I’ve spent my profession guaranteeing American employees have the safety they should keep protected on the job.
In 2014, I purchased a enterprise in Kansas devoted to creating high-quality respirators and different private protecting tools (PPE). My firm provides the whole lot from security glasses to superior reusable respirators, that are utilized in industries starting from healthcare and firefighting to development, metalwork and meals service.
Respiratory safety is among the most important forms of PPE. An appropriate respirator can imply the distinction between life and dying, particularly when employees are uncovered to harmful mud, fumes or chemical substances. A correctly fitted respirator can forestall somebody from getting an epidemic or struggling a life-changing damage.
I’m involved concerning the current shutdown of the Nationwide Institute for Occupational Security and Well being. For greater than 50 years, NIOSH has been the gold commonplace for testing and certifying respirators within the U.S.
With out NIOSH, corporations can’t get new respirators accredited to be used. We are able to’t make or market safer, extra snug or efficient merchandise. Even worse, it opens the door for untested, uncertified and sometimes foreign-made masks to flood American workplaces.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, NIOSH performed a important function. It fast-tracked the approval of recent respirators, together with reusable ones. These new masks had been safer, extra snug, and a lot better for the setting than disposable ones.
NIOSH additionally caught and eliminated lots of of counterfeit masks offered as actual safety, however they didn’t work. NIOSH’s work saved numerous lives.
NIOSH did greater than take a look at masks. It offered analysis, coaching and sensible assets just like the NIOSH Pocket Information to Chemical Hazards. It tells you what sort of respirator you want for every kind of job and your publicity stage, whether or not you’re working with silica mud, lead or harmful chemical substances like xylene.
The shutdown of NIOSH doesn’t simply put employees in danger; it hurts American companies.
Many corporations have invested lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} in creating merchandise and increase their manufacturing. These investments are on maintain, and there’s no technique to get new respirators licensed. We are able to’t compete with overseas corporations that don’t have to satisfy the identical excessive requirements. We all know what occurs once we depend on imports: costs improve, and faux merchandise slip by way of.
The federal government is aware of the hazards that employees face. Whether or not it’s in hospitals, on development websites, in grain silos, auto physique retailers, or welding and steel retailers, respiratory hazards are all over the place. By shutting down NIOSH, the federal government has left American employees uncovered and condemned many to critical damage or dying. Employers can’t meet OSHA guidelines, and development, abatement and manufacturing initiatives could also be difficult to proceed.
If there have been issues with how NIOSH ran, the reply ought to have been to repair them, not remove the one company standing between employees and lethal hazards.
Claudio Dente is an Advisory Board member of the American Medical Producers Affiliation/InsideSources
