Shortly before Sept. 11, 2001, a large metropolitan city purchased $7 million in new breathing apparatus for its fire department. Within weeks, they found that the equipment was not certified for chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear exposure.

In the aftermath of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, questions were raised about what could be in the air at the Twin Towers. The need to protect emergency responders from possible terrorist attacks of airborne chemical, biological or nuclear agents was urgent.

Led by government agencies and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, it was determined that the type of self-contained breathing apparatus used by first responders needed to be tested to make sure the equipment performed as it was advertised and be durable enough to meet the physical challenges that a firefighter would encounter. Besides the high temperatures in a fire that could cause plastics to warp or melt, equipment needed to withstand exposure to airborne contaminants.

Any time the question comes up about selecting respirators or breathing apparatus, somebody will always say you have to look for NIOSH certification. The question then becomes what is NIOSH, what do they certify and what does the certification mean?

NIOSH is the research agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, within the Department of Health and Human Services. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 created NIOSH and OSHA, which is under the U.S. Department of Labor. (OSHA is a statutory partner to NIOSH.)

For more than 30 years, NIOSH has had the mission and responsibility of testing and certifying respirators used in the workplace. Traditionally, that involved testing respirators in conventional workplaces like factories, where the respirators were used by employers and employees as part of their OSHA-mandated health and safety programs.

Respirators were used originally to protect against exposures to chemicals in factories or on construction sites, or against the dust created in coal mines as a byproduct of mining. By the very nature of their job, employees knew what they could be exposed to in the workplace. Employers had to comply with OSHA regulations that set specific limits for exposure to those contaminants, whether they were chemical vapors in the air or silica dust in a coal mine.

NIOSH certification programs were created to provide employers with a selection of reliable devices that had been tested and certified by NIOSH as doing what they were purported to do in offering protection to those known exposures in a workplace, if used properly as part of an employer-mandated health and safety program.

Testing criteria

Even before 9/11, NIOSH was cognizant of looking at equipment for emergency responders. For example, the sarin attack in the Tokyo subway system occurred in the late '90s, so NIOSH personnel knew there was a need that had to be met. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, kicked the program into high gear.

The challenge for NIOSH was to develop a testing program that was different from conventional testing for workplace respirators. NIOSH had to be able to test devices used by first responders who go onsite without knowing what they might be exposed to, yet need to have confidence that their respirators will withstand high heat or exertion of use.

NIOSH set up a testing program. The first priority was to establish the criteria for the devices that would be tested: the SCBA where the user has a supply of fresh air from the compressed-air tank and the filtering respirators that a wearer uses to breathe in from the ambient atmosphere.

Because the SCBA would be most used for first response, the next priority for NIOSH would be to set criteria for testing those devices and then solicit manufacturers to send in their products. NIOSH would test a unit, and if the device passed all those tests, it would then be certified by NIOSH as having met all of the criteria. If used properly by the responder, the SCBA would then protect as advertised.

Moving very quickly, personnel at NIOSH worked with first responders, fire departments, manufacturers and specialists to establish the program and its testing criteria. To check SCBA for chemical, biological and radiological exposures, they built on the existing tests of conventional devices and added the stress of high temperatures and rugged use. They also considered adapted NFPA standards.

At the request of Congress, NIOSH established the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh, Pa., to test respirators and other protective equipment. Although staffing for the laboratory is federally funded, NIOSH does charge manufacturers who send respirators for testing to help recover costs for the equipment used and for any specialized rigorous testing. Approved and certified CBRN respirators are listed on the NIOSH Web site at www.cdc.gov/niosh.

NIOSH also partnered with the U.S. Army Soldier Biological and Chemical Command to test devices against sarin and mustard gas, believed to be the most likely chemical weapons in a terrorist attack.

Trusted claims

In the end, NIOSH does not set standards or set regulations that require the use of CBRN-approved respirators. Traditionally, that decision is part of a fire department's standard operating procedures or a local mandate.

NIOSH's value comes when a fire department is looking for personal protective equipment that can be trusted to meet its manufacturer's claims. In that case, look for the NIOSH label. According to Fred Blosser, NIOSH public affairs officer, “We've tested that device and under conditions of proper use, the device will stand up to whatever it's being exposed to and protect that person from breathing in whatever its supposed to dangerous fumes or particles.”