little bit or maybe a lot and look at how these viruses actually operate because... I don't know if a lot of people know this, you can't even see a virus with a powerful microscope. It is so freaking tiny.

So to give you a comparison, and in the documentary, we actually have some wonderful illustrations of this to show you. First-hand, you could see it visually. But to use the human hair, use a human hair as a comparison, a single strand of human hair is about 80 micrometers in thickness. Okay, we're talking about the width of a human hair. To get to the size of a single bacteria cell... So bacterias are a major component of infectious disease as well. Think tuberculosis for example, but bacteria... To get to the size of a single bacteria cell, you'll have to divide the size of a hair by 40. A single bacteria cell is just two micrometers or 1/40th the width of a hair. And as you probably know, we have billions of bacteria in our bodies as well. Now, here's where it actually gets really incredible, is that... So that's how small a bacteria is.

A virus particle is actually, again, too small to be seen with a powerful microscope, and it's too small to be measured in micrometers. It's measured in nanometers, and it's about 17-140 nanometers. We're talking about various viruses. And you can actually fit hundreds or even thousands of virus particles into a single bacteria cell. Crazy. In fact, there are viruses that literally infects your bacteria cells. These are called bacteriophages. And again, these are the most abundant thing on the planet, are these virus particles. Wow. Just let that marinate for a little bit. We are immersed in a planet that is dominated by virus particles. We're kind of just visiting. Now, again, these particles are inordinately small and the protective pore size of a mask... We're talking about surgical masks, conventional cloth masks, and we're even talking about some of the data on N95 masks today as well. And all of this matters. But the pore size, you'll say, a conventional cloth mask or a surgical mask is gigantic compared to the size of a virus particle. And to give an example, a virus particle making its way through the pore size of a mask would be like mosquitoes or ants going through a chain-link fence. It's not even close. However, the way that masks can be effective is that the virus particles aren't just moving around by themselves. They travel in droplets, in aerosols.

So what does this mean? What is this droplet? What is this droplet like it's hot? And what is an aerosol? These two different entities are what so many people... It's become a normal part of the lexicon. But when you talk, every time you speak, every time you breathe, you are breathing out these droplets and aerosols. And to give a good analogy, if you think about how you can see your breath on a cold day, that's a prod... And you're just like, "Woah." I remember when I was a kid and I would do... And act like I was smoking a cigarette and I'd blow. I think everybody's done that before. But the crazy thing is, that's happening all the time. It's just a matter of humidity for you to be able to see what's always happening, all the time.

So whether you're talking, shouting, singing, breathing, coughing, sneezing, or simply just, again, just breathing, just the natural normal act of breathing, you're continuously emitting aerosols and droplets into the air. So the droplets are these... So these droplets are the major component that's coming out of our bodies, but what would happen is these viruses are contained within our droplets. And as we talk, they begin to evaporate. And you would think that the virus particles would just float and fall to the ground. But because of the aerosols and as they evaporate, it frees the virus particles in the air for them to remain in the air longer. And as a matter of fact, the CDC has noted, and this is all in the documentary, that virus particles remain in the air for several minutes or even up to two hours. Absolutely mind-blowing. And so with that said, this is why some of the data shows that, even at far distances, it's not really going to matter because of the nature of virus particles and the function of these aerosols, and just allowing for viruses to stay airborne for a significant amount of time.

Alright, so we understand that mask can trap some of these droplets, but let's take a look at what the FDA says. Alright. Now, this is... Again, everything in this episode is going to be available for you on the documentary page, or the vast majority of the studies that we're going to cover today. And you can go and look at these websites yourself. But one of the things I want to share, this is directly from the FDA, and it says that "A surgical mask is meant to help block large-particle droplets that may contain germs." 'Cause we're operating with this germ theory of disease now. "Keeping it from reaching your mouth and nose." So we're talking about you getting infected as well. "But while surgical masks may be effective in blocking large-particle droplets," here's what the FDA said, "A face mask, by design, does not filter or block very small particles in the air that may be transmitted by coughs, sneezes or certain medical procedures." Surgical masks do not provide complete protection from germs and other contaminants because of the loose fit between the surface of the mask and your face."

Now, what was being passed around early with this experience, with the quarantine was there was a special imaging technique that was being utilized. And I reached out to the university that conducted it, where people could see with a special form of technology utilizing a mirror, when people talk or cough freely without a mask, and then with different types of masks. And you can see the disbursement of that air moving through the mask, or through the air. And by wearing a mask, it definitely reduces the distance that these aerosols and droplets are able to travel.

However, what was so interesting that its people just seem to overlook is that, even with a surgical mask, even with a high-quality mask covering the face, the air was still traveling straight through the mask, just not as far, and it's going above the mask, below the mask, out of the sides. We're, for some reason, thinking that when people are breathing or talking or coughing into a mask, that is disappearing into a black hole. And that's just not how it works. I'm going to talk more about that, but it was really cool to see that technology. And it just gives us a little bit more encouragement that, "Hey, these masks really are doing something."

So the important thing to realize with that context, with number one, how virus particles remain in the air for minutes or even hours. And also, how the effectiveness of masks in of themselves with things being able to travel through the mask in both directions, it's important for us to realize that just one virus particle... And this particular study is on the page, at themodelhealthshow.com/maskfacts. It just takes one virus particle to infect someone and set off a cascade of infectious disease. It just takes one virus particle. As soon as I read this study I was like, "It sounds like sex." It just takes one little sperm to reach the goal, to reach the end goal, and then you have a cascade of effects that take place to the degree that you have someone in your house who eats up all your food. Alright. It's the same thing with virus particles, it just takes one to set off this cascade. Now, what I want to do was to dive in and look at all of the clinical evidence possible to get a true comprehensive assessment of the data, that it's so important and so needed right now to understand how and when and what types of masks are going to be most effective at a time, again, when we're looking at... People are looking for some certainty, they're looking for some solutions, and we want to stop the spread of infectious diseases. And here's what I found.

Number one, I wanted to look at what does the real-world clinical evidence have to offer as far as this data? Not hyperbole, not predictions, not looking at various aspects of what virus particles do, how they move but real-world clinical settings, controlled environments. How does it actually play out as far as the effectiveness of masks and first up, we've got a randomized peer-reviewed study published in the BMJ and it looked at the efficacy of masks to prevent viral infections in hospital healthcare workers in 15 different hospitals.

So this is a nice compilation of data. The participants were randomized into three different groups in the study, one group wore medical masks at all time on their work shift. Another group wore cloth masks at all time on their work shift and a third group, the control group was allowed general practice, which included occasionally wearing a mask or not wearing a mask at all and here's what the study found.

