Federal Law 426-FZ obliges employers to evaluate the safety and hygiene conditions at the workplace. This law allows to reduce the hazard class when workers are provided with effective personal protective equipment, including respirators. This article describes the problems that arise during the assessment of the effectiveness of respirators in the workplaces and in the laboratories. Current level of world science is insufficient to accurately measure the concentration of harmful substances in

more »

... he air inhaled through respirator mask. A random and unpredictable nature of leakage of unfiltered air under the mask prevents the application of the results of the measurements to assess the effectiveness in other cases. Therefore, accurate assessment of the effectiveness of respirators is not possible. This article shows that the requirements for assessing the effectiveness do not correspond to the current level of world science, and they do not prevent the provision of respirators, that are wittingly not effective enough. It is necessary to stop lowering the hazard class levels and develop requirements to provide employees with adequate respirators only.