NIOSH testimony on personal protective equipment by A. Robbins, July 26, 1979.

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  This testimony concerned the work of NIOSH in the area of personal protective equipment. NIOSH evaluated the performance of many workplace safety devices such as safety shoes, eye and face protective devices, safety helmets and others in an effort to be certain they meet the standards established by the American National Standards Institute. These devices were not certified by NIOSH. On some occasions it appeared that workers were lulled into a false sense of security by the claims of the manufacturer that industrial safety devices comply with applicable standards when in reality what the consumer would expect from this claim was often not justified. Several examples were provided which illustrated the point that claims made by the manufacturer and, therefore, believed by the consumer turned out to be false. The examples presented include an eyecup safety goggle which did not meet the standard for impact resistance requirements and an industrial safety shoe which carried a label assuring that it meet the required standards when the standards contained a loophole which required that only one size shoe even be tested for compliance. The case of a safety shoe of the size which must be tested was presented. The standard required that only three shoes be tested; after that, the shoe could continue to be produced with no further tests being performed. The final example was a case in which a consensus standard for a industrial faceshield had been applied to a motorcycle helmet faceshield, a product for which it was not intended and was inappropriate.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Noise Noise, Occupational Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Eye-protection Eye-protective-equipment Footwear Head-protective-equipment NIOSH-Author NIOSH-Testimony Personal-protective-equipment; Robbins-A Safety-equipment
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Testimony
• Place as Subject:
  District of Columbia ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OD - Office of the Director
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-12
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00194001
• Citation:
  NIOSH 1979 Jul; :1-12
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1979
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:a4bcd58645d8a95d5ae0af9ac468e8de1feab81adbbf6790a4cbc00296553bc5547f2553af125ea172d784838015477d3aa83e6aec808651ca98c8a0d603dc71
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/180364/cdc_180364_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 279.60 KB ]