A percentage of healthcare workers in all groups contracted infections but the participants wearing cloth masks had significantly higher rates of infections than participants wearing surgical masks. In fact, healthcare workers wearing cloth masks were 13 times more likely to experience viral-type infections than those wearing surgical masks.

Please, hear that. 13 times more likely to experience a viral type infection for folks wearing cloth masks. Now, here's what's even more shocking about the study, not only were the rates of infection higher in the cloth mask-wearing group than the medical mask-wearing group a.k.a, the surgical mask, the rates of infection in the cloth mask group were significantly higher than the people in the control group who were allowed to occasionally wear a mask or not wear a mask at all. There were no rigorous restrictions for them on their mask usage.

Now, this should all be a little bit shocking because in a real-world peer-reviewed setting, the study found that you are more likely to contract a viral infection by excessively wearing a cloth mask than not strictly wearing a mask or sometimes not wearing a mask at all. Again, this is not to say that in acute instances, a mask can be effective in this transmission of infectious disease but we're going to dig in deeper to get a clear comprehensive assessment of this and also in the documentary, you can actually see some visuals to help to support the data.

Now, the researchers in the study found that the penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97%. Do you want a 3% effectiveness to prevent that little spermy to reach the egg? Absolutely not because again, it just takes one particle to set off cascade. 3% effectiveness as far as blocking the particle, being able to move and penetrate through the mask. They said penetration and it brought up the whole... Never mind. So 97% penetration of virus particles by wearing cloth mask, while the medical mask was about 44%, not particularly good. I don't want a 50-50 either but the performance of the cloth masks is obviously absolutely horrific and the scientists in the study that collected the data concluded that the wearing of cloth mask can potentially increase your risk of getting sick.

Now the question should be why? The researcher stated the quote, moisture retention, and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection with cloth mask and that cloth mask should not be recommended. The data shows that the cloth mask material actually creates a reservoir for pathogen growth, a wet trapped environment where your own microbes as well as pathogens from the environment around you increasingly stick to the mask and colonize wherein the natural world where you didn't have a mask, on your droplets would be diluted in the air and with the cloth mask specifically, you are in essence creating a wet microhabitat on your face that makes it even better at collecting other people's virus particles on it.

A 2015 study conducted by scientists at Oxford University found that "The accumulation of moisture during pro-long usage may exacerbate this problem by increasing resistance to airflow." Moisture accumulation is also thought to facilitate the movement of contaminants through the material of the mask itself. We cannot ignore this. Unfortunately, so many people are just ignoring that this data exists, and also, unfortunately, public health officials have repeatedly endorsed cloth face masks to the public and these recommendations have actually led to an explosion of cloth mask companies. I got the cool little design, I got the Gucci one, I got the one with the Hello Kitty on it. I got my He-Man mask, my cloth mask, and not understanding that this may have been well-intentioned but this was not based on valid science.

Now within the documentary, there were so many studies that I couldn't put in because there were so freaking many that affirm a lot of this data and I want to create something that's comprehensive, that's impactful and giving as much of it as I can within the context of the documentary but I want to share again, we're here at The Model Health Show today so we can go little bit further. There's another study published in PLUS ONE and it set out to examine if the use of face mask and hygiene reduced the rates of influenza-like illness and laboratory-confirmed influenza in a natural setting.

Again, this is real-world clinical data. This was a cluster-randomized intervention trial and it was designed involving 1,178 people and participants were assigned to either wear a face mask and hand wash frequently, they were called the "hand-hygiene group." Another group was assigned to wear a face mask only or there was another group, the control group, who weren't instructed to do anything specific during the study, and here's what they found.

The researchers stated that "We observed a substantial 43% reduction in the incidence of influenza infection in the face mask plus hand-hygiene group compared to the control." That's good news, right? Listen on. They said, "But, this estimate was not statistically significant and there were no substantial reductions in influenza-like illness or laboratory-confirmed influenza in the face-mask only group when compared to the control." Without the hand washing, the face mask was found to be ineffective and as I dug, just study after study that this is what kept coming up, I was looking for something to affirm the effectiveness of face masks because I want to have a balanced, comprehensive treatise on this subject for everybody because I think that everybody has a right to know this.

Now, what's even more unanticipated is that with various types of masks, we see these varying results but overall even in this study we just covered, we're looking at the performance of surgical masks. We already talked about how very questionable and even scary the effects of wearing a cloth mask could be in increasing our rate of infection and in fact, the study from Oxford revealing that moisture accumulation and airflow resistance can facilitate the movement of more microbes through the mask was actually done on surgical masks and the data shows that regardless of the type of mask, the longer that these are kept on, the more problems start to arise in their effectiveness.

So now I've got another... This is a meta-analysis of 19 randomized controlled trials published in the International Journal of Nursing Studies and it examined the effectiveness of masks in reducing infections in 8 community settings, 6 healthcare settings, and 5 as source control. Again, this is real-world boots on the ground data. How does this stuff play out in the real world? And the study concluded that "Medical masks were not effective and cloth masks were even less effective." That was a conclusion of 19 randomized controlled trials. Medical masks were not effective and cloth masks were even less effective. What does even less than not effective mean? What does that even mean? What does that mean?

Looking at this data, what that affirms is that, not only are the masks not effective in these clinical trials cited here, not to say that there's not more data but it could be potentially dangerous and the confusing part for the public is that they continue to see health organizations and news report repeatedly recommend cloth masks specifically as well as surgical masks based off of unrealistic studies where people put on a mask for a minute, cough into a petri dish or a machine and then they take the mask off and then they're like "Oh see, this mask works great." But that's not how things actually work in the real world. The more time you put the mask on, the more problems start to arise. You don't put a mask on... Literally, that's what some of these studies do. As a matter of fact, let me share one with you right here and again, this is going outside of the spectrum view in the documentary, just sharing some more because this one is just so shocking.

There's articles circulating stating things like "A cloth mask offers more protection than a surgical mask for people nearby." Promoting the use of cloth masks but for me, I actually go and dig into the study and one of them, like the one published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, had patients with COVID-19 cough into both cloth mask and surgical mask five times to establish said effectiveness but upon further review of the study and actually reading the study, it's kind of like what Jay-Z said "Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?" They're not actually looking at the data, they're looking at what they want to see and we'll talk about this a little bit later because people will obviously... You know the vast majority of people 95 plus percent of people are going to just want to know this information. They're going to want to get this into their hands, they might have some cognitive biases but they just want to know, they want to keep their family safe.

