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Some leaked confidential emails revealed how the New York Times tried to discredit a high-level scientific review that found no evidence on the effectiveness of masks in counteracting the spread of infection caused by the Covid-19 virus. It came to an ‘erroneous’ conclusion, according to the same media outlet. Paul D. Thacker, who obtained the emails from a Cochrane whistleblower and through requests for access to the records, wrote about the scandal on UnHerd.
Details
Over the past few months, amidst the US election headlines, a news story has started to emerge on social media that, only a few years ago, would have triggered a media storm. President Biden tested positive for Covid and videos posted on X showed him getting on and off Air Force One without a mask.
Four years ago at an election rally, the US president had said, ‘Follow the scientists, support the masks,’ criticising Trump for not wearing a mask after contracting Covid. “Support a national mandate for face masks,” Biden had thundered, amid applause and adulation. His message captured the ‘follow the science’ sentiment among left-wing American voters, who labelled anyone who questioned the efficacy of the masks as ‘No vax’ ‘obscurantist’ ‘anti-science’. This, despite the fact that articles in Scientific American, Wired, New York Magazine and The Atlantic reported that scientific studies did not seem to show that the masks stopped viruses. The debate on the effectiveness of face masks took a strange turn last year when ardent proponent of face masks, Zeynep Tufekci, wrote an essay in the New York Times stating that “the science is clear: face masks work”. Tufekci’s article denigrated and belittled a scientific review by the prestigious non-profit medical organisation, Cochrane, for concluding that the evidence is ‘uncertain’. Immediately after Tufekci’s article was published, Cochrane’s Editorial Director, Karla Soares-Weiser, issued a statement to reassure mask supporters that Cochrane would update the review language. Cochrane reviews are widely regarded as the ‘gold standard’ for high-quality information in the medical field, and their formation process is laborious, with multiple rounds of internal checks and peer review. For the head of Cochrane to make a personal statement on a published review is unprecedented, comparable to a personal editorial by the Executive Editor of the New York Times on one of its own in-depth investigations.
A science that follows trends
This event also marked an odd point in the chronology of mask use. Before the pandemic, few, if any, organisations promoted face masks to stop influenza or other respiratory viruses. As WHO concluded in its 2019 pandemic preparedness plan: “There have been numerous randomised studies with high-quality controls showing that personal protective measures such as hand hygiene and masks have, at best, a small effect on influenza transmission.” Thus, it was not surprising that both Tufekci’s claims of ‘face masks work’ and Karla Soares-Weiser’s allegations of problems in the Cochrane review turned out to be without real evidence. Earlier this year, Soares-Weiser issued another statement, this time explaining that the mask review was correct and that no changes would be made. Despite the about-face, the damage to the Cochrane review on masks had already been done. Google points directly to Tufekci’s article in the New York Times, which criticises the conclusions to the Cochrane review. Why did Soares-Weiser change her mind? Paul D. Thacker claims to have discovered, through the examination of hundreds of emails obtained after several Freedom of Information requests made by him and a Cochrane whistleblower, that Tufekci pushed Soares-Weiser to make the statement against the Cochrane review – a move that had the effect of a grenade within the organisation Scientists with specific expertise on the subject have accused Cochrane of sidelining science by collaborating with the ‘controversial writer’ Zeynep Tufekci; meanwhile, the Editor of the review on masks reminded Cochrane executives that changes to the Cochrane review on masks had only been made because of ‘intense media coverage and criticism’ and not because there were problems with the science of the review. This affair raises questions about media ethics because it clearly shows how during the pandemic, and still today, scientific decisions can be strongly influenced by external dynamics, jeopardising the integrity of scientific research and public trust in scientific institutions
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