Masks and COVID-19 [Videos] An Evil “Universal Masking” Agenda

Published: Oct 24, 2021. Last Updated: Apr 17, 2022
This post has gotten massive, so I’ve separated them into sections below. (Please wait for page to fully-load before clicking on topics):
More than 150 Comparative Studies and Articles on Mask Ineffectiveness and Harms
The evidence on COVID-19 face masks and mask mandates and harms: “… present the masking ‘body of evidence’ (n=167 studies and pieces of evidence), comprised of comparative effectiveness research as well as related evidence and high-level reporting. To date, the evidence has been stable and clear that masks do not work to control the virus and they can be harmful – especially to children.”
CDC
- CDC Coronavirus (COVID-19) Announcement:
- N95 Masks – Does not recommend for “respiratory diseases including COVID-19”
- Surgical Masks – Should be “changed or thrown-out every 20-30 minutes”
- Cloth Masks – Do not filter anything – and trap Carbon Dioxide, and risks your health rather than protects it. Moisture will become mildew ridden in 30 mins. Coughing, enhanced allergies & sore throat are all symptoms of micro-mold in your mask”
- “Reviewed 10 studies and found “face masks does not have a substantial effect on transmission”

Mask Packaging
- N95 Mask Box
- “The mask does not eliminate the risk of contracting any disease or infection”
- “Improper use may lead to illness and even death.”
- Ear-loop Mask Box
- “Will not provide ANY protection against COVID-19 or other viruses or contaminants.”
- “Wearing an ear loop mask DOES NOT reduce the risk of contracting any disease or infection.
- “Single use only”
Chief Health Officer and Neurologist
- Brett Sutton, Chief Health Officer, Victoria, Australia (in 2001)
- Surgical Masks: “The evidence for discontinuing the use of surgical face masks would appear to be stronger than the evidence available to support their continued use.“
- Dr Margarite Griesz-Brisson MD, Neurologist, Neurophysiologist, PhD Pharmacology.
- Brain damage from masks CANNOT be reversed. The rebreathing of our exhaled air will without a doubt create oxygen deficiency and a flooding of carbon dioxide. Human brain is sensitive to oxygen depravation.
- Nerve cells in the hippocampus can’t be longer than 3 mins without oxygen.
- Acute warning symptoms: headaches, drowsiness, dizziness, issues in concentration, slowing-down of reaction-time.
- Chronic oxygen depravation – symptoms disappear because you get used to it – but your efficiency will remain impaired and the under-supply of oxygen in your brain continues to progress.
- Neurodegenerative diseases take years to decades to develop.
- While you are rebreathing your own exhaled air, the degenerative processes in your brain are amplified as your oxygen deprivation continues.
- Nerve cells in your brain are unable to divide themselves normally – the lost nerve cells will no longer be regenerated – what is gone is gone.
Masks don’t work. At least a dozen scientific studies have shown that masks do nothing to stop the spread of respiratory viruses.
One meta-analysis published by the CDC in May 2020 found “no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks”.
Another study with over 8000 subjects found masks “did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections nor against clinical respiratory infection.”
There are literally too many to quote them all, but you can read a summary by SPR here.
While some studies have been done claiming to show mask do work for Covid, they are all seriously flawed. One relied on self-reported surveys as data. Another was so badly designed a panel of experts demand it be withdrawn. A third was withdrawn after its predictions proved entirely incorrect.
The WHO commissioned their own meta-analysis in the Lancet, but that study looked only at N95 masks and only in hospitals. [For full run down on the bad data in this study click here.]
Aside from scientific evidence, there’s plenty of real-world evidence that masks do nothing to halt the spread of disease.
For example, North Dakota and South Dakota had near-identical case figures, despite one having a mask-mandate and the other not:
In Kansas, counties without mask mandates actually had fewer Covid “cases” than counties with mask mandates. And despite masks being very common in Japan, they had their worst flu outbreak in decades in 2019.
Florida’s New Surgeon General says:
“Step Away from What You Hear on TV for A Moment”
Parent Calls Out School Board
“Millions paid to Schools for Universal Masking Mandate”
Greed & Corruption: not Health, not Science
Parent brings her references and her homework with her – calls out schools for being paid Millions of dollars for “Universal Masking” CDC Mandate. Must watch & Share!
We need to do this for all our schools – FOLLOW THE MONEY!
Miguel Escobar – School Board Meeting
Miguel Escobar, a local PA (physicians assistant), spoke during a school board meeting.
Copies of this video:
Mirror Odysee | Mirror Bitchute | Mirror OurTube
Full Original Board Meeting video: https://video.ibm.com/recorded/130740305
Ask him to forward you information on COVID:
MiguelAEscobar55@gmail.com