For some folks, they're coming into with a strong cognitive bias and they're only looking for things to refute the data and we'll talk about that more but here's the thing, when I actually read the study, here's what was found. The researchers stated "Both surgical... " This is the study. The headline was "A cloth mask offers more protection than a surgical mask for people nearby." But if you read the study, this is what it says "Both surgical and cotton masks seem to be ineffective in preventing the dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 from the coughs of patients with COVID-19." I'm not making it up. This exists. What? Even more alarming, the researchers in the study were surprised to find that when test subjects coughed into the mask, even more, virus particles ended up on the outside of the mask than the inside of the mask. When they did their swabs, there were more virus particles on the outside of the mask than the inside.

Come on! Surprisingly, the particles made their way outside of the mask but not surprisingly because that's how viruses move in the real world. Virus don't give a shit about your cotton mask. 97% penetration. This exists. This information exists. People could look at these studies saying how effective a mask is based off of, which we're going to get to in a minute, what is it really based off of? But how in the world can we ignore that this data exists?

The researchers in this particular study, again published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, very prestigious journal, high standards. They had to retract it because the medical community was in an uproar. You can't say the mask were not effective right now, you can't say that, retract it. But what remained in the study is...

Also I did add this to the documentary page, all of the studies are there at themodelhealthshow.com/maskeffects. You'll love it. I put the study there, a little note for you but the crazy thing is that still, regardless of the circumstance, there was more virus particles on the outside mask, than in the inside of the mask. We can imagine here how that happened but that's the case.

Again, we have to realize because we have this strange perception that having the mask on, these virus particles that just go into an alternate universe or something. This is just simply not the case and there's been a continuous push by different organizations and this is the thing about looking at studies that were pre-COVID-19 to now where there's this push and everything is so politicized, where the data is going to have an inherent appearance where the data starts to get skewed and things are going to be forced to make this look like it's a valid thing and one of those instances was a study that was all over...

Medical professionals were posting this, medical professionals sent this study to me boasting the headline that "Surgical masks can reduce the spread of COVID-19 by up to 75%." Oh my God, that sounds amazing. So I'm like "Okay finally." and then I go and read the study and if you look at the data, the courageous study participants were hamsters. They didn't fit the hamsters these tiny little surgical masks. Little tiny teeny tiny little surgical mask. What they did was they took a plastic container, put cages in it and then they separated the hamsters. First of all, they injected the hamsters with COVID-19. That's not cool. Because for me, understand the data like I do, I hear this I'm like, "How the hell did the hamster get COVID-19? I thought it couldn't species jump like that."

What? But if you inject it, directly inject it into the bloodstream, then it became highly contagious. Little hamsters, unfortunately. So they separate them in cages and what they did to get to this assessment that is 75% effectiveness of mask is they put a surgical mask between a hole in the cages. There's a hole separating them and they put a surgical mask between it. I can't make this stuff up. I shouldn't have to say that this is not reality, this is not the real world. We are not hamsters in cages separated by a hole, this doesn't make sense. How in the world can we allow this to become the popular conversation and health professionals who should be standing up for what's real are promoting studies like this.

Not to say that the researchers aren't trying to do a great job, these are smart people but the truth is, with very smart people looking at the wrong thing, this can take us down a whole path but number one, it just gets us off track of what's most important right now. Really. Having a hole separating hamsters putting a surgical mask between them, then we come up 75% effectiveness. When we allow ourselves to believe studies like this that don't translate into the real world, we start to think more like wizards than scientists.

“When did Saruman the Wise abandon reason for madness?"

Shawn Stevenson: Again, I shouldn't have to say this but we are in fact not hamsters and none of that is operating in a real-world scenario. Another study again, colleagues of mine, health professionals, send this study, post this study, we finally have some date and again, I get it, I'm like "Yes. Alright, here we go. Finally, something to affirm the effectiveness." because I'm not anti. Because it does... The term now is anti-masker. Anti-masker. Anti-masker. I'm not anti-anything. I'm not anti-mask. I'm pro-science. I'm pro-reality. Huge difference. I would love for the mask to be effective. I would love it, but here's what we got.

So here's another study that's again, purported to be... Listen to this, there's a study conducted by researchers at Texas A&M and it declared that face masks have prevented more than 66,000 infections in New York City in less than a month." The researcher stated that "By analyzing the pandemic trends, without face covering, using the statistical method and by projecting the trend, we calculated that over 66,000 infections were prevented by using a face mask in a little over a month in New York City."

Yet again, do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it? If you read into this study, it's a study affirming how droplets and aerosols travel. It's not looking at any actual person, boots on the ground, they had a mask on whether or not they got an infection. As a matter of fact, in the study itself, it had a graph which is in the documentary and it's showing the pandemic trend was already going down due to the social distancing mandates. Then the face mask mandate hit and it continues to go down but they gave the credit to the face mask. The trend was already going down. I don't have to make this stuff up. It's right there in your face. It's right there.

So here's the problem with this study, projecting, projecting pandemic trends based on the assumption of how aerosols and droplets and therefore, viruses work. This study makes hasty assumptions of universal mass consistency in quality and mask fit. I just had a guy here today testing my air. I'm about that life. He's here testing the air. He had his mask on. That guy touched his mask a good 20 times that I saw. Cloth mask, of course, he's the air guy. He works in the air business. He keeps... Because of his so grody, probably at this point but you got to wash your mask, that's the solution. It just kept sliding off his nose.

When I went to the DMV, there was... Man, they were on people. Don't let your nose out that mask. Keep your nose in baby. Anyways, just today, they're assuming that the mask consistency is ever-present. They're also making assumptions that the mask wearers aren't touching their face. They're making assumptions that the aerosols and droplets aren't being deflected and sprayed all over the person's face, hair, clothes, and clouds of droplets are being formed above below and at the sides of the masks like they do in the real world. That's how science works.

Again, a virus particle doesn't give a damn. It's not going into an alternate universe because you're talking into a mask. It's not popping out the other side with Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar. That's not how it works and it's also making assumptions... This study, these researchers are also making assumptions that masks are effective in the first place, which the vast majority of real-world boots on the ground clinical data proved again and again and again and again that they're not but then the headline comes out, my colleagues post it, 66,000 prevented... No, it didn't. That's stupid. Stupid. Is that from Friends? Is that Joey? Stupid. How you doing? Anyways, that just came out. It just came out as a vibe.

Their gross estimates of assumed universal conditions of masks is not how science works. It's not how viruses work in the real world and here's the thing, the lead researcher in this study stated that "Our work highlights that sound science is essential in decision-making for the current and future public health pandemics." and this is the damn problem right here, is that this type of science is creating the healthcare structure and the decision-making for a pandemic and future pandemics. This kind of science is making the decision on what's happening in the world around us, not the real-world boots on the ground reality data.

