In his paper Masks Don’t Work, Denis Rancourt PhD, a retired tenured professor of physics from the University of Ottawa, states: “Many potential harms may arise from broad public policies to wear masks…” He goes on to list the following ten concerns associated with muzzling people:

1. Do used and loaded masks become sources of enhanced transmission, for the wearer and others?
   
2. Do masks become collectors and retainers of pathogens that the mask wearer would otherwise avoid when breathing without a mask?
   
3. Are large droplets captured by a mask atomized or aerolized into breathable components? Can virions escape an evaporating droplet stuck to a mask fiber?
   
4. What are the dangers of bacterial growth on a used and loaded mask?
   
5. How do pathogen-laden droplets interact with environmental dust and aerosols captured on the mask?
   
6. What are long-term health effects on [health care worker], such as headaches, arising from impeded breathing?
   
7. Are there negative social consequences to a masked society?
   
8. Are there negative psychological consequences to wearing a mask, as a fear-based behavioural modification?
   
9. What are the environmental consequences of mask manufacturing and disposal?
   
10. Do the masks shed fibres or substances that are harmful when inhaled?

Now, if masks actually protected people from disease (which study after study show they do not) then a few negative side effects might be worth it. But since masks don’t stop infections, the above list is concerning.

To my knowledge none of these questions have been properly investigated. Sure, I hear them addressed sometimes in news articles. But we are then told to forget about it because some doctor at a local hospital or a researcher at a university said it’s nothing to worry about.

For example, a recent article in my local newspaper said: “These claims about trapped infections have been disputed by infectious disease specialists and virologists, including Sarah Stanley, an associate professor of infectious diseases and vaccinology at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.”

Someone raises a serious concern about the risks of collecting spit in front of their nose and it’s shrugged off because some doctor disputed it. Some researcher who probably receives funding from vaccine manufactures. Because vaccine sales is part of what these masks are about, isn’t it? Wear a mask to protect others. Get the COVID-19 vaccine to protect others. Don’t get the vaccine and you’ll have to wear the mask forever.

Indeed, that’s what a hospital arbitrator deduced when he said that forced masking is a “coercive practice designed to drive up vaccination rates.”

So instead of listening to expert opinions, look at scientific evidence. You don’t need a PhD to read and understand most medical studies. I don’t even have a post-secondary education (left high school a year early and never looked back). Most trials are based on comparing quantifiable results. It’s not hard to understand.

Prof Denis Rancourt’s 13-page report, for example, is (mostly) an easy read. And it’s not influenced by big money as he wrote it on a volunteer basis for the Ontario Civil Liberties Association. Decide for yourself what is true, instead of going along with popular opinion. It was once popular opinion that cigarettes were good for you.

Remember the words of Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell: “The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. “