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The Golden Age of Grift

It just never ends. On the day the CDC relaxed the guidelines for mask wearing outdoors for the fully vaccinated, we see this nonsense. It isn’t just Tucker Carlson’s despicable direction to his followers to confront people wearing masks and demand they take them off because it makes them “uncomfortable” (and report parents as child abusers for putting masks on their kids) we have people like this:

By the time Kristen Meghan Kelly, a 38-year-old Michigan mom and self-described “health freedom advocate,” hit record on her phone’s camera, the confrontation outside the Hudsonville School Board meeting was in full swing.

In a 22-minute video from April 15 that has been shared widely on Facebook, Kelly explains that she’s been denied entry to the public meeting despite what she says is a “medically recognized” disability and PTSD diagnosis that prevents her from wearing a mask. When another parent questions that explanation, she switches tack and launches into a “science”-based assault on masking.Advertisement

“I am actually an exposure scientist,” Kelly says to the other parent, who’s off-screen.

“Oh, an exposure scientist,” the parent can be heard saying, as she laughs.

“Yes, I’m an industrial hygienist, and I actually travel around the country testifying in front of governors. I’ve opened up Texas and North Dakota,” Kelly says.

If Kelly has her way, she told The Daily Beast, she’ll also further loosen COVID-19 restrictions in her own state of Michigan—despite a raging outbreak that is testing the state’s hospital system and threatening the lives of more young people than ever before.

“We’re not going to stay silent,” Kelly said.

Although parents at the school board meeting may have laughed off her credentials, Kelly has enjoyed an increasingly robust platform in anti-mask circles in recent weeks. And this activism, public health officials fear, could cause big problems—especially in Michigan, which has become the country’s worst COVID hotspot.

While Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been criticized for bowing to political pressure and allowing indoor activities such as dining and sports—that experts say likely fed the current surge—her administration has been steadfastly in favor of masking requirements. Last week, the state extended its mask mandate until at least late May and expanded it to require children age 2 and over to wear masks.

“Mask use continues to be critically important right now. It’s proven to be effective and it’s proven to be safe,” said Marcia Mansaray, a deputy public health officer in Ottawa County, where Kelly lives.

Kelly, of course, disagrees. But unlike most conservative anti-maskers who completely dismiss the pandemic, she’s leaning on a compelling personal story, some acknowledgment of basic facts, and, most of all, what she describes as nearly two decades of experience as an industrial hygienist, a field that focuses on ways to protect employees from hazardous substances at work.

“The science,” she told The Daily Beast, “is on my side.”

Leading scientists in her field are not, and expressed serious concerns about Kelly’s activism and how she was portraying the profession.

“Face coverings are a proper public health measure that mitigates the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. And if you’re not wearing anything across your nose and mouth, you’re only contributing to the generation of particles that are floating around in a room,” Laurence Svirchev, a certified industrial hygienist with the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the primary educational arm of the industry, told The Daily Beast.

“It’s not a difficult concept to understand,” Svirchev added, echoing many months of public health guidance across the world.

Larry Sloan, CEO of the AIHA, where Kelly has held an emeritus membership, told The Daily Beast that the vast majority of the AIHA’s 8,000-plus members “believe that face coverings are one important strategy for reducing risk.”

“It is very dangerous,” Sloan said about the way Kelly links her activism to the field of industrial hygiene. “I think it is undermining the science of industrial hygiene.” (Kelly responded by calling Sloan’s statement “shocking and disturbing,” arguing “it goes against the whole field of industrial hygiene.”)

[…]

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, industrial hygiene occupied a relatively obscure corner of workplace safety. But according to Sloan, the problem of containing COVID-19 has made this industry “relevant everywhere” practically overnight.

Kelly has capitalized on that relative obscurity and sudden relevance—as well as COVID’s evolving science—to carve out a niche for herself as an expert for anti-maskers hungry for arguments that back up their desire to ignore mask mandates.

“Because, I know. Masks don’t work. Because it’s my job. It’s my job,” she tells the other parent in the video. “That’s fine. And do you want to know who does want to hear my opinion? Attorneys, who I help with their cases

It’s not about the science. She’s barely qualified. This woman is a right wing extremist. Not that it wasn’t already obvious:

Kelly is not a certified industrial hygienist, which she told The Daily Beast was “a personal choice” (credentialing is not required to register as an industrial hygienist with the AIHA). Instead, Kelly, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in occupational safety and health, describes herself as a “senior industrial hygienist,” something Sue y, it’s a living., a managing director at the American Industrial Hygiene Association, told The Daily Beast is “not a real thing.”

Hey. A gal’s gotta make a living. I’d imagine she’s making some good coin being a “scientist” opposed to mask wearing in a pandemic.

We are in a crisis in this country that goes way beyond COVID. It’s a gullibility crisis. I know PT Barnum said “there’s a sucker born every minute” but honestly, I think it’s contagious.

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