Now, even the documentary itself, I mentioned how these theories have more holes in them than a fresh pair of Crocs, fresh out the box, alright? I don't know if anybody's ever seen this when somebody doesn't have socks on with the Crocs but then they get their feet dirty and then he's got like polka dot feet but there's more holes in these theories than a fresh pair of Crocs. It's not even hard to see. It's not difficult to look for and analyze and to discover but the problem is that disinformation spreads like wildfire and it gets embedded in the minds of the public and it's not based on real-world data.

Now, I want to shift gears and we've talked about cloth masks, we've talked about surgical masks and I wanted to look at the most prestigious which is the N95 mask and again, I want to find validity and I want to ensure effectiveness for our healthcare workers, for the public at large and make sure we're doing the right thing. Now remembering, just as a reference with the N95 mask, virus particles generally range from about 17 to 140 nanometers and the American Chemical Society noted that the N95 mask can filter about 85% of the particles smaller than 300 nanometers. It's a lot more effective. There's still a lot of room for virus particles to travel in and out of the N95 masks but unfortunately, people aren't acknowledging that.

Now here's what the boots on the ground data actually showed us about the utilization and effectiveness of our N95 mask. A 2017 study conducted by Chinese researchers found that targeted intermittent use of the N95 respirators while doing high-risk procedures and while caring for patients with known respiratory illness... So they're putting on the N95 mask to work with patients that are high risk or they have confirmed infections. They discovered that healthcare workers wearing the N95 mask, intermittently putting on the mask when they were working with high-risk patients, wearing the mask showed that these healthcare workers ended up having higher rates of infections wearing the N95 mask than those wearing surgical masks. That doesn't make sense.

Doesn't make sense and even more surprising is that the participants in the study of the healthcare workers wearing the N95 mask had higher rates of infections than the control group in the study who were not required to wear either type of mask at all. Again, general practice, wear the mask, don't wear the mask. In the documentary, we show some illustrations of this. Okay so this does not look that good on paper for the N95 respirators, the gold standard, the gold member of all the masks.

So the researchers had another group, another study group that were instructed to constantly wear the N95 masks. They could not take them off for their entire shift and lo and behold, they discovered that the researchers now wearing the N95 mask for their entire shift, not taking them off regardless, were found to have a much lower rate of droplet-related infection. However, just a little side note, the protection from confirmed influenza virus was not statistically significant still.

Now what's important here is that there is some efficacy if you wear the N95 mask for the entire shift in this study but intermittent use of it, it performed terribly. So with a study like this, we can gather some bits and pieces but it really looks like there's a lot of mixed results here.

So I decided to keep digging, dig, dig, where is some more information on this because there isn't enough here? And so I found another study. This is a randomized controlled trial of 446 nurses in emergency departments, medical units, and pediatric units. Again, this is real-world boots on the ground data. Approximately half of the nurses were assigned to wear a surgical mask and the other half were assigned to wear a fit-tested, fit-tested N95 respirator to study their effectiveness against the influenza virus. The two and a half month study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that 23.6% of the nurses in the surgical mask group contracted the virus while 22.9% of the N95 fit-tested mask group contracted the virus as well. 23.6, 22.9, the results were almost identical for the fit-tested gold standard of mask and a surgical mask, which we've already discussed.

Now again, this isn't faring too well. Something is off here. Something is askew. Something is askew. My third-grade teacher, Mr. Ewing, would say, apparently there's a faux pas. I don't think he even took French, he might have picked that up from Pepé Le Pew. I don't know but I always wondered what he was saying but something's off a falsity.

Here's another study and this is the best one because this is a meta-analysis, this was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. It included 6 clinical studies and 23 surrogate exposure studies and the scientists found no significant difference between the N95 respirator and surgical mask and associated risk of laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection or influenza-like virus. This exists. We cannot turn a blind eye. This exists. These studies are not based on gross assumptions and predictive models of aerosols and droplets. These are real-world scenarios.

The data exists. Not speculating, not making gross assumptions, this is how things work in reality. We could use a lot more reality right now. Now, here's the thing after... Because we had one study with some mixed results for the N95 respirator and that's all good. Healthcare workers working in a situation where there is a pandemic, I think in some levels, wearing the N95 respirator, why not? Now, the why not comes into a simple thing called a cost-benefit analysis. Does the thing that we're using do more good than harm? And just looking, just weighing it out and this is so important what we're about to dive into now because that study that found some benefit in the N95 mask had the healthcare workers keep the mask on for hours and hours and hours at a time. This is what the data has to say about that.

A peer-reviewed study published in 2004 fitted patients with N95 masks and monitored the physiological impact the mask had on their bodies. 70% of the patients showed a significant reduction in partial pressure of oxygen. Partial pressure of oxygen reflects how well oxygen is able to move from your lungs to your blood. This is important, this is important and this process is usually altered because it's a natural function that you need to survive, this process of the partial pressure of oxygen being inhibited is usually altered by severe illness but in this case, it's being reduced by suffocating oneself with a mask. It's dangerous and this is something that we can no longer overlook as if this isn't happening. We can no longer overlook that this data exists.

Now being that the N95 mask can again, weighing a cost-benefit analysis, come with some substantial risk, researchers decided to look at the respiratory consequences of the N95 mask on pregnant women. Somebody had the audacity to ask a question, seeing nurses, pregnant nurses walking around with respirators on their face, N95 mask on their face, and wondering, "I wonder if that is inhibiting the oxygen that's getting to the baby and that pregnant mother?" Somebody had to see that and ask the question and again, prior to all of this politicizing of the situation of viruses and masks, this data exists and it can be compiled, and here's what the study found.

This controlled clinical trial, published in the journal Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control, recruited pregnant healthcare workers to wear N95 masks while doing just low-intensity activity and the results were shocking. Wearing the N95 mask reduced their normal volume of air displaced between inhalation and exhalation by 23%, the volume of gas inhaled or exhaled, specifically from their lungs each minute was reduced by 25.8%. They're actually monitoring this with real people in real-world scenarios, not guessing.

The volume of overall oxygen consumption was reduced by 13.8%. The ability to expire carbon dioxide was reduced by 17.7% and you might be thinking, I guess they had it on all day, this was a long time. No, they were engaged for low-intensity activity for just 15 minutes and this is what happened.

