Forcing children to wear a mask is child abuse. The Left failed children.

I think he clarified what he meant with this:

As to "child abuse", this may be an exaggerated term, but the point should be clear - it is not good for children, on balance, to continue to be subject to mask mandates.​

I think this is just really complicated and the data isn't all that clear on how much masking in school helps children, specifically. I think it's more about protecting teachers, staff, and families at home that can get it from infected kids.

It's tough given the potential downsides of masking -- beyond simply being not all that comfortable to wear for extended periods, it could maybe negatively affect social development in young kids. I think decisions around masking requirements should be made at the local level. At the height of the pandemic, it may have made sense on a temporary basis.

 

But claiming "child abuse" is something very different than saying it's "not clear on how beneficial it was".

Is giving children soda child abuse?

 

Oh I've noticed how you write your thread titles is always hyperbolical..... it's "abuse" this and "evil" that..... really QAnon-ish.

But your exchange with @krosfyah is pretty amusing, watching you try to get it up to defend your hyperbolical thread.

 

The Case Against Masks for Children
It’s abusive to force kids who struggle with them to sacrifice for the sake of unvaccinated adults

https://www.wsj.com/articles/masks-...pandemic-biden-administration-cdc-11628432716

The Case Against Masks for Children
It’s abusive to force kids who struggle with them to sacrifice for the sake of unvaccinated adults.
By Marty Makary and H. Cody Meissner
Aug. 8, 2021 12:39 pm ET

Do masks reduce Covid transmission in children? Believe it or not, we could find only a single retrospective study on the question, and its results were inconclusive. Yet two weeks ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sternly decreed that 56 million U.S. children and adolescents, vaccinated or not, should cover their faces regardless of the prevalence of infection in their community. Authorities in many places took the cue to impose mandates in schools and elsewhere, on the theory that masks can’t do any harm.

That isn’t true. Some children are fine wearing a mask, but others struggle. Those who have myopia can have difficulty seeing because the mask fogs their glasses. (This has long been a problem for medical students in the operating room.) Masks can cause severe acne and other skin problems. The discomfort of a mask distracts some children from learning. By increasing airway resistance during exhalation, masks can lead to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. And masks can be vectors for pathogens if they become moist or are used for too long.

In March, Ireland’s Department of Health announced that it won’t require masks in schools because they “may exacerbate anxiety or breathing difficulties for some students.” Some children compensate for such difficulties by breathing through their mouths. Chronic and prolonged mouth breathing can alter facial development. It is well-documented that children who mouth-breathe because adenoids block their nasal airways can develop a mouth deformity and elongated face.

The possible psychological harm of widespread masking is an even greater worry. Facial expressions are integral to human connection, particularly for young children, who are only learning how to signal fear, confusion and happiness. Covering a child’s face mutes these nonverbal forms of communication and can result in robotic and emotionless interactions, anxiety and depression. Seeing people speak is a building block of phonetic development. It is especially important for children with disabilities such as hearing impairment.

The adverse developmental effects of requiring masks for a few weeks are probably minor. We can’t say that with any confidence when the practice stretches on for months or years.

What about the risk of Covid, which mask mandates are intended to ameliorate? The CDC reports that for the week of July 31 the rate of hospitalization with Covid for children 5 to 17 was 0.5 per 100,000, which would amount to roughly 250 patients. The CDC acknowledges that not all of these children were in the hospital for Covid: Viral testing at admission is routine, even for patients who have no Covid symptoms. Children who do develop Covid symptoms are at minimal risk of “long Covid,” according to a Lancet study published Aug. 3: “Almost all children had symptom resolution by 8 weeks, providing reassurance about long-term outcomes.”

Children have been known to transmit Covid, but far less often than adults do. A North Carolina study conducted before vaccines were available found not a single case of student-to-teacher transmission when 90,000 students were in school. The faster-spreading Delta variant has emerged since—but many teachers, parents and children 12 and over have also been vaccinated.

The CDC’s mask decrees are perversely permissive as well as needlessly strict. Cloth masks aren’t nearly as effective as N95 respirators, but the CDC directives ignore the distinction. “Many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out,” epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, who served on the Biden transition team’s Covid task force, told CNN last week. In July, after coming under attack for similar comments, Mr. Osterholm wrote a 5,000-word clarification seeking to dispel “notions that I’m ‘anti-mask.’ ”

We have been encouraging Americans to wear masks since the beginning of the pandemic. But special attention should be paid to the many children who struggle with masks. Public-health officials claim to base their decisions and guidance on science, but there’s no science behind mask mandates for children. A new research study by one of us (Dr. Makary) and his Johns Hopkins colleagues found that of the $42 billion the National Institutes of Health spent on research last year, less than 2% went to Covid clinical research and not a single grant was dedicated to studying masks in children.

