July 23, 2010 at 12:24 AM
Organized labor officials and NIOSH's research council criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's plan to back off last year's call for use of N95 respirators to protect health care workers from the flu, saying the proposal is a retreat from the agency's stance following the outbreak of the H1N1 virus last year. Meanwhile the American Hospital Association (AHA) endorsed the respiratory protection changes. CDC is proposing to replace last year's guide with a new one that treats H1N1 as seasonal flu and says face masks, as opposed to respirators, are sufficient to protect health