Again, the only reason this was discovered was somebody saw pregnant women wearing these masks and thought, maybe we should look into this and this is what we have. Again, this exists. People can try and pick apart all of these different things but please do not disrespect or ignore the fact that this data in the real world actually exists. The truth is, this study was done on expecting mothers but this happens to every human being because this is how we're designed to breathe freely especially a fit-tested N95 mask, viruses don't give a damn. They don't give a damn, yet the capacity to breathe deeply, of course, is going to be inhibited and that's when we start to see issues arise like this but unfortunately, there are websites that claim to "debunk" that wearing a mask can cause an oxygen deficiency and these sites are run by these major health organizations or USA Today, they're like the debunk, they're the fact-checkers, fact-checker, fact check alert.

Come on man, they're not checking these facts, they're looking for things to affirm what they believe. We'll talk about some more of these organizations in a minute but the fact is that these health organizations that are "debunking" information like this, their fact-checking is negligent. They're not actually reviewing the facts because again, this exists.

Another thing that said to be "debunked" is that wearing a mask will cause carbon dioxide re-breathing 'cause people were coming out and saying that this was another thing, we're not meant to re-breathe our carbon dioxide, this can lead to some health issues. Yet again, there's a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal Anesthesia revealed that within just 20 minutes of wearing the mask, the end title carbon dioxide levels jumped up 13%. The researchers reported that "The rise in end-tidal carbon dioxide is due to re-breathing of expired gas that is trapped in the respirator." They also noted that "Levels of end-tidal carbon dioxide... " Listen closely "Have also been shown to significantly impair cognitive and psychomotor performance." It's messing with your brain. What does this translate to in the real world? That means you now become a greater risk to yourself and the people around you, not speculating, not guessing. Facts.

Another study published in the Journal Ergonomics found that even at low work rates, wearing the mask contributed to significantly higher levels of CO2 re-breathing. The data exists with notable side effects such as fatigue, dizziness, headaches, and muscular weakness. I don't want none of that. In just one of those issues, we're just going to focus on one being headaches, when mandated to wear N95 mask, a peer-reviewed study published in 2006 found that almost 40% of healthcare workers developed face mask associated headaches, that those are the messages that was pouring in from folks who watched the documentary was that they've been experiencing all these different health issues, migraines, headaches, fatigue, nausea and they just thought maybe it's this, maybe it's that but they made the correlation.

It's critical for us to realize that reduced levels of oxygen, carbon dioxide re-breathing, these things are not natural, not normal, they can damage your lungs, damage your heart and even damage your freaking brain and these aren't just seen in the N95 mask either. Another peer-reviewed study publish in 2008 reported a surgical mask can potentially induce the deoxygenation in physicians. While another study conducted by the CDC, everybody's listening to the CDC. The CDC published in the Annals of Work Exposures and Health revealed that by wearing a mask, again this is directly from them, the highly thermo-sensitive nature of the face and breathing pathways can be inhibited leading to increased anxiety, elevated stress hormones, falsification alarm in the central nervous system and panic attacks, messing with your hormones.

What's clear is that within minutes of putting on a mask, we start to experience negative side effects, people can deny it but this is what the facts show, this is what the data really shows in the real world. It's not guessing, this is a real thing. The most concerning thing for me is that all of these mandates are coming out right now for children to be forced to wear a mask all day at school just to get an education, just to be allowed back into the classroom. These are our babies, this is our future, this is not about protecting our children because if you look at the data, just go to the CDC and you look at the infection rate for children under the age of 18 and you see the thousands of cases, not one child has lost their life, hardly any hospitalizations at all from this infectious disease that's going around and yet being forced to do this based on politics, based on creating a false sense of security for the powers that be, a false sense of security for parents because they're not being educated and informed on what's actually most important for the children.

People might be like, well, they need to wear the mask for the teachers. It's not about the children, it's about the teachers. Really? That's a tough statement to say, I dare you to say that out loud in the interwebs, it's not about the children, it's about them taking it back to the grandparents. Quarantine the grandparents then. You ask the grandparent, would you want your grandchild to sacrifice their education, their cognitive and mental and emotional development, being away from their peers in order to protect you, because that is who is truly... If we look at the data, which we'll get to, the susceptible population are folks who are significantly elderly and number one, most importantly, folks who have a chronic lifestyle-related specifically for the most part, chronic disease. This is not about the kids. Ask their grandparent, "Would you want your grandchild to sacrifice their education, their mental and emotional development?" They're going to say, "Absolutely not. Quarantine me, I'll stay quarantined. Let my grandchild get their education and be a normal child."

Very simple. Again, this isn't some just hearsay or some gross assessment. Again, the mandates that are putting our children at risk are not based on science. It's based on something else. What that something else is, I don't fully understand because I've dedicated so much of my life force, my time and my energy into uncovering the science for everybody, so we can make some sense of all of this, so we can respond appropriately, but there are so many... It's become this strange political football, and it's not about the people, it's not about... Especially not about our children. The very heart of science is being able to check your emotions and biases at the door and to look at the data objectively, not just the data that supports our belief, and especially not the data that's been emotionalized and politicized.

Now, I understand that the clinical evidence that's demonstrated here today and also in the documentary is not going to fit within the trending narrative. And with so much energy invested into mask usage appearing to be as effective and ethical as they've been promoted to be. Many health officials, public figures, and politicians are going to find it very difficult to admit that they made a mistake and finally shift the conversation to actually getting our citizens healthier in clinically-proven ways, but that's okay. Because again, this doesn't make the science any less real. It exists. It exists, but it's up to us to stand up for what's right right now, when so much idiocy is taking place. Now again, this isn't just about the health of ourselves, this is about the health of our young people, the health of our children. And this is not just a physical health issue either. This is a mental health issue as well.

In the documentary, we cover the research regarding potential emotional and mental health issues manifesting in people due to wearing and seeing everyone in masks around them, especially for our children. Researches have already noted that there's a shocking rise in childhood mental health issues resulting from the societal lockdown and how we've handled this thing and noted that "the full toll of COVID-19 on children's mental health would not be known for years. A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal already demonstrated massive increases in childhood stress disorders and depression caused by such dramatic changes in their daily social interactions." So definitely again, watch the documentary. Watch the documentary. It's created in such a way that it is massively impactful to get a whole and a complete experience, visual experience as well of this information, this data that every single person has the right to know. Now, going back to some of the data we talked about earlier on how wearing a mask can affect our endocrine system and our hormone production, in essence, we have data affirming how suffocating oneself activates the sympathetic fight or flight nervous system. And there's another thing that's been "debunked", that wearing a mask doesn't affect your immune system. Ah ha.