Hello, board members. My name is Miguel Escobar, and first I would like to thank everybody who partakes in the district in giving your time for our children. I am a physician assistant and I’ve worked in healthcare for over 15 years. I have been working in the valley in cardiology at the hospitals for about three years, and right now I work in internal medicine, and I also work with the Border Patrol screening (inaudible) that come in. So I’ve had first hand experience with COVID, especially before anybody in the media knew about it, because I have certain government clearance. So I’m here to talk about a lot of the misinformation that’s out there.
00:40
First of all, most people don’t know in the general population, the actual facts of what’s going on with COVID. Okay, number one, because they don’t know where to look for it, because it’s very complicated, even for medical professionals. Number two, you may not have the time, like most people here to actually dig in deep and see the facts that are out there. Number three, and the most important is that the government and many entities are actually censoring, true factual information that I’m about to present you, you can’t find it, it’s not out there. I understand that you might have some doctors on your board, or doctors that come and help you out, but I can tell you one thing, if they’re telling you something different that I’m about to tell you, they’re either one, misinformed and they’re not looking in the right places, two, they’re straight up lying to you and that will lead me to believe that who is paying you, or who is influencing you to say these things.
01:35
Number one, the case counts is absolutely obliterate. You can be run over by a car, and you go into the ER, you say I’m short of breath, because your blood is filling your lungs, and if they test you for COVID you died of COVID, not at the car accident. You could have known severe cardiovascular disease, which is what I partake in, and come in with an absolute 100 percent heart attack, but they test you for COVID. What did you die of? COVID. What just happened about two weeks ago, CDC is now telling all the laboratories to stop using the PCRs that we’ve been using this whole time, because they cannot decipher between the flu and COVID. So we have to stop using them. That information alone should stop this whole ridiculousness. Okay.
02:21
Number two, the masks. What is the dirtiest spot on your body? It is your mouth. I’m pretty sure no one here would sit there and smell their anus and their private parts all day because that seems disgusting. But your mouth is dirtier than your private parts? Why would you sniff the bacteria that comes out of your mouth all day long [and] enforce that on our children. That is wrong. That psychologically affects them and you’re going to implore more infections on them. There are literally studies that I can prove to you that are on the CDC website that are randomised control studies that show that nor hand washing nor wearing surgical masks, especially anything less than that, actually prevent you from getting infected, whether if you’re infected, or you’re trying to prevent an infection, I can sit here alone on that topic for at least three hours and talk to you about how that is so ridiculous. Let’s get to the most important part because I’m very limited on time and I could sit here for hours and talk to you about this.
03:20
The unvaccinated theory is nothing but b s. Okay. Does anyone here know, especially the medical professionals here, that the CDC about a month and a half ago changed their requirement for hospitals and clinics to count a COVID case? If you are now vaccinated, you don’t have to register that person as a COVID case if they have COVID. Even if they’re in the hospital dying of COVID, if they were vaccinated you don’t have to count that as a COVID case. Why are people saying “oh, the unvaccinated are filling the hospitals”, because the CDC has literally changed that. So if you get COVID and you are vaccinated you don’t count into the pool of people that are vaccinated? Does anybody here know that? I doubt it. Do we also know of the change in the PCR test? No, I doubt that. So you’re aboard for education, not health. There’s never been a study on social distancing or any of these ridiculous partitioners that are in between you. So you’re telling me that you’re safe to breathe, but we’re not safe to breathe? Even on the CDC, after 15 minutes of being in the same room with somebody you’re breathing in the same air? Okay, so let’s get past this ridiculousness because it doesn’t work. And then the vaccines, just a whole other nut showcase in itself.
04:38
