- Thousands of counterfeit 3M respirators have slipped past U.S. investigators in recent months.
- Making it to the cheeks and chins of health-care workers and perplexing experts who say their quality is not vastly inferior to the real thing.
- According to 3M, the leading U.S. producer of N95s, more than 10 million counterfeits have been seized since the pandemic began.
- The company has fielded 10,500 queries about the authenticity of N95s.
A recent news article written by Christina Jewett in the Philadelphia Inquirer reveals that counterfeit N95 masks hit U.S. hospitals by the millions. But some work surprisingly well.
What does 3M say?
The company said in a Jan. 20 letter that its work in recent months led to the seizure of fake 3M masks “sold or offered to government agencies” in at least six states.
After Kaiser Health News sent photos of the masks that the New Jersey nurses questioned, a 3M spokesperson referred to them as “the counterfeits you identified.”
Complaints about counterfeit masks
In New Jersey, staff members began complaining in November about their masks to union leaders at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, said Kendra McCann, president of the hospital’s Health Professionals and Allied Employees union local.
“Nurses are scared to death,” McCann said in mid-January as the masks continued to pop up, “because they’re not being provided with the proper PPE.”
Suspected fake masks continue to turn up
The masks, which seemed flimsy and made some workers’ faces burn, were turning up in every unit of the hospital.
After a union member discovered a letter on the 3M website pinpointing their mask lots as potentially fake, managers began to remove the masks.
But suspected fakes continued to turn up, McCann said.
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Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer
