Page 14 - Occupational Health & Safety, May 2017

RESPIRATORY PROTECTION
The Status of Current Respirator
Regulations and Standards
OSHA is considering some methods that will speed up the process of fit testing but still ensure that users are properly fitted with a particular respirator.
tions are laws that are set in place by the government and must be complied with by the respective entity for which the law has jurisdiction. The government could be a federal agency, as well as a state and/or local entity. For the purposes of this discussion, we will focus on federal agencies. In the United States, the common agencies that might have jurisdiction over respiratory protection are the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Na- tional Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These agencies have regulations that must be complied with by either a manufacturer or user of a respiratory protection device.
Standards are established by consensus and gener- ally do not have the power of law, unless the govern- ment designates it as having this power. Consensus standards are usually recommendations on the use or manufacture of respiratory protection devices that are written by a group of participants who have an inter- est and expertise in the subject at hand. Some of the consensus organizations that write standards for re- spiratory protection are the American National Stan- dards Institute/American Society of Safety Engineers (ANSI/ASSE), the National Fire Protection Associa- tion (NFPA), and ASTM International.
There are also international organizations that write standards and regulations, but for the purposes of this article we will limit discussion to happenings in the United States. Discussed below are some of the activities of the various organizations. Note that this is not an all-inclusive list of activities relating to respira- tory protection in the United States.
NIOSH regulations dictate how a respirator is manufactured and sold. The overarching regulation is 42 CFR 84, which was first issued in 1995, although it did have a predecessor regulation and has had vari- ous updates since 1995. The most recent updates were for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) respiratory protection generally intended for first responders. NIOSH has also updated their certi- fication fee schedules. Currently, NIOSH is working with some of the standard consensus organizations listed above, as well as on their own, to develop up- dated standards that are intended to ultimately be incorporated into the NIOSH regulation or possibly incorporated as a non-mandatory/voluntary element of the standard.
NIOSH is working independently to develop an
BY JEFFREY BIRKNER
14 Occupational Health & Safety | MAY 2017
www.ohsonline.com
Respirators are devices that are used to pro- tect wearers from various types of airborne hazards. The hazards may include gases, va- pors, particulates, or combinations of any or
all of these contaminants. Respirators can be special- ized for use in industrial settings, fires, health care, or other applications.
In 2001, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted a voluntary sur- vey of U.S. employers regarding the use of respiratory protection devices. The survey went to more than 40,000 employers and had a 75 percent response rate. Based on the survey, they estimated that more than 600,000 workplaces were either requiring or allowing for the voluntary use of respirators. Respirators are a vital piece of safety equipment, and they are governed by regulations and standards.
There is a big difference between a respirator reg- ulation and a respirator standard. Respirator regula-
MOLDEX-METRIC, INC.