Ah ha. A study published in the international archives of occupational and environmental health found that there's a micro-climate created within the mask that causes high rebreathing resistance, making it difficult for test subjects to breathe and take insufficient oxygen. I'm smiling because of the ah-ha, but this is not funny. Another study showed that it makes it difficult to bring insufficient oxygen, guys, I don't got to make this up, and this is from the study. This shortage of oxygen automatically, this hyper-stimulated the sympathetic fight or flight nervous system. And another mask-related health problem, again, that has been "debunked" is that this doesn't affect our immune system. This is basic human physiology stuff right here. If suffocating oneself activates the sympathetic nervous system, of course this affects your immune system. What? But let's dig in, let's take a peek at what the data says. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh found that immune cells become overactive when oxygen levels are deranged and respond excessively to infections in a harmful way. What? And another study, DJ Khalid, say it for me.

Another one.

Shawn Stevenson: And this one published in Psychological Bulletin, highlighted how stress directly elevates levels of inflammation. The study found that those who have chronic diseases and/or the elderly, so the folks that are most susceptible, can be especially susceptible to immuno-suppressive effects of acute stress, which again, can result from even a small level of oxygen restriction. Are we doing more harm than good? Simple cost-benefit analysis. Can we not do that? And to add a little cherry on top here, a short burst of inhibited breathing will have a nominal impact on your immune system. But the longer the mask is obstructing your breathing, the more abnormal levels of stress hormones are produced, and the more this activity becomes immunosuppressive. And this, according to data in Integrative and Comparative Biology, this is what happens with normal human physiology when we're not allowed to breathe normally. Listen, at this point, you're probably wondering.

You're probably just like, This doesn't make sense. Why has there been so much with this mandated mask-wearing and how has this just caught on like this, when the data that's being presented isn't really looking at the real world boots on the ground data? The data that's being presented is inordinately false and even potentially damaging public health, but nobody's talking about it. Why would this be allowed? Well, number one, I think a big part of this has to do with the status quo. And I've seen people say it. Doctors wear masks all the time. Why do you think they do it? If doctors wear masks, it must obviously work, but going back to, at the very beginning of this episode and talking about the data from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, summarizing and stating that "clinical trials in the surgery theater have found no difference in infection rates with and without surgical masks. Despite these findings, it has been difficult for surgeons to give up a long-standing practice."

This is about ritual. This is not about science. The act of wearing a mask in a surgical setting is about ritual. It's just something that you just do. When examining the data of does it actually works, even for the reason that it was initially created for use in the surgery setting has found to be ineffective. Let alone... Okay, now we're going to take this out to the real world to everybody, and suddenly this is going to work.

So that's number one, it has to do with the status quo, this is what we've always done, although repeatedly, things we've "always done" so often get overturned, but we think we're so sophisticated now. We put planes in the sky, we put satellites in space, we got electric cars we're driving around in, but our best defense for stopping the spread of infectious disease is to put some underwear on our face. Are you kidding me? We should be space-level intelligence at this point. "I know we've got an infectious disease going around, here, put these drawers on your face, let's take care of everything." Are you kidding me? Put the piece of cloth, that's going to stop it. It's not based on reality.

Now again, another reason that this might catch on is what's referred to as a cognitive bias. A cognitive bias is a systemic tendency that leads our thinking away from rational judgment even when presented with proof that what we believe to be true is not actually true. Again, 95% of people seen a documentary, overwhelmed with a sense of relief and joy and understanding and making sense of something that is not making sense, but there is of course, always going to be people who they're coming into it looking to affirm that what they believe to be true is true. I've received some wonderful messages from folks in this community, it was just like, "I came into it, Shawn, I got to tell you, I was feeling uneasy, I was feeling out of sorts because I didn't want to believe that our government would mandate... Our health professionals would mandate something so many people, so many trusted advisors and experts would mandate something that's just not true, that's not based on science. The scientists are saying that this is science. I didn't want to believe that." But I encourage you simply to analyze the data, we all have the opportunity to do that, we cannot outsource our health anymore.

Because in reality, the facts that are being promoted as facts, I guess they're alternative facts, this is the era of the alternative facts. So within that cognitive bias, and this is detailed in the documentary as well, our minds really work like a puzzle, and if we come in contact with the new piece of data that fits, we add it to the puzzle. If the new piece of data doesn't fit, we often discard it and throw it away, this is why so many people can look at this data, not so many, a small percentage of people, because it's just too much logic here, right? Captain logic. But they can look at all of this data, just stacked, the majority proving that utilizing masks to stop the spread of infectious disease is not only not effective, in the majority of cases, but also potentially damaging to human health.

They can access all of that data and still try to find a little wiggle room to hold on to the belief that this thing is actually based on real science. And in the case of something highly emotionalized especially like mask-wearing, something called a self-serving bias gets ramped up a 1000 times higher, this is where you only look for and focus on the information that enhances your belief that you are right, and ignore and reject anything that says you are incorrect. Now, if a very smart person develops a self-serving bias for something that's not true, they become world-class at teaching and defending something that's not true, and it's definitely out there. I know many people have probably experienced that, and sharing some of this data, and that people just like, "Blah blah blah." it's like the Charlie Brown, "Mama mama mama mama."

They just start spouting off all of this ignorance, ignoring the actual real-world evidence and just latching on to that, "Well, the study actually, there's a part in here that says the mask is good, forget all the results saying that is not effective, they said that this could be helpful." As a matter of fact, let me give you a real-world example because there's this phenomenon in thinking called cherry-picking. It's called cherry-picking because it's the process of choosing the best ones from the group and ignoring the rest, that's what cherry-picking is. So to guard against this, I read study after study to find proven benefits of mask usage, I read the studies to affirm and find out the value in it, and I read study after study to find the potential downsides of mask usage as well. So proactively, examining, and looking for both.

The overwhelming majority of the real-world clinical trials found that masks were ineffective and even dangerous in many instances, it's just what is, that's what was uncovered. Now, to fit it at all gracefully into the documentary, I consolidated all the findings and shared the main results from each study, yet, because the majority... Again, this is just what is, the majority of the results demonstrated an outcome that was against the popular narrative, that's not actually based on clinical evidence, even though the vast majority of people were just overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement to have some real-world data to help all this makes sense. There's a small percentage of narrow-minded people who will claim cherry-pick, even though they are the ones who were picking the cherries. For example, the main outcome... And we'll put this up for you if you're watching this episode as well, I just want to make sure that you know that this is going to be available at themodelhealthshow.com/breatheagain.

