A roundup on masks - by Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan - Trust the Evidence https://trusttheevidence.substack.com/p/a-roundup-on-masks

You can hunt anything you want, animals, insects and, latterly, human beings, especially scientists. This happened to us and to Tom in the August columns of the New York Times (NYT), as we reported here, here and here.

The main problem appears to have been that the columnist took exception to the idea that the Cochrane Review A122 failed to find any better quality evidence of mask effectiveness, and of course, she proceeded to try to shoot the messenger.

Ever since her article, however, some of the background to her intervention has come to light, and Tom has written back to the NYT pointing out some of the consequences of their irresponsible behaviour:

"Opinion Editor The New York Times 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 212-556-1922 kathleen.kingsbury@nytimes.com

Dear Ms Kingsbury, thank you for your reply dated 18 March to my complaint dated 15 March 2023.

Matters are not what you reported, although I understand your willingness to defend your columnist.

Dr Tufekci seems to have forgotten to make clear that she has been lobbying CDC and maybe other organisations for over 3 vears to impose mask mandates, although she has no scientitic expertise in this matter. This happened after a somersault from her initial position against use of masks (she is in very good company in such a change of course in March 2020). Elsewhere she described creating a new symbolism around the use of masks, a clearly ideological standpoint which has naught to do with science.

Dr Tufekci now publicly claims that she has corrected Cochrane (although it was hard work it took her almost a month). She has done no such thing, as no edits have been made to the review text.

You and Dr Tufekci state that the Plain Language Summary of the review may have helped people misinterpret the revIew.

Possible corrections, addenda and edits in science (and in the Cochrane Library) are handled through the editorial peer review mechanism, not through the columns of a daily. It seems to me that by insisting on corrections and claiming "victory" the New York Times through its columnist is trying to subvert not just Cochrane but the whole scientific process, while launching a personal attack on me, one of the twelve authors. Her attack on our review and on me can perhaps be explained in her own words: "The most effective forms of censorship today involve meddling with trust and attention, not muzzling speech itself. As a result they don’t look much like the old forms of censorship at all. They look like viral or coordinated harassment campaigns, which harness the dynamics of viral outrage to impose an unbearable and disproportionate cost on the act of speaking out.

I ask you to look again in detail at the personal agenda of your columnist and ask yourself if subversion of the scientific process through unqualified comments is the aim of the New York Times. Finally I note that your mission is to "seek the truth and help people understand the world*.

I do not think this is possible it you hold an ideological view https://www.nytco.com/company/mission-and-values/

I believe that given the facts you owe me at least a right of reply.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Yours.

Professor Tom Jeffterson Senior Associate tor University of Oxford Oxford OX2 6GG”