In six months, more people have died from this vaccine than in 20 years of every single vaccine given in America. Let that sink in. In six months, 12,000 and the VAERS reporting system. Harvard, who everyone should trust here, did a major study and they found out that only 1 percent of all the adverse effects and deaths are actually reported. So imagine that if 12,000 we know now have died, that’s only 1 percent. What just came out last week that probably no one here knows because it’s been censored. There was just now a lawsuit that went up against the CDC and the FDA, because they found out that these pharmaceutical companies created their own adverse effects agencies where the reporting is happening there. And they found out that it seems now that in three days, over 45,000 people have died because of vaccine. I work with people who have COVID, and not. I know more people that have died from the vaccine than that have died from the COVID. Okay, I can sit here and give you so much information that will boggle your brain. Now, it is not our duty here to figure out what is going on in this country. Why are we being misinformed? Okay, that’s not our duty, I could help you. But your duty is to focus on our children’s education. Okay, and the buildings and whatnot that you have said, which is awesome that you take your pride in that, not my child’s vaccination status. Okay. That is not your duty. And you should be worried about people wanting to vaccinate their children when this has killed more children that has ever happened in any history of vaccines.
06:29
I have all this information and it’s readily accessible. My email is MiguelAEscobar55@gmail.com. MiguelAEscobar55@gmail.com. I can provide you [with] over 1000 pieces of literature, especially over 300 showing that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin actually work because everyone that I have personally treated, I know not one person in my section of family or friends that has been hospitalised or died. So this whole craziness about the the unvaccinated? No, you can still get COVID if you are vaccinated. You can still spread COVID if you are vaccinated. That is a false statement. if someone thinks that because you’re vaccinated you are not going to spread this. And the biggest one of all, is that there is still no proof that a child has actually infected a teacher or caused a death in any school in the world. Why are we worried about our children? If you truly care about their safety and their wellness, then why hasn’t anyone mentioned that children in 2020 increased their suicide rates by five fold? Five fold. Do you want to know why my 3k 4k student isn’t going to go to Edinburgh because your protocols, because most of the people that I talked to, well, I’m also in the upper echelons, I’m a PA, I’ve lived here for long enough to know who runs around here.
08:15
We don’t want to put our children where you’re going to put these partitioners, or wearing a mask, are my kids gonna have to worry because he’s touching and hugging his friend, which we’ve been doing the whole time. Why? Because I’m not going to sit at home on a TV screen making sure that my kid watches a screen when I don’t even let them watch TV to begin with. Why are we going in reverse people? I know everybody here probably partook in a chickenpox party like myself. I’m old enough to do that. Hey, it’s okay let him get a little dirty. Why are we so scared of germs? Germs are what create immunity in the body. And what vaccines and medicine is trying to mimic in our bodies is the immune system. There is nothing stronger than our own immune system. What the school, if they really want to make a difference, and I can tell you this because I’ve served on many boards [as] I’m very active in the PA society, I’ve been very active in politics my whole life. If you really want to make a difference, do what no one else is doing.
09:23
Not one person at the CDC FDA or any of the AMA you name it. I’ve DHR’d none of them, SDHS. Nobody will sit here and tell the most unhealthiest city in America voted twice now, okay, hey, go exercise, hey focus on your eating, hey, go outside do something because the only way you’re not going to get sick of COVID and the only way we’re going to really help the community into lowering deaths of people that are going to die because they’re unhealthy is to eat healthy and be healthy, and for our children part of that is our social interactions. Our 3k 4k completely depend on facial recognition, and trusting a face that you can see, not a masked face, I would never put my child in that. And the people that I, I talk to thousands of people a day, and you can see my spirit here, okay? And believe me, I will let them know, do not get vaccinated, and don’t put your child in something that’s going to lower their education, it’s gonna lower everything about what’s going on right now.
10:34
We should not live in fear. If we start this with prayer, then you should know that God tells you don’t live in fear. We’re always going to live with infections, we’re always going to live with diseases. The only way to get around that is live healthy, be healthy. So I implore you all, please look at the facts. Don’t go by what the media says because it’s straight up lies. I can prove this to you 100 percent. I work in a facility at the Donna facilities. I work with children and adults all day long. We’ve seen over 70,000 people (inaudible) that are like this, like this. Do you think people wear masks in there? Why do you think they don’t want people to go in there with cameras? Because it would put the whole pandemic to shame because no one’s vaccinated, no one’s wearing a mask. Everybody’s pretty much sick, cos their immune. Imagine people coming over for a month, their immune system is to the floor, but not one person has died of COVID.