Shout out to Toni Braxton. So you will be able to see some of this data we'll put up on the screen for you. For example, the main outcome from this study that was published in the International Journal of Nursing Studies that included 19 randomized control trials concluded that "Medical masks were not effective, and cloth masks even less effective." This was the study results. This was a study result. Yet if you look into the conclusion of the study, it reads, "The study suggests that community mask use by well people could be beneficial, particularly for COVID-19, where transmission may, may be pre-symptomatic." It's like, "Well, since we found that these masks don't actually work when people are sick, hey, maybe they work when people aren't sick or pre-symptomatic. May could be. We don't have any evidence for this, but it could be." But this is during the time of COVID-19. They don't want to ruffle any feathers. They got to say it. When people... The cherry picker will say, "Well, he didn't mention this part of the study here." That part of the study is… duh! Sorry, I probably haven't said duh since like clueless was out. Alright, shout out to Clueless.

Now, if you're cherry-picking smarty pants who's deeply accepted that masks actually have great benefit, you'll ignore all of the incredible data that disproves your belief and say, "See, the researchers said that masks could be beneficial." Studies at a time when things are driven by politics and not objective science need to be... We need to carry a sense of awareness about that because now we're moving into a new era where a lot of the data is going to be pushed forward to try to create a narrative that simply is not true. And it's already happening over and over and over again, so we have to be able to read between the lines and see this stuff clearly.

Another thing that we dive into in the documentary is more on this cognitive bias, and really looking at how bad science and data that's just simply not proven is able to spread like wildfires. Part of it, we talk about celebrity politics, and also we talk about the phenomenon called groupthink that can take place. Where you start to see a lot of these statements on social media and out in public and people just being very upset about people who aren't wearing masks and trying to just get everybody on board with the idea because that is the real solution, is the mask, that's the thing that's going to save us. And you have statements and catchphrases like, "It's an act of love. Wearing the mask, it's an act of love." Or they'll say, "It's just a small sacrifice," or, "It's not about you. It's not about you," or, "Stop being selfish," or, "Just wear the damn mask." These ideas are used to spread the belief of the group. It's not based on science or rationality in this context.

But here's the thing to understand is that the people that are making these statements, it's not that they're bad people. It's possible that they're listening right now, many people have said these statements, and that's okay, because we're just trying to help, we're just trying to do the right thing. Absolutely, absolutely, it can come from a place of compassion and empathy and a willingness to help the cause, but also, there can be some ill-advised side effects that take place when we have such an oppressive structure where we're not allowed to question the validity of the activity. And forcing human beings to do a thing when we live in this country that is deemed to be this free country where you can live your life the way that you feel fit, it's just, we're in a very interesting time. But I don't want to get too much into that. Leaning back to the information, when you take very smart people and you indoctrinate them with the wrong way of thinking, again, they become world-class at analyzing and teaching and instructing people on the wrong way of thinking. And this is highlighted in a study, this was published by researchers at Harvard University, and the report recommended that you should probably be wearing a mask to protect yourself during sexual situations.

I just heard a little Teddy Pendergrass right there. Teddy just needs... They need to go back add a lyric about a mask in there too. Now these researchers, they're not trying to just be freaky with the mask thing. They really do believe that they're helping the cause and guess what? Many people are going to see this headline and they're going to engage in that activity. They're getting it on with their partner or whoever they're connected with, they're wearing protection downstairs and they wearing protection upstairs on their face as well.

There's a statement "no glove, no love." Maybe it's now "no mask, no ass." I don't know. I don't know. Very different world that we live in right now but again, going back to the rationality of the data in the first place, if people aren't actually digging in and looking at the results of the data and they're just taking headlines or taking commonly held beliefs, they can go to town on it, like the people going to town on each other with their mask on.

Now, I understand that a lot of this data... Again, this goes against the popular narrative but this is why it's so important for you to stand firm, to speak up, to continue to direct people towards rationality and understand that they are coming into it with a strong cognitive bias and they're cherry-picking, looking for a way to be right. It takes a courageous spirit to look for things that prove you wrong and so I'm going into it... This is what I've been, what I've been doing.

You know, I have my wife, okay. She has taught me how to be wrong. I'm very comfortable with that but once you gather all the data, you can objectively look at and be like "Oh wow! This doesn't match. This doesn't actually make any sense." And now so many people are saying "You're courageous." Just to bring attention and bring a light to the fact that this doesn't make sense. It shouldn't be a courageous act to do that but this is how stuff continues to happen throughout history, when people go against the commonly held paradigm, even though often times again and again they're wrong.

Another common sense point to look at is that, there's been these sky rocking rates of COVID cases, right and we just did an episode recently with Dr. Alan Preston looking at, what does that actually mean? Breaking down all the science with that but there's been this massive like... America, we didn't flatten the curve, we made it more curvy, which is, I guess curves are in. I don't know but here's the thing and we talked... Again, we're not going to get into what that means right now but you would think that with the mandated mask-wearing and the massive compliance, I don't know where people... Could be 'cause they're seeing stuff on the news and media of the people who are "anti-maskers" right? The super spreaders, they super shredders, they super... I don't know but they're the ones who are causing all the problems when again, if this actually worked, there's a massive mass compliance. Literally, you can't go anywhere. They won't let you in. They won't let you into the store. These "essential business" you're not getting in without a mask.

But here's the thing, within the context in the real world, within that essential business, there are trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of virus particles just in the air everywhere in there. They are there. They are airborne, they're there. You can't get away from it but if we're going into the situation, assuming that this mask is so effective, we're literally walking into the problem. We're literally missing the point but again, this is the same approach that we take in health right now, it's the same approach we take with diet and exercise for example.

It's not that the system is the problem, you're the problem. You just need to diet harder, you just need to exercise harder. In the context of this mask usage, you just need to mask harder. You need to social distance harder. That's going to solve the problem. Enough people aren't masking. Enough people aren't social distancing, we did it. Massive compliance even people in other countries, they're like "What's going on, America." There were just all these rogue people. "We're not wearing masks." No. I don't know who these people are that are seeing these places where people are out and about without masks on. I mean, true story, I am out searching, I go out driving just to find somebody without a mask on. I'll say this, 39 out of 40, that was a random like... But 39 out of 40 people are wearing a mask but that one person needs to mask harder, then it'll disappear.

It's not based on logic, we have not fixed the problem. We haven't even partly addressed the real issue here because the real issue is not a mask. We've gone through all the data here and again, this was just a logical example. Just a logical example mandated mask wearing, massive compliance, what is going on? Why have the cases just exploded? And the people that are getting tested trust and believe, people that are lined up in their car to get tested, they're not the ones who are rogue-ly not wearing a mask, they're not covertly just like... I'm not... These are people who are scared to death, they're scared and they're going out to get tested, they are masked up.

