My Primary Care Provider is a Science-Denying Mask Freak – So I Fired Them

HOUSTON, 23 Jan 2023 – This morning I walked out of a doctor's appointment. Why? Because they insisted I put on a useless blue surgical face mask. The cheap kind that we've all seen (and probably worn) a million times by now.

A year or two ago, I probably would have complied while grumbling under my breath. But three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, and after it's been shown repeatedly that those popular blue masks are not effective against the virus, I questioned their request for me to don one of them. 

There was only one other patient in the IORA Primary Care waiting room when I entered. I immediately noticed that he wore a mask, but it was lowered beneath his chin. He might has well have not had it on at all. He was sitting right in front of the masked receptionist, who told me to put on a mask. Why didn't she tell him to pull his mask up to cover his mouth and nose?

This hit me the wrong way. "If I do," I said, "can I wear it below my chin like that guy is?" She immediately told him to pull his mask up, which he did. I was now in a room with two people wearing loosely fitting, ineffective masks. I protested.

"The masks are ineffective," I said. "Even the CDC has said as much."

"It's just our policy," the masked receptionist at IORA Primary Care said, "and we follow CDC guidelines." They might think so, but they seem to be ignoring the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has stated that "The surgical mask is a bad fit for risk reduction." The CDC itself has said that a blue surgical mask "Does NOT provide the wearer with a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles and is not considered respiratory protection," and "Leakage occurs around the edge of the mask when user inhales." In other words, useless – perhaps even dangerous.

Then something very telling happened. The man who had his mask below his chin when I entered piped up and said his wife died of COVID.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said, "but was she wearing a mask?" Mr. Below-The-Chin said his wife must have caught COVID when "it slipped down one day." 

"How do you know that's when she caught it?" I asked.

"It had to be!" he exclaimed. Of course, there's no way to know for certain when or where she became infected.

Remember that this guy was, moments earlier, was wearing a mask below his chin. Not wishing to argue with a man who recently lost his wife, I didn't point out his idiotic contradiction. I can only attribute his belief that his wife caught COVID because her ineffective cheap mask slipped below her nose momentarily to an utter lack of critical thinking. I know that's harsh, but this guy swallowed the mask propaganda with big cup of ignorance. 

The clinic's health care "coach" entered the room. She was masked, of course, and told me to mask up. I replied that I could no longer trust a doctor who is a science denier and tells me the cheap masks they were wearing – and wanted me to wear – are required even though shown to be useless, and while other doctors and medical facilities in Houston no longer require them.

It was clear by now that I was talking to people who were brainwashed or ignorant. More likely, they were following orders from people who are brainwashed, ignorant, or think they have to virtue signal to their staff and clientele. I'm now searching for another primary care provider.

Video: The scientific case against face masks

Some of you may think it odd that I, who refused to wear a mask, called those who do "science deniers." Many called those of us who said masks are ineffective "science deniers." The irony: We were right and the mask pushers were wrong.

Face masks are no longer required at any of the other doctors' offices I visit. That includes my cardiologist, my dermatologist, my skin surgeon and others. I recently had a four-night stay in a major hospital here in Houston (I'm okay now), and while all of the staff wore masks there was no requirement to wear one to enter the building. I didn't wear one for my entire stay, and none of the paramedics who transported me to the hospital wore masks in the ambulance or in the emergency room wore masks. Most of the other patients I saw did not wear masks.

How not to wear a face mask

I should point out that all of the hospital staff were wearing those cheap blue masks that nearly everybody was wearing at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have to wonder if nurses and doctors are really unaware of the fact that those masks are nothing more than face adornments, as they are ineffective against COVID-19. That's especially true for the COVID variants.

By now, many of us realize that those ubiquitous blue face masks are pretty much useless for preventing the spread of COVID-19. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told us that way back in early February 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. 

Here's an excerpt from an email Fauci wrote back then, nearly three years ago:

"The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you." - Source: Newsweek

A lot of us knew this early on in the pandemic, back in early 2020. "A cloth mask or face covering does very little to prevent the emission or inhalation of small particles," according to an article written by experts published on April 1, 2020 by the University of Minnesota.

Not long after that, on June 11, 2020, an article by Denis G. Rancourt, PhD noted this:

"The present paper about masks illustrates the degree to which governments, the mainstream media, and institutional propagandists can decide to operate in a science vacuum, or select only incomplete science that serves their interests. Such recklessness is also certainly the case with the current global lockdown of over 1 billion people, an unprecedented experiment in medical and political history."

Rancourt's article went on to say:

"In light of the medical research, therefore, it is difficult to understand why public-health authorities are not consistently adamant about this established scientific result, since the distributed psychological, economic, and environmental harm from a broad recommendation to wear masks is significant, not to mention the unknown potential harm from concentration and distribution of pathogens on and from used masks. In this case, public authorities would be turning the precautionary principle on its head."

Some of you will consider the authors quoted above to be "science deniers" or even "conspiracy theorists," or "right wing nuts." If you do, you should know that you are actually the science deniers, and you bought into the propaganda that promoted useless masks, economy-killing lockdowns, spikes in suicides worldwide, and psychological trauma that will stay with people for the next 70 years. 

But the (discredited) U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has essentially admitted that cloth masks are ineffective...after promoting them even while knowing they were useless. (See graphic to the left.)

Some will say this post is just the ranting of a right-wing conspiracy nut. Well, okay, but "nuts" have been vindicated. The following excerpt is from the New York Times on February 21, 2023:

"But when it comes to the population-level benefits of masking, the verdict is in: Mask mandates were a bust. Those skeptics who were furiously mocked as cranks and occasionally censored as “misinformers” for opposing mandates were right. The mainstream experts and pundits who supported mandates were wrong....And the people who had the courage to say as much deserved to be listened to, not treated with contempt. They may not ever get the apology they deserve, but vindication ought to be enough." [Emphasis added]

My now-former primary care provider, IORA Primary Care, still insists on face masks that have been shown by experts – including their holy CDC – to be ineffective even as nearly every other medical facility and doctor's office in Houston doesn't. If they insist I wear a mask while another guy sits right in front of them with his mask below his chin, then to heck with them. If IORA is putting virtue signalling and political propaganda ahead of actual science, I can no longer trust them....and they owe everyone apology.

Related:

• The scientific case against face masks - Jan 13, 2023 - UnHerd 
• The "Conspiracy Theorists" Were Right - Feb 28, 2023 - Mark Dice on YouTube
• CDC no longer recommends universal masking in health facilities - Sep 26, 2022 - The Hill
• Fauci Said Masks 'Not Really Effective in Keeping Out Virus,' Email Reveals - Jun 2, 2021 - Newsweek
• Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data - Lisa M Brosseau, ScD, and Margaret Sietsema, PhD  Apr 1, 2020 - University of Minnesota
• Widely Used Surgical Masks Are Putting Health Care Workers at Serious Risk - April 28, 2020 - Scientific American 
• The surgical mask is a bad fit for risk reduction - May 17, 2016 - Canadian Medical Association Journal
• Masks Don’t Work: A Review of Science Relevant to COVID-19 Social Policy - Jun 11, 2020 - River Cities' Reader
• Blue surgical face masks are only 10% effective in preventing COVID infection, new study finds - Aug 21, 2021 - Daily Mail UK
• Cloth Masks Are Useless Against COVID-19 - Jan 12, 2022 - Infection Control Today
• Masks Still Don’t Work: More than two years on, the best scientific evidence says that masks don’t stop Covid—and public health officials continue to ignore it. - Aug 8, 2022 - City Journal