On Wednesday, January 5, Montgomery County Public Schools handed out masks to MCPS staff. While these masks are marked "non-medical", they also are marked as KN95s, showing that they supposedly meet the Chinese standard of capturing 95% of tiny particles.
Up until mid-2021, the CDC maintained a site that lists all the non-NIOSH-approved masks on the market, and gives the ratings that they were able to find when they tested these masks. In many cases, these CDC tests showed that some masks actually only captured a much smaller percentage of particles than were claimed. I was curious to see if the masks that MCPS provided were rated highly by the CDC.
The masks provided by MCPS are labeled as Shenzhen Ende Medical Technology, manufactured by Shenzhen Enbide Electronic Technology, with the product line saying they are KN95 GB2626-2006 Non-medical EN-05 masks. However, when you try to look this mask type up on the CDC site, the company does not come up at all...
Probably certified in the McKnight test lab. After all, she is a Dr., right?
ReplyDeleteLikely counterfeit.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.alliablemedical.com/blogs/warnings-against-products-from-china/counterfeit-respirators-misrepresentation-of-niosh-approval
More about the counterfeits.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/usernotices/counterfeitResp.html
CDC should use its resources to test and provide us with list of certified masks instead.
DeleteCDC has had their list online for nearly two years and it's updated regularly. McKnight ignored the list.
Deletehttps://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/topics/respirators/disp_part/n95list1-h.html
In other settings this is called Fraud, Waste and Abuse.
DeleteWhat I find even more disturbing is why do they allow counterfeit masks to be sold in the first place? What do our regulatory agencies regulate?
Delete