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    DR Cowan On Mask Study

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    K Mehmet Şensoy
    This document summarizes and critiques a study published in Nature that examined whether wearing masks can slow the spread of viruses. It makes the following key points: 1. The study did not prove that the viruses detected were actually transmissible through exhaled breath, which is necessary to justify mandating mask-wearing. 2. The study used PCR and viral culture techniques to detect viruses, but PCR detects genetic material only, not live viruses, and viral cultures were inaccurate over 50% of the time. 3. Given the inaccuracies of the detection methods, the study's conclusion that masks can slow virus spread is unsupported and larger, more controlled studies are needed.

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    DR Cowan On Mask Study

    Uploaded by

    K Mehmet Şensoy
    47 views3 pages
    This document summarizes and critiques a study published in Nature that examined whether wearing masks can slow the spread of viruses. It makes the following key points: 1. The study did not prove that the viruses detected were actually transmissible through exhaled breath, which is necessary to justify mandating mask-wearing. 2. The study used PCR and viral culture techniques to detect viruses, but PCR detects genetic material only, not live viruses, and viral cultures were inaccurate over 50% of the time. 3. Given the inaccuracies of the detection methods, the study's conclusion that masks can slow virus spread is unsupported and larger, more controlled studies are needed.

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    Dr Cowan on Mask Study

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    This document summarizes and critiques a study published in Nature that examined whether wearing masks can slow the spread of viruses. It makes the following key points: 1. The study did not prove that the viruses detected were actually transmissible through exhaled breath, which is necessary to justify mandating mask-wearing. 2. The study used PCR and viral culture techniques to detect viruses, but PCR detects genetic material only, not live viruses, and viral cultures were inaccurate over 50% of the time. 3. Given the inaccuracies of the detection methods, the study's conclusion that masks can slow virus spread is unsupported and larger, more controlled studies are needed.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    47 views3 pages

    DR Cowan On Mask Study

    Uploaded by

    K Mehmet Şensoy
    This document summarizes and critiques a study published in Nature that examined whether wearing masks can slow the spread of viruses. It makes the following key points: 1. The study did not prove that the viruses detected were actually transmissible through exhaled breath, which is necessary to justify mandating mask-wearing. 2. The study used PCR and viral culture techniques to detect viruses, but PCR detects genetic material only, not live viruses, and viral cultures were inaccurate over 50% of the time. 3. Given the inaccuracies of the detection methods, the study's conclusion that masks can slow virus spread is unsupported and larger, more controlled studies are needed.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 3

     

    If Transmission Through Exhaled Breath Hasn't


    Been Proven, All Other Findings Are Irrelevant
    Dear friends,

    People around the world are being led into an increasingly downtrodden and disease-
    laden state, not by some viral infection but by wildly unscientific “science.” A study
    published in the April 2020 Nature magazine that reports that wearing masks can slow
    the spread of the virus is an example of such deception. As I will show, the authors of
    this article repeatedly make unsupportable claims, and even present data that
    cast doubt on their own methodology. The peer reviewers of Nature apparently
    didn’t catch these obvious contradictions. Let’s look in some detail at the statements
    and claims (in italics below) in this paper.

    “We found that the majority of participants with influenza virus and coronavirus infection
    did not shed detectable virus in respiratory droplets or aerosols.”
    This statement implies that the authors looked for and found detectable virus in
    some respiratory droplets and aerosols (but only in a minority of their subjects, who
    were actively sick — itself a surprising finding). It is widely known that the only way to
    prove the presence of a virus in a sample is to actually see the virus under electron
    microscopy. There is no mention of having done any electron microscopy on any
    sample. When they claim they did not detect virus, what they mean is that the surrogate
    PCR test, which detects fragments of genetic material, was positive. However, nowhere
    in the medical literature is there conclusive proof that this genetic material originates
    from any novel virus.

    “Another limitation is that we did not confirm the infectivity of coronavirus or rhinovirus
    detected in exhaled breath.”

    The premise of mandating the wearing of masks is that it prevents transmission of


    disease. Neither this study, nor any other study we’ve seen, proves transmission
    of any disease through exhaled breath. Amazingly, these authors acknowledge they
    didn’t even attempt to prove transmission. What’s more amazing is that this study is
    being used as evidence that wearing masks is an effective method of preventing or
    lowering the incidence of disease transmission. If transmission through breath can’t
    be proven, then all other findings in this study are rendered irrelevant.

    "After one or more of the candidate respiratory viruses was detected by the viral panel
    from the nasal swab, all the samples from the same participant (nasal swab, throat
    swab, respiratory droplets and aerosols) were then tested with RT–PCR specific for the
    candidate virus(es) for determination of virus concentration in the samples. Infectious
    influenza virus was identified by viral culture using MDCK cells as described previously,
    whereas viral culture was not performed for coronavirus and rhinovirus.”

    These statements need careful examination and explanation, as they get to the core of
    the misleading conclusions of the study. First, they state that the method they used to
    detect the presence of the virus was the RT-PCR test, which, as I said, does not detect
    virus at all. Rather, it detects genetic material, which they only assume must have come
    from the virus in question.

    Then, they say that with influenza virus, they did attempt to confirm the accuracy of the
    RT-PCR testing with viral “cultures.” Viral culturing is itself a deceptive process, which I
    won’t expand on here, but let’s assume that it is a “gold standard” for finding the
    presence of “live viruses.” In other words, it would be akin to doing a strep culture for
    someone with a sore throat. If the culture was positive, you have proof that the strep
    bacteria was present. (Still, the presence of the bacteria doesn’t prove causation.) This
    positive culture allows you to check the accuracy of the rapid strep test, which detects
    only pieces of strep or antibodies to strep, so it confirms the validity of your surrogate
    test.

    First, the study authors admit they didn’t do any culturing with the coronavirus, but they
    did with four of the six participants who tested PCR-positive to influenza virus with
    droplets collected through the mask. Again, with these four participants, a very small
    number to be sure, they decided to do an internal check on the accuracy of their PCR
    testing. What they found is only two people showed a positive culture. Even using their
    own flawed assumptions about viral culture, this finding demonstrates that the PCR test
    was falsely positive a whopping 50 percent of the time. To put this in common
    language, what they “proved” is that the very test they used to determine whether
    a mask stopped the spread of a coronavirus was no more accurate than a coin
    flip. Fifty percent of the time, by their own account, a positive test (for influenza virus) is
    incorrect, and there is no virus present.

    In a sane world, this study’s conclusion should have been, “Our data demonstrate
    that doing PCR or RT-PCR testing is an inaccurate way of detecting virus or the
    utility of masks to stop the spread of a virus.” They then should have called for
    larger, carefully controlled studies to determine whether the PCR testing has any utility
    at all (It doesn’t).

    Most lay people and, incredibly, most physicians will have no idea how to read this study
    and determine its validity. So, people read the abstract or conclusion (or, worse yet, an
    article's headline0, and believe what the authors assert. That is the problem. Unless
    someone actually helps people understand exactly what these studies are showing, and
    calls out the deceptive nature of much of this whole peer-reviewed science enterprise,
    most people will continue to be led down a path that could be disastrous personally and
    societally.

    With gratitude for your support, and humility, please let me know whether you have
    questions.

    Tom Cowan, M.D.

    Human Heart Cosmic Heart 104 Villa Lane Davidson , North Carolina 28306

     
     

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