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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) plans to withdraw its proposed rule (pdf) outlining revised PortaCount quantitative fit-testing protocols it intended to include in Part II of Appendix A of the agency’s Respiratory Protection Standard. OSHA claims the proposed protocols are not sufficiently accurate or reliable, noting that commenters to the proposed rule raised a number of valid concerns regarding the methodology used in testing the effectiveness of the protocols. Moreover, OSHA concluded that the study it used to test the protocols’ effectiveness was not conducted according to accepted experimental design practices and principles and did not properly or fully describe the fit-testing results, among other flaws. Therefore, the agency plans to re-evaluate the protocols, and may resubmit a proposed rule when the review is complete.
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