That link doesn’t indicate “accumulating evidence that they have no effect”, and the link explicitly states “it would be imprudent to recommend the removal of facemasks from surgery”.

It is a literature review that didn’t find strong evidence for surgical mask effectiveness more because it hasn’t been researched deeply. And it notes that the absence of evidence does not indicate ineffectiveness of surgical masks, and rather a more significant research trial would have to be performed (and there were caveats to the feasibility of doing that as well).

Specific quotes from that article:

“What literature that is available on the subject tends to be dated with poorly explained methodology. There is also uncertainty over whether the results of such studies can be extrapolated to current surgical practice given the advent of new antiseptic techniques since they were completed.”

“It is clear that more studies are required before any absolute conclusions can be drawn regarding the effectiveness or, indeed, ineffectiveness of surgical masks. The published literature does suggest that it may be reasonable to further examine the need for masks in contemporary surgical practice given the interests of comfort, budget constraints and potential ease of communication, although any such study would undoubtedly have to be large and well controlled to prove causality given the low event frequency of surgical site infections.”

“It is important not to construe an absence of evidence for effectiveness with evidence for the absence of effectiveness. While there is a lack of evidence supporting the effectiveness of facemasks, there is similarly a lack of evidence supporting their ineffectiveness. With the information currently available, it would be imprudent to recommend the removal of facemasks from surgery. Instead, in the medical field where common practice can so easily become dogma, it is necessary to recognise the constant need to maintain a healthy scepticism towards established beliefs and to periodically re-evaluate and critically assess their scientific merit.”

The selected quotes misrepresent the thrust of the article. From the abstract, "...overall there is a lack of substantial evidence to support claims that facemasks protect either patient or surgeon from infectious contamination."

At the end, they take the stance that while evidence doesn't support any benefit, it doesn't indicate harm either, so might as well continue using masks.

I don't deny that this is still a matter of controversy, compare Romney (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11289767/) with Belkin (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11886203/).

The most frequent complaint is that most research on the subject is not high quality, but what about those studies that are good? The most thorough clinical study is Tunevall (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1853618/), which clearly supports no benefit. There are apparently no high quality studies that support benefit.

Show me any research done before the pandemic demonstrating that cloth masks do anything that justifies their forced use.

Doesn’t exist.

I dont like being used as a lab rat. I refuse to participate in this uncontrolled experiment these public health experts are conducting.