11:37
And just right now, another study that just came out by John Hopkins. John Hopkins just came out with a study with over 48,000 kids showing that no healthy child died of COVID, that the only children that died of COVID were the very severely ill, which most of those children can’t even be in school. So get over the fear. The masks don’t work. Okay. Hug thy neighbour. Love thy neighbour, and everything will be okay. God bless you all. I hope that you actually inquire to me because most doctors that I know have no idea what I’m talking about. And they do not know where to search for this information. I can still show you the randomised controlled trials if that’s what you want. I can show you the evidence. I can give you affiliations to doctor groups that I’m part of that are actually suing companies and CDC and FDA to make a change. If you want to be the district that all the children go to be the one that makes the change because I’m telling you parents out there are starting to realise what’s going on. And this is not a health board. This is a school board. God bless you all and thank you so much for your time.
“Asymptomatic Spread, Masks & Cause of death”
False Narratives with Dr. Peter McCullough
Dr Peter McCullough, MD, MPH on False Narratives
Snippets from the currently Live Videos happening here
— ITS A MUST VIEW and only free for a few days, so go there now:
VACCINE SECRETS: COVID CRISIS
https://vsecretscc.com/episode-1-live
Video was snippet from Episode 3: Vaccine Pushers “Driving False Narratives”
https://vsecretscc.com/episode-3-live
1. Asymptomatic Spread
When someone is well, it is impossible to spread the virus.
Published Studies, one with over 10 Million Chinese showing Asymptomatic Spread simply doesn’t occur. The World Health Organization on June 25th said “Stop Asymptomatic Testing” – Stop all this testing before going on planes and athletes and testing kids every week. What happens when we test asymptomatic people is we generate false positive test results. Case-counts are probably inflated by about 40% just because of the asymptomatic testing. Asymptomatic spreading doesn’t happen.
Study:
Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w (01)
2. Masks Don’t Work
The virus is about 1 micron, the masks filter out about 3 microns. The virus goes in and out easy.
People wearing masks to school, running, swimming, biking is absolutely ridiculous – we should get rid of that false narrative.
3. COVID-19 is not Cause of Death in most cases
The CDC says that COVID-19 as a singular cause of death in only 10% of cases. That means that in 90% there are other contributing illnesses. So if one is healthy & fit, that’s your best immunity to COVID-19 mortality or hospitalization.
All those myths were created to make Covid-19 look more dangerous, create more fear, suffering, isolation, hospitalization and death.
School Board Hearing
Masks & PCR Tests
“Pandemic Response Experts Kept Out of Covid Taskforces”
Tammy Clark – PPE Expert
Kent County – for the first time in our nation’s history, Pandemic Response Experts were Kept Out of Covid Taskforces
School Board Meeting – Parent
Irvine Unified School District – Oct 19, 2021
“CDC, FDA, Fake News Media are lying to us”
I think the CDC, FDA, and Fake News Media is Lying to us when they repeat endlessly that the vaccines are safe and effective. There have been more injuries and deaths from these covid19 vaccines in 18 months than all other vaccines in the HISTORY of vaccines.
I’m tired of all this puppetry.
I’m tired of watching our children be muzzled and manipulated.
Everything right now is fuelled by politics and greed and evil.
Our children are being conditioned for a Totalitarian future.
I urge everybody who is sitting on the side-lines to start using your voice.
School Board Meeting – Kristen Kelly
Masks Don’t Work & Offers Solution to Schools
Kristen Meghan Kelly – Grandville board meeting August 2021. Over 19 years experience in mitigation training and Senior Industrial Hygienist that works in Occupational and Environmental Toxicology. She teaches the “experts” on how to effectively use a mask. Says masks do not work and instead the schools should use their covid funds for engineering controls (10k per building) for technology that kills all viruses, bacteria, and mold in the buildings – which is not only great for now but great for everything. Says to look up Petty Podcasts which talks about source control/engineering controls and listen to the subject-matter experts.
Petty Podcasts mentioned in speech:
Podcast:
Ep 815 | Everything You Need to Know about How Mask Mandates Violate Existing OSHA Law
Conservative Review with Daniel Horowitz
“Today, I’m joined by Kristen Meghan, a senior industrial hygienist in the field of occupational and environmental toxicology, to discuss the fraud of mask mandates. She explains everything you need to know about how the mask mandates violate rules of PPE, anti-discrimination, OSHA, and the ADA. She explains exactly why mask mandates don’t work and how people are being misled because the media promote white coats talking about masks rather than talking to PPE experts.”

