what we know about kids and masks

when a new medical story breaks, it tends to get lots of attention. but when that new piece of research gets disproved, the retraction makes almost no impact. that was the case recently with the retraction of a study in jama pediatrics that suggested that mask wearing was dangerous in children. its publication fuelled some of the anti-mask, anti-covid sentiment that lingers in our society and needlessly spread fear among parents.

the study, if you did not hear about it, purported to show that wearing face masks was dangerous for children because it increased the amount of carbon dioxide they were breathing into their lungs. studies about the theoretical dangers of face masks have been rampant throughout the pandemic, and early on many people who were opposed to mask wearing claimed that it would deprive the wearer of oxygen and impede lung function. in fact, this was easily disproved by scientific research in older adults showing no reduction in oxygen levels while wearing a mask. there is also the obvious fact that many people wear surgical masks for long periods of time without keeling over and that doctors wear surgical masks for hours at a time in medical settings without any ill effects.

many researchers who study exposure medicine commented on the paper and questioned whether this device was appropriate. also, the study measured co2 levels in the pocket of air inside the face masks of children. but that did not accurately reflect how much co2 was actually entering their lungs because the inhaled air would have been a mixture of that tiny air pocket and the ambient air around them, which would have had very low levels of co2 in it. more worrying though is that the lead authors had recently published another paper claiming that covid vaccines killed two people for every three deaths prevented. this claim was patently absurd given that the streets outside vaccination centres are not littered with dead bodies and that paper was also retracted in short order.

the problem with these studies is that even once retracted they are still used by people who oppose vaccines, mask use or any of the pandemic measures that we have put in place. people often continue to quote faulty research long after it has been contradicted by newer data, so much so that sometimes bad ideas sometimes simply do not die.

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what we know about kids and masks

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