The Secret Respirator Test Data That NIOSH Doesn’t Want You To Know
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- It is literally true that NIOSH is hiding test data about currently approved respirators - you’d think it was an exaggeration, but it’s not. And I have the censored documents from my Freedom of Information Act request to prove it.
NIOSH wants you to think that all approved respirators are the same as others in their class, but that is just not true. They are not all identical. They have widely varying filtration and breathability within the NIOSH standards, and this is especially true of N95 rated respirators.
I wanted to learn more about the currently approved valveless elastomeric respirators. They vary a lot in filtration and breathability, so I wanted to see the NIOSH test data so I could better understand the range of breathability and filtration in the approved masks. It’s data generated by the government about products that are critical to public safety. Surprisingly, to me anyways, it’s not posted to the NIOSH website even though they do extensive testing and generate summary reports for all masks submitted for approval. So I made a Freedom of Information Act Request via the CDC. And after being given the run around, I finally received the test report documents! Which were dozens and dozens of pages of censored results. *All* of the numeric test results were whited out.
The CDC excuse for censoring the documents:
"...some information was withheld from release pursuant to 5 U.S.C. §552 Exemption (b)(4).
Exemption 4 protects trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person that is privileged or confidential. We have determined that the information withheld is customarily and actually kept private and confidential by the submitter of the information..."
You can view the documents here:
archive.org/de...
You can view a sample of what they documents are supposed to look like here at the SoftSeal website, because they posted the approval documents NIOSH sent AOK tooling for the SoftSeal N95s:
www.softsealma...
The problem with that excuse it is made for data submitted by companies or individuals, but the NIOSH testing is performed by the government*, and is not data submitted by manufacturers. The test results cannot be trade secrets any more than the mpg rating for cars could be considered trade secrets. And why is it "customarily" considered secret? Because *NIOSH tells companies to keep it secret and not use the test results in marketing. So there is a huge circular black hole of secrecy.
Censoring these test results paid for by the public is not in the public interest. To better understand NIOSH, NIOSH regulations and respiratory protection, it is vital for the public to have the numeric data. There are many reasons for that, one of which is to be able to make informed choices about respiratory protection, others include needing it so the public can make informed input about whether NIOSH needs better standards for N95s, such as printing filtration and breathability test results on the masks or packaging, or maybe the breathability standard should be improved and the harder to breathe through masks should be eliminated? Or maybe not. But to understand the issue, the actual test data is needed.
If you have experience appealing FOIA denials I'd love some tips on best practices for appealing the censorship of the NIOSH test data.
I get so irritated when the govt agencies that we pay for won't give us information. I find these days I am irritated a lot *Cough, CDC, Cough*. Thank you so much for sharing this content.
Thank you for doing this! All the NIOSH test data should be public! You're right, we're paying for it!
Outstanding. This is really important work.
This is wild. Really important info, thank you!
I wonder if this would be a place for a class action suit? There must be some lawyers out there who would be willing to work on this pro bono, considering the importance!
That would be lovely. Class actions are usually funded on contingency fee arrangements, and this is about getting documents released, so there's no money in it. And to be a class, I'd need a large body of people denied the same request in the past. I'm guessing NIOSH has denied similar requests in the past but I don't think it gets to the point that would qualify for a class action lawsuit :-/
Quality content for such a niche topic. 👍
Nice video, Gerard!
With a hat tip to 1 good tern,
Them: it's up to you to make personal choices about your protection from covid
Us: can you tell us about the masks you've tested?
Them: No
I love your videos!
Thank you!
Great video! Have you every fit tested The Harley Commodity L-188 N95? If you haven’t I’d be very interested in watching a future fit test video of it as I use them very often. They are a niosh certified N95
Fit testing should be done on your face. Results on someone else's face do not apply to yours unless they are identical + about the same weight. There are DIY options.
Do the ElastoMask pucks fit in the Dentec cartriges??
The dentec N95 cartridges are made specifically for replaceable thin felt pads. The cover would not be able to close or seal with one of the elastomask filter pucks in place.
It might be possible to MacGyver the elastomask filter pucks in place with hot glue or some other sealant, but that opens one up to the possibility of seal failure, which would allow air in. I like the idea of modifying things to work better, but I am wary of doing so with respirators in ways that might fail. Not saying you can't try, but if you do try, you need a way to validate the success. And keep in mind it can fail unexpectedly at any time unless it's engineered very carefully and with knowledge of the materials that you're trying to adhere to make sure that whatever sealant you use can properly to heal to both of them, and is biologically safe.
As someone who learned the hard way never do this. Do things the way you absolutely know for sure will work don't ever guess