- See also Swiss Policy Research who keep their Mask Studies updated and summarized
- See also Brownstone Institute who has many Mask studies and articles, including comparing and taking summaries of each.
- More than 150 Comparative Studies and Articles on Mask Ineffectiveness and Harms
- How Dangerous Are Masks for Children?
- Facemasks Are Not a Mere “Inconvenience”
- A Partial List of the Myriad Abuses That Facemasks Inflict on Our Children
- Masks: Before and After They Became Political
- Why Masks? Control, Power, and Revenue
- Why Mask Mandates Should be Repealed Immediately
- And about 70 more… https://brownstone.org/?s=masks
For decades, studies have shown that face masks don’t work against respiratory virus epidemics. (02)
With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and increasing political pressure, suddenly studies appeared claiming masks work. These studies were a mixture of confounded observational data, unrealistic modelling and lab results, and outright fraud. (03)
The most influential fraudulent study certainly was the WHO-commissioned meta-study published in The Lancet. (04)
- A meta-study in the journal Lancet, commissioned by the WHO, claimed that masks could reduce the risk of infection by 80%, but the studies considered mainly N95 respirators in a hospital setting, not cloth masks in a community setting, the strength of the evidence was reported as “low”, and experts found numerous flaws in the study. Professor Peter Jueni, epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, called the WHO study “essentially useless”. (05)
Fraudulent study cited by over 400 other articles in PNAS journal.
- A study in the journal PNAS claimed that masks had led to a decrease in infections in three global hotspots (including New York City), but the study did not take into account the natural decrease in infections and other simultaneous measures. The study was so flawed that over 40 scientists recommended that the study be withdrawn. (06)
A Danish randomized controlled trial (RCT) on face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a community setting found no statistically significant benefit.
However, for political reasons, three major journals refused to publish this study, delaying its publication by several months. (07)
The trial found no statistically significant benefit of wearing a face mask. (08) (09)
The study used “high-quality surgical masks with a filtration rate of 98%”.
An August 2021 study published in the Int. Research Journal of Public Health found “no association between mask mandates or use and reduced COVID-19 spread in US states.” (11)
Researchers from the University of Minnesota found that the infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2 is just 300 virions (virus particles), whereas a single minute of normal speaking may generate more than 750,000 virions, making face masks unlikely to prevent infection. (12)
A German psychological study with about 1000 participants found “severe psychosocial consequences” due to the introduction of mandatory face masks in Germany. (13)

