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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: (202) 219-8151.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
is convening a science-policy panel to consider assigned protection factors for
respirators on June 15 during hearings on its respiratory protection proposal,
the agency announced today.
Assigned protection factors (APFs) are numbers given to
classes of respirators (such as half-mask or powered air purifying respirators)
that indicate the anticipated maximum protection the respirator can provide.
Thus, a respirator with an APF of 10 could be expected to protect a worker
exposed to air concentrations of up to 10 times the permissible exposure level
for a particular toxic chemical.
OSHA is updating its respiratory protection standard to
reflect changes in methodology and technology that have occurred since the
existing standard was adopted in 1971. The agency estimates the new proposal
would prevent up to 550 cancer deaths and as many as 6,900 illnesses each year.
Approximately 3.6 million workers at more than 650,000 workplaces would be
covered under the proposal.
An OSHA official will chair the panel, which will include
an additional OSHA representative and six parties who have already signed up to
testify on APFs. The parties invited by OSHA to participate in the panel will
choose their own representatives and need not limit their choices to
individuals previously identified as witnesses. OSHA expects that panel members
will be technical experts who are willing to exchange views "on the record" in
a constructive manner.
The panel will discuss the relative merits of various
classification systems such as those developed by the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the voluntary American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) and others. OSHA is seeking the fullest possible
airing of this issue to ensure a complete record on APFs.
Through the panel discussion OSHA hopes to gain a variety
of perspectives on the uncertainties surrounding the choice of APFs so that the
agency can determine whether and how to set an APF for each respirator class in
the final respiratory protection rule. During the panel session, panel members
and hearing participants will focus on the agenda issues and will be asked to
refrain from repeating testimony provided at other times during the hearing.
Specific issues the panel will address include:
- the validity of results obtained from available protection factor
studies;
- the range of statistical uncertainty and person-to- person
variability surrounding the results of these studies;
- correlations between study results;
- identification/specification of procedures and protocols that should
be used in determining APFs;
- and science-policy issues on the role of protection factors in a
required selection logic.
Hearings on the November 15, 1994 proposal start June 6,
1995 beginning at 9:00 a.m. each day in the auditorium of the Frances Perkins
Building, 200 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210. They will
continue through at least June 20, 1995.
The proposal would require employers to develop a written
respiratory program, establish appropriate procedures for respirator selection,
provide medical evaluation for employees wearing respirators, conduct proper
respirator fit testing, set procedures for using and maintaining respirators,
train employees and evaluate the effectiveness of the respiratory protection
program.
In addition, the proposal would revise respirator
provisions covering the selection and use of certified respirators contained in
other OSHA standards.
OSHA's announcement on the convening of the scientific
panel for the respiratory protection hearing testimony appeared in the May 25
Federal Register.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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