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More on Masks and H1N1 – N95 Research Faulty
This is not something you see everyday.
Remember how some research showed N95 masks helped prevent virus transmission better than any other kind?
Apparently, at the recent annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Australian team behind that research basically stood up and said, “My bad.”
Check out what happened in full detail here, but this passage sums it up nicely:
Researchers here at the annual meeting of the infectious diseases society were startled when the Australian researchers said their original analysis was in error, and they could not demonstrate a benefit for the N95 masks.
Meaning the cheap surgical masks appear to work just as well as the more expensive and harder to find N95 ones. Obviously, it’s a pretty key development in the fight against swine flu, considering current N95 recommendations.
Filed under: H1N1 (Swine Flu), News & Research
[...] Interestingly, 3M announced its ramping up of N95 respiratory mask production in response to increased demand as early as last month, before this study came out. If you’re not familiar with term, N95 is the designation for masks that filter 95% of air particles or more, and they’re the only ones known to offer virus protection. (ETA: Research that suggested N95 masks work better than surgical ones has been retracted.) [...]