The New Gospel: Wear A Mask And Pass The Ammunition
President James A. Garfield was shot in Washington, D.C. on July 2, 1881 by a failed officer seeker, Charles Guiteau. It took Garfield eleven weeks of excruciating pain and illness to die. At his trial Guiteau contended that his bullet had not killed Garfield. Modern medicine (circa 1881) had killed him.
Guiteau had a point. The finest doctors in America had tended to Garfield. Depending on whose opinion you take, Garfield either died from sepsis caused by doctors poking unsterile fingers, sticks and prods into the wound (Garfield’s doctors ignored Lister’s recent findings on sterilization) or they ruptured his spleen in a surgical intervention. Causing death not by bullet, but by malpractice.
The moral of the story is that, for all its glories, science and medicine are never perfect. And the public should never cede total authority for health over to the “experts”. There’s a reason the leader of the armed forces is a civilian. While soldiers design tactics in battle, the head of government, elected by the people, designs war policy.
It should be the same in medicine. Doctors, researchers and epidemiologists provide care, products and opinion. Civilians, however, should decide the healthcare system and its delivery.
But in today’s Covid-19 hysteria, worshippers of the White Coats ask, “who are these mere mortals to suggest that the experts at the World Health Organization, the Centre for Disease Control, Canada’s Ministry of Health are anything less than infallible?”
Don’t tell that to the hundreds who died in the tainted blood scandal engineered by the Red Cross from 1980- 2000. The Supreme Court of Canada found the Canadian Red Cross guilty of negligence for failing to screen blood donors effectively for HIV infection.
When the scandal was emerging, many simply assumed that venerable names such as the Red Cross were impeccable stewards of the public’s health. Who were these non-medical people with their impertinent articles and stories? Have they got medical degrees?
Sadly, the outsiders who were mocked proved accurate. The experts had failed. People died.
The same logic exists today where epidemiologists and defenders of the healthcare colossus dismiss research being done by non-medical people on Covid— even as they themselves vacillate on the best course to take.
The public has now seen the WHO, CDC, Health Canada and many more revered names backtrack on their earlier solemn instructions, reverse field on policy and generally look like they were helpless before the storm of the virus. In addition British and American “experts” estimates of death veered wildly from millions in the U.S. to as low as 50,000. Whom to believe?
Nowhere has the flexibility of truth— and the demand for complete submission to medical experts— been more apparent than in the recent debate over wearing masks. Four months ago, masks were considered extraneous to the protection roll-outs offered by policy forums and research centres. Hand washing and social distancing were the orders of the day.
The WHO and Dr. Theresa Tam, among others, scoffed at the efficacy of masks in solving the pandemic. None of the crash books on what to do in the face of pandemic mentioned masks— but did mention social distancing, isolation and hand washing.
This mask skepticism had its origins in events such as the 2015/ 2018 Ontario arbitration hearings over nurses wearing masks in hospital during a flu epidemic. The nurses union refused a government order to wear them. The nurses complained about their discomfort wearing masks, their general inefficiency in preventing diseases and the arbitrary order to wear them if you didn’t get a flu shot.
In both instances the Ontario arbitrators found for the nurses, saying that there was no conclusive proof that anything but expensive professional masks were an effective barrier against transmission disease. Or that the risk of asymptomatic transmission was verifiable.
So there the accepted wisdom stood until Covid-19 crawled into our lives. Then, with death tolls soaring and vaccines unobtainable, “the evolving science of masks” suddenly caused Dr. Tam (and many others, including president Trump) to flop her position. Necessity being the mother of invention?
Even as the inefficiency of masks in the hands of the public became clear, even as the possible health risks to wearers emerged, even as the flimsy cotton and designer masks were shown to be vanity accessories the new consensus emerged: Mask Good. Dissent Bad.
Vigilantes assaulted and insulted those not wearing masks in public places, telling them to fall it line in the war against a killer disease. A mask became a badge. Wearing one to protect yourself wasn’t enough. Everyone had to wear a mask. And pusillanimous politicians were only too happy to hand out badges.
Underpinning all this was one towering factor: the alleged infallibility of the medical colossus. “Do what you’re told to do. Don’t be disloyal by trusting contrary voices on Covid-19. Shut up and pass the ammunition.”
This syndrome is discussed in the upcoming book Personal Account by Tony Comper (ECW Press). The former BMO CEO talks about his admiration for Atul Gawande, the medical researcher, surgeon and writer who described the deadly fight against methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other staph bacteria in hospitals. Gawande discovered that, like Covid, MRSA prevention required vigorous hand sanitization— something many doctors were neglecting.
He also noted that the top-down culture of obedience to top doctors at his hospital was also a problem. They were resistant to being told to wash properly. Comper writes, “The only way (Gawande) was going to change this at the hospital where he worked was to change the culture, to empower everybody in the operating room as equals and to empower everyone to speak up.”
“Once Gawande got this change model working at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the MRSA incidents at that hospital went to virtually zero. Zero. His brilliant medical breakthrough… had nothing to do with antiseptics and soaps and everything about engaging and empowering your talent to speak up, to challenge authority and assumptions and to contribute.”
Too bad there was no one around to whisper these home truths to the doctors silently killing president Garfield.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his next book Personal Account with Tony Comper will be available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca this fall.