Put my mask on...

So i told you guys that Trishy had something a-brewing and so she does...

To catch you all up, public health officials are up in arms about what type of mask healthcare workers should be wearing in order to minimize the potential for transmission of the virus-- standard medical face masks or N95 surgical masks*. This might seem somewhat trivial to us (and, ok, it sort of is), but in the world of public health and epidemic control, this is an end-all be-all debate.

Just released today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)**, is an editorial co-authored by epidemiologists Trish M. Perl, M.D., MSc, and her CDC protegé Arjun Srinivasan M.D.*** which comments on a simultaneously released study by Mark Loeb, M.D., MSc. The latter is a beautifully executed clinical trial which considers the case of respiratory protection in light of the resurgence of H1N1. Both the study and the editorial come to the conclusion (somewhat unexpectedly to most of the medical community) that based on what tangible facts there are, there is no palatable evidence that N95 masks offer any protectional advantage over standard face masks.

The CDC will release its official guidelines any day now, so we'll see if this new insight affects what they tell us to do. And to those of you people who freak out and get super paranoid about this kind of stuff, chill out for a second. Jesus.

* Just to give you some grounding, N95 respirators are the kind of masks that they used during the SARS outbreak and around patients diagnosed with TB (i.e. consumption--no joke). They are designed such that they actually filter out any particles larger than 5 microns (gross germies). Regular face masks protect people from large droplets like spit (say it, don't spray it, folks), but don't actually filter anything out of the air.

** JAMA is kind of a big deal. They have many leather bound books and their headquarters smell of rich mahogany.

*** Knowing this guy, I think that his credentials should probably read M.D., S.N.D. (super nice dude), but that's just me. Incidentally, if anyone can figure out how to invent and distribute new credentials, I'd be interested to know.