The WHO warns of various “side effects” such as difficulty breathing and skin rashes. (14)
A study by the University of Muenster in Germany found that on N95 (FFP2) masks, Sars-CoV-2 may remain infectious for several days, thus increasing the risk of self-contamination. (15)
Masks are bad for your health. Wearing a mask for long periods, wearing the same mask more than once, and other aspects of cloth masks can be bad for your health.
A long study on the detrimental effects of mask-wearing was recently published by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. (16)
Dr. James Meehan reported in August 2020 he was seeing increases in bacterial pneumonia, fungal infections, facial rashes. (17) (18)
Masks are also known to contain plastic microfibers, which damage the lungs when inhaled and may be potentially carcinogenic. (19) (20)
Children wearing masks encourages mouth-breathing, which results in facial deformities. (21)

In China, several children who had to wear a mask during gym classes fainted and died; autopsies found a sudden cardiac arrest as the probable cause of death. (22)

In the US, a car driver wearing an N95 (FFP2) mask fainted and crashed due to CO2 intoxication. (23)

A New Jersey driver crashed head-on into a pole — after passing out from wearing an N95 mask for hours, police said Friday. Lincoln Park police believe that the driver, who was not named, lost consciousness while behind the wheel Thursday from lack of oxygen and breathing in excessive carbon dioxide thanks to the mask: “The LPPD responded to a lone occupant single car motor vehicle crash yesterday. The crash is believed to have resulted from the driver wearing an N95 mask for several hours and subsequently passing out behind the wheel due to insufficient oxygen intake/excessive carbon dioxide intake,”
“Mask Mouth”
Some bad breath just can’t be covered up. Now that dentists have reopened their doors, they’re having patients show up with a nasty set of symptoms, which the doctors have dubbed ‘mask mouth’.
The new oral hygiene issue – caused by, you guessed it, wearing a mask all the time to prevent the spread of the coronavirus – is leading to all kinds of dental disasters like decaying teeth, receding gum lines, and seriously sour breath.
“We’re seeing inflammation in people’s gums that have been healthy forever, and cavities in people who have never had them before,” says Dr. Rob Ramondi, a dentist and co-founder of One Manhattan Dental. (24) (25) (26)
“About 50% of our patients are being impacted by this, so we decided to name it ‘mask mouth’ – after ‘meth mouth‘.

The U.S. CDC reported a meta-analysis of 10 face mask studies in the February, 2020 edition of its medical Journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases which concluded face masks do not work to prevent transmission of respiratory viruses. (27)

One of the key studies cited in that CDC report was of 1607 hospital workers in Vietnam, published in the journal BMJ Open on April 22, 2015. The study concluded that the use of surgical masks to control viral spread (which they are not designed to do, anyway) was negligible and that the prolonged use of the iconic cloth masks, so popular in today’s society, actually increased the cases of respiratory illness significantly. (28)

Furthermore, a more recent study conducted by the US CDC’s COVID-19 Response Team and published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report showed that there is a 20 times greater chance of catching COVID-19 with prolonged wearing of a face mask when compared to those who never wore a face mask.

In that CDC study, it was found that of the 154 new cases of COVID-19, where patients had both a positive PCR test for the purported virus’ RNA particle and real symptoms, around 85% reported they wore a face mask often, or always, up to fourteen days prior to symptom onset. The control group in that study also showed symptoms of some sort of respiratory illness, but had a negative COVID-19 PCR test. In that control group, 88% of the people reported often or always wearing a face mask. Around 4% of both groups reported never wearing a face mask prior to symptom onset. (29) (30) (31)
True story – the symptoms you get from wearing a mask, will definitely look like “COVID-19” symptoms.

I really need to link to these studies also, but I’m so sick of this mask post right now.

Dehumanization Through Forced Anonymity
The face is the most visibly manifest characteristic that sets you apart as a unique individual. Masks, by covering your face, strip you to some degree of your sense of being a unique individual and instead masks you feel more like a number than a person. It also distorts your sense of the humanity of others, as you inevitably become trained to perceive other people as lacking human-ness.

Masks are bad for the planet. Millions upon millions of disposable masks have been used per month for over a year.

A report from the UN found the Covid19 pandemic will likely result in plastic waste more than doubling in the next few years., and the vast majority of that is face masks.
The report goes on to warn these masks (and other medical waste) will clog sewage and irrigation systems, which will have knock on effects on public health, irrigation and agriculture.
A study from the University of Swansea found “heavy metals and plastic fibres were released when throw-away masks were submerged in water.” These materials are toxic to both people and wildlife.
The paper COVID-19 Pandemic Repercussions on the Use and Management of Plastics published June 20, 2020 warns that a “monthly estimated use of 129 billion face masks and 65 billion gloves globally, is resulting in widespread environmental contamination.” (32)
194 billion face masks and gloves equates to well over 6 billion face masks being consumed and discarded each and every day.
Based on the aforementioned paper, six months of face masks alone – equates to seven hundred seventy-four billion, while 12 months of consumption, equates to a stunning one trillion five hundred forty-eight billion face masks.
References[+]
DISCLAIMER: The information on this website is not medical science or medical advice. I do not have any medical training aside from my own research and interest in this area. The information I publish is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, disorder, pain, injury, deformity, or physical or mental condition. I just report my own results, understanding & research.