President Biden: ‘I’m Not Confident About Anything’ | Guest: Jill Savage | 6/17/21

President Biden: ‘I’m Not Confident About Anything’ | Guest: Jill Savage | 6/17/21

Parents send face masks worn by children at school for lab analysis. Results show 'dangerous pathogens' on masks.



Exactly what gets collected on your face mask after hours of use? Many medical experts have claimed there are no health drawbacks to wearing face masks for long periods of time, as long as you regularly clean them or use a new covering each time you mask up.

But Florida parents, who are concerned about children wearing face masks at school, discovered recently that face masks actually catch a host of bacteria, many of which are "dangerous pathogens."

What are the details?

The Gainesville parents sent six recently worn face masks to the University of Florida for laboratory testing. They discovered that face masks collect numerous bacteria that cause, in many cases, serious illnesses.

The parents wanted the face masks tested "because they were concerned about the potential of contaminants on masks that their children were forced to wear all day at school, taking them on and off, setting them on various surfaces, wearing them in the bathroom, etc.," Rational Ground explained.

"We need to know what we are putting on the faces of our children each day. Masks provide a warm, moist environment for bacteria to grow," parent Amanda Donoho told Rational Ground.

The tests, conducted by the University of Florida's Mass Spectrometry Research and Education Center, discovered that five of the six masks contained a host of bacteria and three of the masks were contaminated with "dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria."

The 11 "dangerous pathogens" found on the masks are responsible for illnesses that include:

  • Pneumonia
  • Tuberculosis
  • Meningitis and Sepsis
  • Food poisoning from E. coli
  • Diphtheria
  • Lyme Disease
  • Urinary Tract Infections

More from Rational Ground:

Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more.

The tested masks were new or had been freshly washed. They were worn by children ages 6-11 attending in-person school, while one was worn by an adult. Unworn masks and a T-shirt worn by one of the children were used as controls.

"No pathogens were found on the control," Rational Ground noted.

What do doctors say?

Dr. Patrick Grant, a microbiologist at Florida Atlantic University, said last year that unwashed face masks do, indeed, accumulate harmful bacteria.

"It's very common that we will eat and then put our mask back on and if we are sweating a little we are creating a really nice soup for this bacteria," Grant said.

However, infectious disease specialist, Dr. Rossana Rosa, said the risk of pneumonia transmission, for example, due to accumulated infected particles on a face mask is nonexistent.

"The way bacterial pneumonia tends to develop is through aspirating — or breathing in — contents into the lungs. So, in terms of wearing a mask, the respiratory droplets you exhale that land on the inside of your mask that you then breath [sic] back in will not give you bacterial pneumonia," Rosa explained. "If you have phlegm, you should find a way to safely spit it out. That way you aren't at risk of breathing in large amounts of mucus or saliva into your lungs, which is how bacterial pneumonia develops."

What is less clear, as the concerned Florida parents indicated, is the transmission risk when school children are taking off and putting on their face masks multiple times per school day to eat and drink. With the accumulation of harmful bacteria, the chances of falling sick would theoretically increase.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest guidance recommended that students continue wearing face masks through the 2020-21 school year.

Horowitz: A group of Florida parents cultured their children’s masks and found dangerous bacteria



The idea of children, including preschoolers, walking around with bacteria traps on their breathing orifices all day so shocked the conscience that last summer, a bunch of internet parodies were produced illustrating such absurdity. Then, within weeks, most local governments mandated this cruel form of child abuse for an entire year without any study of the side effects. Now a group of parents from the Gainesville, Florida, area have shown that such masks are traps for harmful bacteria that potentially make children much sicker than from COVID — the virus for which the masks were required, but failed to mitigate.

In a press release obtained by TheBlaze and posted at RationalGround.com, six Alachua County, Florida, parents reported the findings of the lab cultures of their children's masks worn in school. The parents sent the six masks to the University of Florida's Mass Spectrometry Research and Education Center after they were worn for five to eight hours, most during in-person schooling by children ages 6 through 11. Although many students across the country likely wore dirty masks indefinitely for numerous days, the face masks studied in this analysis were new or freshly laundered before wearing. One of the masks submitted was from an adult who wore it at work as a cosmetologist.

The resulting report found that five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria.

The lab used a method called proteomics to extract proteins from the masks and sequence them. The analysis detected the following 11 alarmingly dangerous pathogens on the masks:

  • Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumonia)
  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)
  • Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis, sepsis)
  • Acanthamoeba polyphaga (keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis)
  • Acinetobacter baumanni (pneumonia, bloodstream infections, meningitis, UTIs — resistant to antibiotics)
  • Escherichia coli (food poisoning)
  • Borrelia burgdorferi (causes Lyme disease)
  • Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diphtheria)
  • Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires' disease)
  • Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3 (severe infections — high morbidity rates)
  • Staphylococcus aureus (meningitis, sepsis)

"Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria," according to the release. "One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more."

For a control, the parents submitted a T-shirt worn by one of the children at school and unworn masks. No pathogens were found on the controls.

Obviously, the naysayers will immediately jump on this and criticize it as being a rudimentary study and small sample size. But that is the entire point. Of course, this issue needs further study. But why has this not been done over the course of the entire year by our government or any well-funded institution? How can we mandate such draconian policies without studying the side effects, including the spread of pathogens? Why is this left to helpless parents trying to raise awareness of these concerns?

It's not like these concerns are novel. On March 8, 2020, Dr. Fauci told "60 Minutes" that masks can only block large droplets, they give a false sense of security, and they cause people to get more germs on their hands by fiddling with them. Several weeks later, Surgeon General Jerome Adams punctuated this point about the counterproductivity of wearing masks in public. Appearing on "Fox & Friends" on March 31, Adams said that based on a study that shows medical students who wear masks touch their faces 23 times more often, one has to assume that "wearing a mask improperly can actually increase your risk of getting disease."

A 2014 study of hospital workers wearing surgical masks in a Bangkok hospital found their masks to be saturated with Staphylococcus aureus (found on some of the masks in the Alachua study) and the fungus Aspergillus. Another study of hospital workers in China from 2019 observed that after more than six hours of use, masks worn by medical personnel also contained viruses, including adenovirus, bocavirus, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza viruses. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to hypothesize that a warm and humid microclimate cultivated by a mask is going to serve as an incubator for all sorts of pathogens. Not surprisingly, studies have shown that pathogen density on masks grows exponentially after two hours of use.

To this day, Fauci and CDC researchers have never answered how those concerns were no longer valid after their political U-turn on masks, given the terrible conditions with which we've witnessed the entire country wearing and reusing masks. The same reason why Fauci said last summer they never planned to embark on a randomized controlled trial of the efficacy of masks is likely why they never studied the side effects of masks either. They didn't want to discover the truth that they themselves originally understood.

These findings are important for two reasons. First, there is a need to ensure that mask mandates are never implemented again. The Boston Globe is already advocating their use for the flu season. Second, as much as the mask mandate has ended for most consumers, workers in many professions are still required to wear them for hours on end without regard for the hazards they pose.

A Florida appeals court has already ruled that the mask mandate in Alachua County is presumptively unconstitutional because it violates bodily autonomy. The risk of masks cultivating and spreading other pathogens is just another reason why something this personal to the body must remain a personal choice.