A study that warned of the perils of using face masks as a precaution against contracting Covid-19 appears slated for retraction, Retraction Watch has learned.
[Please see an update on this post.]
The 2020 paper, “Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis,” was written by Baruch Vainshelboim, who listed his affiliation as Stanford University and the VA Palo Alto Health System. But the study gained wide circulation earlier this month, thanks in part to some conservative politicians, and became the subject of fact-checks by the Associated Press and Snopes, which pointed out that
The paper was published by an exercise physiologist with no academic connection to Stanford University or the NIH in a journal that accepts “radical, speculative and non-mainstream scientific ideas.”
Among the claims in the article are that:
The existing scientific evidences challenge the safety and efficacy of wearing facemask as preventive intervention for COVID-19. The data suggest that both medical and non-medical facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease such SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting against the usage of facemasks.
Vainshelboim also argued that:
Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety and depression.
But Stanford disavowed Vainshelboim and his article in a statement:
Stanford Medicine strongly supports the use of face masks to control the spread of COVID-19.
A study on the efficacy of face masks against COVID-19 published in the November 2020 issue of the journal Medical Hypotheses is not a “Stanford study.” The author’s affiliation is inaccurately attributed to Stanford, and we have requested a correction. The author, Baruch Vainshelboim, had no affiliation with the VA Palo Alto Health System or Stanford at the time of publication and has not had any affiliation since 2016, when his one-year term as a visiting scholar on matters unrelated to this paper ended.
A post on The Gateway Pundit which identified the study as related to Stanford has been updated.
Stanford isn’t the only bogus credential Vainshelboim has used as an author. He often lists an affiliation with Rabin Medical Center, in Israel. However, according to an email we have seen from a faculty member at the institution, Vainshelboim has not been on staff there for at least eight years and never held a professorship, as he has claimed in biographies.
In his 2019 article, “Physiological Responses and Prognostic Value of Common Exercise Testing Modalities in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis,” Vainshelboim has three institiontional affiliations: Stanford, Rabin Medical Center and the School of Health Sciences at Saint Francis University, in Loretto, Pa. (The official title is the School of Health Sciences & Education.) That last one does appear to be true, according to this 2019 press release. However, the dean’s office for the school told us that Vainshelboim is no longer with the university. Donald Walkovich, the dean of the School of Health Sciences & Education, confirmed that Vainshelboim worked there between August 2017 and May 2019, but would not discuss the reason for his departure.
Vainshelboim’s arrival at Saint Francis was profiled in this brief 2017 news article, which noted that he had:
more than 10 years of clinical experience in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation and exercise testing where he served as in-charge exercise physiologist of the cardiac rehabilitation program at Wingate College, Israel, and as a clinical exercise researcher for cardiopulmonary exercise testing and pulmonary rehabilitation at the Rabin Medical Center, Israel.
Those details don’t seem to jibe with what’s on Vainshelboim’s LinkedIn page, which says he received a PhD in exercise physiology from the University of Porto in 2014 and a master’s degree from Wingate in 2008.
Vainshelboim did not respond to a request for comment.
We reached out to Steve Shafer, former editor-in-chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia, and a member of our parent nonprofit’s board of directors, who said:
Several of my Stanford colleagues brought this case to my attention after Stanford issued a denial of any current association with Dr. Vainshelboim. Dr. Vainshelboim also claims to be a Professor at Rabin Medical Center. Out of curiosity I contacted one of their faculty, who denied any current association with Dr. Vainshelboim. I also sent an e-mail to Dr. Vainshelboim, but he has not responded.
The case reminds me of Joachim Boldt, who signed his emails as “Professor” even though he was working as Chief of Anesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine at Klinikum Ludwigshafen, a hospital that offers no such title. I think it is a red flag when someone adopts the term “Professor” if the institution that employs them offers no such title.”
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Perhaps part of the manuscript screening process at journals should include verification of the claimed institutional affiliations & [if needed] qualifications of submitting authors, in addition to peer review. Then some of these charlatans might never get these papers published in the first place. If someone is not who they claim to be, then instantly their scientific work & claims made in a manuscript should also arouse suspicion…
Just curious – apart from bogus academic connections, the paper did pass “peer review” in an esteemed Elsevier publication. Is the science accurate? There seems to be no refutation of that in the snippets above.
I think you need to learn the definition of “esteemed.”
Perhaps check again the meaning of “sarcasm”. As noted below, this journal has an “impact factor” over 4.
It has an impact factor of 1.2. It may publish a viable speculation now and then, but who cares. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Do the work. It also publishes absolute rubbish aplenty in exchange for coin.
Of course the data is accurate. But the problem is it doesn’t toe the political agenda, sorry, The Science that masks are somehow effective deterrents in the spread of The Covid and that masks themselves don’t have any negative medical or psychological side-effects from long term use. (Which of course is not true, especially if you are forced to wear a mask continuously for 8-9 hours/day five days or more a week.) So they have to find something, anything, to discredit/retract the article. In this case, problems with “author affiliatons”.
From the abstract of this paper: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118 “The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infected respiratory particles in both laboratory and clinical contexts. Public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high”
Of course, as someone cited in this Nature article, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8, points out: “Masks work, but they are not infallible. And, therefore, keep your distance.” It’s common sense.
I can’t imagine what sort of ‘side effects’ of wearing masks, even if worn for 8-9 hours per day, would be serious enough to recommend against their use to reduce Covid transmission. But, perhaps Mr. Kemmler can provide a reasonable argument with sufficient empirical evidence to justify a recommendation against their use. Tell you what, I won’t be holding my breath.
There are no data in the paper. It’s pure speculation. The journal will publish, for a fee of $1850, your crazy hypothesis.
While Elsevier are busy retracting terrible papers on the effects of wearing masks to suppress the spread of Covid-19, they might also check this awful piece published in *Results in Physics* titled: “Facemasks simple but powerful weapons to protect against COVID-19 spread: Can they have sides effects?”
The authors of this ‘paper’ claim that a full diver’s mask could be used to prevent the spread of Covid because its strengths include “No jaw fatigue, no snorkel clearing, less fogging due to better air circulation, suitable for colder climates, no risk losing your regulator, can be used when u [sic] have a beard, optional under water communication”
This is just one of the more comical mistakes in the paper. Its full PubPeer thread is available here: https://pubpeer.com/publications/D277380F570C18F91F4EEC93199E1F
One might ask how such a flawed paper could be published in a journal with an impact factor of 4.02 and go on to be cited more than 30 times in only a few months? Hint: the author is also the editor of the journal, and is no stranger to RetractionWatch.
Retraction Watch is anti-science, full stop.
It, like Scopes, is just another political and ideological watchdog.
Conform to the left-wing orthodoxy, or else!
Yeah, that’s right! Demanding truthful professional affiliations is leftist BS!
Pure speculation … Why do I even bother … ?
To review a few of the egregious errors; facemasks are supposed to stop CO2 molecules and oxygen flow, while coronavirus particles, a thousand times larger, pass freely. Masks will cause faintness and interfere with physical and cognitive function, but surgeons wear them all day, marathoners have worn them without issue, and I regularly run up 4 floors with one. Scholarship requires some obligation to the truth, which was not found in Vanshelboim’s paper.
Left-wing orthodoxy? This paper has been making the rounds on right-wing websites since its publication. Almost all of the anti-mask propaganda comes from Trump-supporting sources, where anti-COVID public health measures have been resisted from the beginning (“Fire Fauci!”)