He Removed Labels That Said "Medical Use Prohibited," Then Tried to Sell Thousands of Masks to Offic

[LiberalArkie]

He Removed Labels That Said “Medical Use Prohibited,” Then Tried to Sell Thousands of Masks to Officials Who Distribute to Hospitals




Lucas Rensko was making money through a popular handyman-for-hire app called TaskRabbit, doing odd jobs and delivering groceries, when he picked up a task that led him to a leaky-roofed warehouse on a tattered road in northwest San Antonio.

Inside, a man named Jaime Rivera had set up long tables where five or six other “Taskers” earning about $20 an hour were ripping Chinese masks out of plastic bags and stuffing them into new ones that were identical but for one potentially deadly difference. The old packages were labeled in all caps “MEDICAL USE PROHIBITED,” meaning not to be used by doctors and nurses who need the strongest protection from tiny particles carrying the novel coronavirus. The new bags, intended to make their way to Texas hospitals, simply omitted that warning.

This seemingly small deception highlights a huge problem for medical workers whose best defense against a virus that ravages the body with horrifying complexity is a simple, but trustworthy, mask. That trust has eroded as Chinese-made masks claiming, sometimes falsely, to be 95% effective at filtering virus-laden particles made their way into hospitals and now local convenience stores. You might have bought them: KN95s.

Snip

https://www.propublica.org/article/he-removed-labels-that-said-medical-use-prohibited-then-tried-to-sell-thousands-of-masks-to-officials-who-distribute-to-hospitals

[Arkansas Granny]

1. BFE. Is that the country of origin?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. The article says "Chinese masks".

[LiberalArkie]

3. What does BFE stand for in mask?

The Bacterial Filtration Efficiency (BFE) test is performed on filtration materials and devices that are designed to provide protection against biological aerosols, such as face masks, surgical gowns, caps, and air filters.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. Just trying to be funny.

BFE = Bum Fuck Egypt

[LiberalArkie]

7. That would work also. Not only did they remove the "not for medical use" they added the BFE

[billh58]

4. BFE 95%

This filtration material has gone through rigorous testing and has passed all required certifications for use as the filter material in masks and respirators for blocking 95% of particles. It has passed the BFE (Bacterial Filtration Efficiency) Test.

https://www.sailrite.com/Melt-Blown-Face-Mask-Filter-Material-BFE-95-50-10-Yds

Most likely bogus as well...

[LisaL]

9. It wasn't on the original bag either.

[NutmegYankee]

11. Anything KN95 is China. KN95 is their government standard.

The USA NIOSH standard is N95.

[musette_sf]

20. +1

[brush]

6. That's just greedy. Those masks could still be sold how they were. Many non-medical...

people would buy them.

[LisaL]

8. Probably. But this would give non-medical people false confidence, as apparently some of these masks

are filtering way less than 95% of particles.

[brush]

10. That's not really an issue as the surgical and cloth masks that most people wear...

only filter about 60%, nowhere near what the legitimate N95 or N99 masks do. And most know they don't have the efficiency of the medical masks.

[LisaL]

15. These might be filtering less.

"The 6-foot stack of boxes were labeled as coming from a Chinese manufacturer, Guangzhou Aiyinmei Co. Ltd., which had been identified by the FDA as one of the companies producing ineffective KN95s. The masks filter as little as 39% of particles, according to testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They’re so ineffective that Canada issued a recall. The FDA had hastily approved them and others for health care use at the beginning of the pandemic, but it changed its mind last month, even as millions of the masks circulated in the U.S."
https://www.propublica.org/article/he-removed-labels-that-said-medical-use-prohibited-then-tried-to-sell-thousands-of-masks-to-officials-who-distribute-to-hospitals

[Hortensis]

12. Evil. Evil people are showing themselves for what they are

everywhere these days.

[C Moon]

19. Yes. They crawled out from under their mossy rocks when the shadows of Trump and Putin appeared.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. No, not JUST greedy. CRIMINAL ENDANGERMENT. Medical workers lives at stake. . . . nt

[brush]

14. Oh, I agree. I'm just saying those masks could've been sold to non-medical people...

without deception and the guy could've still made a handsome profit. His greed for a bigger profit took it into criminality.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. I hope there is criminal PROSECUTION for him and his workers (who surely can read English). . . . nt

[LisaL]

17. If you claim something is KN95 (which means it should be filtering 95% of particles)

and it's filtering a lot less, I'd say even selling it to non-medical people is no good.

[brush]

18. Not quite. The surgical and cloth masks and kerchiefs that most people wear...

only filter out about 60%, and most people know that. Masks work if everybody wears them and also social distances—don't hang around gabbing, laughing, cheeing, singing etc. in crowds as it takes several minutes of exposure to get a good dose of infection.

They could've been sold without any deception claiming they were N95 standard and he wouldn't be criminally liable.

[RobinA]

21. Really

All the mask packaging I see that regular people can buy says "Not For Medical Use." At work we got some Chinese N95s and I just don't trust them. My concern is what they are actually made of or coated with because they don't smell the same as the 3Ms I got at the beginning of this thing.