Three days after we reported that Elsevier would be retracting a paper about COVID-19 and masks whose author claimed a false affiliation with Stanford, the publisher tells us that the “paper is misleading,” “misquotes and selectively cites published papers,” and that the data in one table is “unverified.”
As we noted earlier this week:
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…
Here is Elsevier’s statement in full:
Medical Hypotheses serves as a forum for innovative and often disruptive ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences. However, the journal’s strict editorial policy is not to publish misleading or inaccurate citations to advance any hypotheses. The Editorial Committee concluded that this paper is misleading in the below aspects and has therefore decided to retract the article:
-A broader review of existing scientific evidence clearly shows that approved masks with correct certification, and worn in compliance with guidelines, are an effective prevention of COVID-19 transmission.
– The manuscript misquotes and selectively cites published papers. References #16, 17 ,25 and 26 are all misquoted.
-Table 1. Physiological and Psychological Effects of Wearing Facemask and Their Potential Health Consequences, generated by the author. All data in the table is unverified, and there are several speculative statements.
-The author submitted that he is currently affiliated to Stanford University, and VA Palo Alto Health Care System. However, both institutions have confirmed that Dr. Vainshelboim ended his connection with them in 2016.
A subsequent internal investigation by the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher determined that this article was externally peer reviewed prior to publication but not with the journal’s customary standards of rigor. The journal has re-designed its editorial and review workflow to ensure that this will not happen again in future and would like to apologize to the readers of The Journal for difficulties this issue has caused.
We’ve followed up to ask how the peer review was not done “with the journal’s customary standards of rigor,” what went wrong, and what exact changes the journal is making to “ensure that this will not happen again in future.” We’ll update with anything we learn.
For more on the journal’s controversial past, see this, this, and this.
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Can’t say much about the study itself. These masks come in a box labeled “not for medical use.” And there was the Danish study. So, masks may or may not confer some kind of magic. But I suspect what you may have missed here is that the take down of this study was done at the behest of the academic-Twitter-Snopes mob.
I believe you are aware of how political these academic journals are. Perhaps a look at the ‘committee’ who said the study was “misleading” (what the heck does that mean?) might prove illuminating. Bottom line?
There is no evidence masks do a darn thing (10 microns vs. 1 micron, right?), unless, perhaps, some supperating half-dead wheezer with Covid up to his gills walks into a bar and wearing a mask, coughs on everyone nearby. Some people will be saved in this case, as giant globules of spit will be stopped by the otherwise questionable mask apparatus.
Hi George (Skeptical1 might benefit from reading this as well). Please read this review by Howard et al, it is free access, very rigorous, straightforward and easy to read. Read all the references therein (more than 100) and realize that “the Danish study” or whatever information you have read in conspiracy theorist websites is probably biased, incomplete and as Skeptical1 would say, anti-science. Here is the link https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
The evidence is clear: Masks do NOT work to effectively reduce transmission of Covid-19. And Retraction Watch is anti-science.
Actually, a retraction means the evidence is unclear. It’s not an endorsement of the paper.
Unfortunately, in the current political climate, a retraction is probably considered evidence supporting truth. It’s a badge of honor, indicating that the findings are too radical for the woke “academic-Twitter-Snopes mob” and so they must ban it because they can’t handle the truth. Vainshelboim can now join the circuit with Andrew Wakefield, Judy Mikovits, et al. who are celebrated by those who don’t understand how science works and frankly don’t want to know, so long as they can own the libs.
I wish we lived in less interesting times.
I agree that the paper in question should NOT have been published. One of my main reasons for stating this is that the paper was poorly written grammatically. How it got past peer review is amazing, for this reason alone. Also, from what I know, the claims about the harmful effects on breathing are not substantial — this is a weak argument against simple cloth and surgical masks.
There are much stronger arguments against mass masking, and there is much better data substantiating the failure of masks to have any correlation with (let alone causative effect in) controlling COVID-19 cases.
This paper only makes legitimate, well-structured, well-written analyses look bad.
Masks are clearly ridiculous, as they are being forced today, but there are high-quality approaches to making this point. A sloppily edited, unverified composition is NOT such a high-quality approach.
Robert, Vivian just posted a thorough review of the literature on the effectiveness of masks in reducing Covid transmission. Is there a similar review or perhaps some individual studies that provide good data showing that mask-wearing is an _ineffective_ approach to slow Covid transmission?
To be fair to the “Danish study”, they were looking at the policy of giving people masks, not the effect of wearing them, and this in the context of low risk, and in a study that was only powered to detect a pretty overwhelming 50% reduction in risk. The observed 20% risk reduction was not statistically significant, but would have been of considerable public health importance if it had been in observed in a study with sufficient power to measure it.