Records show Fauci knew about and ignored a CDC study regarding masks’ inefficacy.
July 26, 2023
(Washington, DC) – Today, the Functional Government Initiative (FGI) announced that documents obtained from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from litigation on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request contain evidence of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s clear disregard of medical research. These records show that Dr. Fauci and his team were aware of a then-recent study on masks from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and chose to ignore the evidence in their own paper that was trying to prove the efficacy of masks in preventing COVID-19.
In October 2020, The Federalist published an article citing a CDC study showing that masks and face coverings were not effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Released in September 2020, the study examined 154 case-patients who tested positive for COVID-19 compared to a control group of 160 participants from health care facilities who tested negative but were symptomatic. According to that study, “In the 14 days before illness onset, 71% of case-patients and 74 percent of control-participants reported always using cloth face coverings or other mask types when in public.” In addition, more than 14% from both categories who reported using cloth face coverings or other mask types “often” still were infected.
The records obtained by FGI showed that Dr. Fauci was aware of both the article and the study while working on his mask efficacy paper, as a colleague sent them to him the same day the article was published. In response, Fauci stated, “Not good for our paper.”
Earlier the same day, another colleague on the team writing the paper e-mailed Dr. Fauci a medical review on the efficacy of masks in preventing infection in healthcare and community settings. She commented that, “I think that when you actually look at the data regarding protecting individuals in the community though, it is weak. In addition, most of the studies in the review involved medical masks – not the cloth masks that are currently recommended (and CDC advises the public to avoid surgical masks and n95s intended for healthcare workers).”
When Dr. Fauci published his paper later in October 2020, it made no mention of the CDC study. In the paper, Dr. Fauci stated, “Surgical masks can reduce respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath, and the filtering efficacy of some materials used in cloth masks may approach that of surgical masks.” Interestingly enough, all of the supporting references in the paper are from studies and papers published between April and July 2020, and again, with no mention of the CDC study from September 2020.
Peter McGinnis, spokesman for FGI, issued the following statement:
“During the pandemic, Dr. Fauci was the face of the United States’ medical and scientific struggle against COVID-19. So it should be extremely concerning to the American public that he cherry-picked research on the efficacy of masks in preventing the spread of the virus. He clearly knew about the CDC study showing masks didn’t work as we were told, but he chose neither to address nor even mention it and instead pushed forward his paper saying the exact opposite. At best, this is poor scientific ethics. If Dr. Fauci was so quick to ignore science so early in the pandemic, why should the American public trust anything else he said or did over the last few years?”