Contrary to the viral rumors on social media, Dr. Fauci did not write a paper on how masks caused mass deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic

Posts are being shared on social media attempting to negate the use of masks as protective devices during the pandemic.  One post shared hundreds of times claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had written in a 2008 study that mask use was responsible for many of the deaths during the Spanish flu pandemic. Another Facebook user wrote: “Dr. Fauci saying masks should be mandated. Even though in 2008 he wrote a paper saying the MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE THAY DIED IN THE 1918 SPANISH FLU DIED FROM SECONDARY BACTERIAL PNEUMONIA AS A DIRECT RESULT OF THE USE OF FACE MASKS.” 

These claims are false. Fauci did not blame mask use for any deaths that occurred during the 1918 Spanish flu.

As reported by Dan Evon on Snopes…

Fauci did not blame mask use for any deaths that occurred during the 1918 Spanish flu. In fact, the paper mentioned in the above-displayed Facebook posts doesn’t even mention masks. 

In October 2008, Fauci co-authored a paper published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases about the role that bacterial pneumonia played during the 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to by the misnomer “Spanish flu”). An estimated 50 million people died during the 1918 flu pandemic, with approximately 675,000 of those deaths taking place in the United States. The paper co-authored by Fauci in 2008 found that these deaths weren’t caused by the flu alone, but that the majority “likely resulted directly from secondary bacterial pneumonia.”

While some social media users presented this study as a cautionary tale against mask use — incorrectly claiming that it was the masks that were responsible for the development of bacteria — Fauci’s paper actually highlighted the need to stockpile antibiotics and bacterial vaccines as well as antiviral drugs and influenza vaccines in order to properly combat a pandemic. 

In June 2020, The Associated Press investigated the false claim that mask use leads to bacterial pneumonia. Davidson Hamer, infectious disease specialist and professor of global health and medicine at Boston University, said at the time:

“There’s no evidence of masks leading to fungal or bacterial infections of the upper airway or the lower airway as in pneumonia.”
[…]
There’s no evidence that wearing face masks cause any harm besides some discomfort, Hamer said. However, he added paper masks that become visibly wet should be discarded.
[…]
“It’s so highly unlikely with normal mask use. There’s a real danger at spreading incorrect information like this, especially at a time when we really need to be encouraging more people to wear masks.”