Secrets behind the mask
3M also consistently claimed in interviews that breathing resistance--the issue in many of its failed tests--was not a safety issue. But industry experts have repeatedly concluded that breathing difficulties increase leakage in any respirator.
Perhaps 3M's sternest rebuke came in 1987, when it was legally established, over 3M's objections, that disposable respirators like the 8710 had a fundamental shortcoming. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., in a decision cowritten by future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, agreed with OSHA that there was no test for daily use to adequately ensure "the proper fit for disposable respirators." The ruling was pivotal, because in the world of respirators, it's a straightforward proposition: If you can't check fit, you can't be assured of protection.
Some government officials and respirator safety consultants who observed problems with the 8710 did raise concerns, but NIOSH's top regulators were not convinced: Government and company records show that NIOSH officials never seriously considered rescinding the agency's approval for the 8710. 3M's favored status at NIOSH became evident in a court deposition given last year by a former senior agency official named Robert Schutz. As chief of the testing and certification branch, Schutz was the agency's pivotal player for respirators. Retired for years, he testified that regulators gave 3M "favorable treatment" in the form of extra time to deal with problems--as long as several years. Regulators, in fact, took a remarkably hands-off approach. Once, after NIOSH discovered problems with the 8710, 3M met with Schutz and other regulators. A 3M memo recapping the meeting says: "They will in effect issue to their Q.C. people instructions that [breathing resistance] is not to be criticized." Schutz declined to talk with U.S. News. Current NIOSH officials could not explain his actions.
Perhaps most seriously, the government's testing program--minimal as it was--was plagued by irregularities. Nelson Leidel, chief of NIOSH's evaluation and review branch in the late 1970s, recalls an instance where, he says, he discovered that NIOSH allowed testing on the 8710 to continue until enough positive results were obtained to give the 8710 a passing grade. He urged the agency to reconsider its approval. The reply he got back, he says, was disturbing. "It is obviously impossible to defend that certification decision," wrote William Cook, a safety research engineer. "Unfortunately, this incident represents only the tip of the iceberg. We have reason to believe that our certification files are well populated with similar irregularities." Years later, Leidel remains angry and frustrated that nothing came of his efforts to compel greater performance of the 3M respirator. "This is the most damning indictment of a government agency," he said in a recent interview. "It's a public-health tragedy."
With Ann M. Wakefield and Monica M. Ekman
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