In the absence of data, mask mandates have ignited a culture war. Yet if masks do reduce asymptomatic transmission in children, they likely rank no higher than fourth among mitigation strategies that schools can adopt, after ventilation, distancing and dividing students into small groups known as pods. Mandatory vaccination of all teachers and other adults who lack natural immunity—which teachers unions have vigorously opposed—would also help.

Any child who wants to wear a mask should be free to do so. But forcing them to make personal, health and developmental sacrifices for the sake of adults who refuse to get immunized is abusive. Before we order the masking of 56 million Americans who are too young to vote and don’t have a lobby, let’s see data showing the benefits and weigh them against the long-term harm.

Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, editor-in-chief of Medpage Today and author of “The Price We Pay”. Dr. Meissner is chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Tufts Children’s Hospital and served on the Food and Drug Administration’s external advisory panel for the Covid-19 vaccines.
​

 

You post this after the OP admitted to using a hyperbolic thread title?

This is from Sept 2021, have they provided another opinion article to the WSJ or other periodical since then that maybe answered some of their questions or provided new data?

Also, the OP made a blanket statement about masks and child abuse while your article is pretty vague about the abuse and only suggest it's "abusive to children who struggle with them". Feels like I can make an argument that mandatory Physical Education is abusive to children who struggle with them.

 

Uh no. Weak sauce. Not obvious based on your endless posting.

It's super weak to make a bombastic claim only to walk it back after people call you on it.

Didn't Fox news or Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson in their lawsuit claim that nobody with "common sense" would think of their show as "news". It's just purely an entertainment show? All the while espousing to everybody all the "facts" and the "fair and balanced" reporting.

Trump did the same about the insurrection and claimed his speak wasn't to be taken literally. Lame. Most see through it.

C'mon ATW, you are better than that. You have a valid point but you weaken your entire position and lose credibility with many. Even if you make a good point, it's hard to trust your sources.

As someone once said; "Have a take and don't suck"

/rant

 

Really? Is he really better than this?

 

Your take has changed as you now state that "child abuse refers to more severe transgressions". Then you simultaneously say that it is indeed abuse.

You are the one posting endlessly trying to convince others.

I am not promoting or undercutting the position about mask wearing. Early on the conservative position was that wearing a mask had benefits but most people realized that it wasn't foolproof. I think everybody knew that. But some folks tried to turn it into a binary choice suggesting that if masks are not perfect, then that means they are useless.

To wear or not to wear a mask isn't a binary choice.

Then you immediately contradict yourself from above and make a declaritive statement that making kids wear a mask is indeed abuse ...yet you have yet to provide any proof.

Carry on.

 

Again, just a declarative statement (with is actually an opinion) with no support. I'm happy to defend what I said but I can't defend this above statement.

My next questions would naturally be "well, what isn't correct about my post".

 

Lol…..

Translation “you win”.

 

Even an anonymous forum…. Folks still obfuscate.

 

Thanks for the response.

So if your position hasn't changed, that means you don't mean what you say? I'm confused on where you stand.

Out of one side of your mouth, you are saying any reasonable person should understand the term "child abuse" is just hyperbole and we shouldn't take you seriously.

Out of the other side of your mouth you say it IS abuse, just not sexual abuse. (Mind you, you never made that distinction before, so it sounds like you are now moving the goal posts).

Regardless, back to the original question, which is the basis of your entire thread. Where is the evidence that kids wearing masks is abusive? You are so passionate about this subject. Just sitting here waiting to be convinced. I hear your opinions. I don't hear your facts.

 

Telling a kid or forcing a kid to do something they have no knowledge about isn't abuse. That's such an extreme position.

If u the parent believe that wearing mask is beneficial to your kid, normal folks aren't gonna call u out as a child abuser wtf.

Some parents believe in the "benefits" of natural supplements or natural products that they give to their kid, are they abusing their kid also?

The fact that folks still are anti mask while health care professionals uses them is quite weird.

Masks works. U can argue that a specific type of mask works best for covid, but in general mask works.

Child abuse pfffft.