So just a little logic to add into play there but one other thing that I want to share and again, this is all in the documentary as well, is like what is the real issue here? What is the real thing that we need to focus on and we talk about the fact that right now and this is the World Health Organization data, WHO everybody's listening to, this is the governing force controlling what can even be talked about, is the WHO, if you're not in compliance with them, you're going to be censored. The World Health Organization reported that upwards of 650,000 people die every single year from a certain infectious disease but it's not COVID-19. It's the flu.

The same flu that they had a vaccine for 80 years ago. 650,000 people die, not just this past year. Every year and that's just from the respiratory effects of influenza. That's not counting influenza related organ failure and seizures and all manner of other side effects that people could die... That adds tens of thousands more on there. If not hundreds of thousands more but hey, this system's got you. We're coming with a vaccine, we're working diligently on it, we're going to get a vaccine, we're going to get back to normal. How did that work out for the flu? Come on man, just come on.

Anyway so in a much more articulate and compassionate way, this is articulated in the documentary but we... This is The Model Health Show. Alright? We're getting a little bit more... So with that said, how is this issue still taking place? Now the attention has shifted to COVID-19, we have a serious deficiency in our healthcare system in managing infectious diseases but guess what else, we have a serious deficiency of managing? Chronic diseases. Our healthcare system literally sucks at it. Everything just continues to go up. Diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, obesity. Come on man, this is what people come to this show for, The Model Health Show since its inception, is because I'm about that life and looking at the real data on how this stuff works and people are like "Yes, this makes sense." But a couple of little...

Little cherry pickers out there, a couple of the smarty pants are like "I love you Shawn but I'm going to listen to the experts on this one with the mask." You don't love me. You just love my doggie style. I'm so sorry. That's not love, that's not love where suddenly somebody is so wrong that you come to because of the validity of the research and actually looking at the science becoming prepared and well cited and really taking this work seriously and taking it to heart and coming from multiple perspectives and truly loving people. That's not love, that's not love but anyways... But again, it's just the human condition, when there's so much uncertainty and so much fear associated with this situation so I don't blame anybody. I kind of feel bad for them. They're going to miss out on all this goodness but not you.

We are standing for something powerful, something real and we are the ones who are endowed with the capacity to change and transform our society for the better. My good friend Michael Beckwith who we've had on the show multiple times, just incredible mentor and friend in my life, he said that we are now, at this very moment, in the midst of writing human history, we're at a very powerful moment where we are all collectively taking part in the unfolding of human history. Now the question is "Are you somebody who is proactively participating in the writing of this history or are you somebody who's just being a bystander or are you somebody who's standing in the way?" We get to decide, the time is now, it's up to us. It's up to us to make logic and reason and science popular, make that go viral, it's up to us.

Are you going to be a bystander or are you going to stand in the way? I'm not dealing with it. I'm not for it, I'm participating, I'm bringing my whole life energy to this and I encourage you to do the same.

Make sure to go to themodelhealthshow.com/maskfacts to get all this incredible information, get the documentary, get access to all the studies, it is truly powerful and one other small thing I want to share is that, the interesting thing that I mentioned happened and again, if you want to see the video for this episode and you get to see some of these additional things we'll put up on screen for you to see because it's pretty eye opening to be able to see them. The thing that happened, the documentary came out within just a few days, over half a million people watched the video, people sharing the video with their friends and family, people sending it to their mayors, their governors, in Canada, they're sending it to the... I don't know what they call, Prime Minister? I don't know.

People just like... This education needs to get to those in positions of power, because what we're doing, the policies do not make sense in this. In fact, based on the data, we're doing more harm than good. When we put the video out on YouTube, YouTube censored it. They deleted it, they hid it from being able to be seen. It took off faster than anything we've ever done so that half a million people wasn't even with YouTube involved. Who knows the kind of impact that could've made but the question is... And when I would hear of the censorship that's taking place, I was just like "That must be... People must be bringing their opinions to the table, this must be some hearsay, some opinion." I made sure in that documentary, we had multiple teams working on this thing, I made sure everything was fact-checked, repeatedly to make sure that we're bringing a well thought out, comprehensive source of data, to the public at large, who deserves to know this information.

But the reason they gave was that it went against community guidelines for COVID-19 and I went and looked at those community guidelines, we didn't violate a single one, it wasn't about that. The same thing, Instagram, we put the entire video up. I think it has as of now, maybe three or four hundred thousand views there, in and of itself, just on that one platform and we'll put the image up for you, on screen, this is what I saw with the video. They put a little notice on there, to let people know and let me know that they're going to hide the video now because it violates the WHO's Guidelines and now we're going to put it on screen for you because I'll go to the damn WHO report, in their website itself and I'm going to put it up on screen for you, here's what the WHO has to say about the effectiveness of masks.

Their report, on their site, states that "There is currently no evidence, that wearing a mask, whether medical or other types by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, there is no evidence it can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19 and the use of masks in the community, may create a false sense of security." It's right there on their site, yet I'm in violation. They said it because that's real, what's happening has nothing to do with reality and we must stand up against it. As a matter of fact, one of the things when I went to the page because it was "debunked", is the World Health Organization, a little segment on their little debunk page, that wearing a mask doesn't affect your consumption of oxygen, which is inherently, inherently false. We went through multiple studies... This was easy, this is light work for me, disproving their so called debunk but this is not about what's right, this is not about science, this is about something else and what that thing is, we're going to continue to dissect but I will not be silenced.

Truly, the WHO, the WHO. Who the do the WHO think they are? Who the funds the WHO? Look into that because one of the interesting things, the primary contributor to the WHO, is a private organization that nearly matches the amount of money that the United States invests in the WHO. That's who's censoring information, even though it's true, even though it's viable, even though the people need to know this. That's again, why we must stand right now, you must not remain silent, this is the most... In our lifetime, important time in human history because what we do now is going to determine the lives that we live, moving forward, that our children live moving forward.

Are we going to create a dystopian future where we're disconnected from each other, where we're walking around on our own, damn planet like aliens? Not based on logic, not based on science but based on fear. Get this information into the hands of the people that you care about, be prepared for the tiny percentage of smarty pants, cherry pickers. Okay? It's not their fault, they're coming into it by cognitive... Deep... But most people just want to know the truth and it's our responsibility to make it available. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today.

Again, head over to the themodelhealthshow.com/maskfacts to get access to the entire documentary, and to watch this episode of The Model Health Show, you can go to themodelhealthshow.com/breatheagain because who knows, if YouTube is going to censor. It's up to us, we got this. I will not remain silent. I've got your back and now, it's time for us to step up and create a world that works for everyone. Take care. Have an amazing day and I'll talk with you soon.

And for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com. That's where you can find all of the show notes, you could find transcriptions, videos for each episode and if you got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well and please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome and I appreciate that so much and take care, I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.