One measure of the strength of your argument is how far down the list of experts you have to go before you find one who agrees with you. A correction issued on the Sky News website gives an example:
A segment of the Outsiders program broadcast on December 11, 2022 concerning a report released by the US Department of Health and Human Services about management of Long COVID and use of masks included an interview with US naturopathic doctor, Dr Mark Sherwood. The broadcast did not intend to suggest that Dr Sherwood was a medically trained doctor and any such inference is incorrect.
The views expressed by Dr Sherwood were expressed as a naturopath.
Sherwood — who compensates in enthusiasm for what he lacks in genuine medical qualifications — had told Sky News in December that mask mandates in the US are “not necessary”, encouraging people to “push back” against the government. He goes on to insist:
People that had lessened lockdown and lessened mask measures did much better in all cause and mortality.
It is now flu season, and now they’re pushing more of this flu, RSV, COVID combo now … this now trifecta virus that just magically mutated. Most of them push back and say well it didn’t work the first time, why would it work this time, and in this case they are right.
… When we are breathing in this mask, we’re seeing dampness come out, creating a literal magnet of germs.
Nothing says “medical insight” like expressing shock at the thought of a virus mutating, and we might want a citation on the claim that fewer masks and lockdowns allowed populations to do “much better in all cause and mortality”.
Panelist Rowan Dean does introduce Sherwood as a “naturopathic doctor”, but James Morrow calls him “doctor” throughout and asks Sherwood’s “medical opinion” on the effect masks have on the immune system. So it’s not surprising someone at Sky really wants the distinction between “actual doctor” and “naturopathic doctor” made clear — as do a lot of medical regulators, incidentally. The segment features a chyron caption reading “Mask Madness: based on so-called science”. Which is pretty funny.
In the US you can be a “naturopathic doctor”, which means you have graduated from a four-year naturopathic school and passed a licensing exam given by the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education. It varies from state to state whether they can legally, say, write prescriptions or order X-rays.
So, where did they find Sherwood? Presumably the Outsiders team knew they had to get him on once they saw his powerful performance at an anti-mask event in Grand Rapids in 2021:
One point neither the correction nor the segment mentions is Sherwood’s other recent gig as a former Republican gubernatorial candidate in Oklahoma. During his campaign in 2022, he attacked sitting Republican Governor Kevin Stitt for his apathy in the face of an apparent “attack from the rogue BIDEN COMMUNIST REGIME!!” as Sherwood wrote in his campaign launch.
Apart from his views on the institutional response to COVID, Sherwood has also spread the baseless theory that the 2020 presidential election that unseated Donald Trump was “fraudulent”.
Sherwood lost the primary, and Stitt was returned as governor.
I don’t watch Sky News but it still annoys me that they can churn out misinformation and bias with impunity while calling themselves “news”. In this case they reached for the bottom of the barrel to find someone who agrees with their anti-vaxxer beliefs and presented them in such a way as to mislead. Did they talk about Sherwood’s gubernatorial campaign with its baseless concerns about communism? I bet they did not.
Absolutely agree.
However, we must be cautious how we fling around the term “misinformation”.
A recent meta-analysis by the Cochrane institute – a peak scientific method by a peak scientific body – found the evidence for mask wearing was very thin.
“There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks…
The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection.”
Read the study in full here.
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full
Thanks for the link. That study’s ‘conclusions’ sections starts with “The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.” Given that we know the disease is airborne, I expect masks to have a beneficial impact, and this study is not strong enough to dent my expectation. I do feel a little odd these days, though, wearing a mask in the supermarket.
I admit the results are a surprise to me too, Don.
The idea that masks do not reduce the spread of an airborne disease is counter-intuitive…
This analysis certainly doesn’t rule out that masks could reduce the spread of Covid-19…but what it makes clear is that there is little to no compelling scientific evidence that it definitely does reduce the spread.
That’s my point. We cannot disparage people who don’t believe in the efficacy of masks too much, because the evidence of mask efficacy is not strong.
https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spreading-covid-despite-a-review-saying-they-dont-198992
https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spreading-covid-despite-a-review-saying-they-dont-198992
Why do surgeons and theatre staff wear masks while carrying our operations. ?
There have been a number of laboratory tests which show that masks do indeed reduce the transmission of viruses and bacteria.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118
https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spreading-covid-despite-a-review-saying-they-dont-198992
https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spreading-covid-despite-a-review-saying-they-dont-198992
He’s not a chef so how can I believe a word he says?
Depends what he’s saying, really.
If he makes a claim about food hygiene that differs radically from the accepted orthodoxy on food hygiene, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong or lying, just that he should probably have a fairly rigorous argument backed by data and evidence before you trust his claims over that of actual chefs and food scientists.
Thanks for venturing into the alternate reality of Sky.
And reporting on it. It’s just about as much of it as I can take.
STY non news seems to aim clearly at outflanking sense and decency with consistently dishonest planned efforts, and soullessly rotten speakers. An erectile ego must drive these fleas on…
STY, and Limited News more generally, is little more than a (waning) money-making comfort blanket venture – where myth and fairy tales are the balm du jour – for those in need…. when truth is too challenging.
“Proving their version of a credible expert is ‘someone who agrees with us'”
I know another media player who only ever cites experts who agree with it. I wonder who that could be.
Fox News isn’t really another media player. It exists under the same umbrella.