PPE and the FDA

In times of adversity is when we see the greatest examples of innovation and new thinking! Kudos to the the government and industry/business collaboration and kudos specifically to FDA and Battelle - stepping up for America's front line workers in the war against Covid-19!

For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the sterilization of N-95 masks, on the part of one company, the West Jefferson, Ohio-based Battelle Institute.

The FDA’s new waiver to Battelle, a Columbus-based nonprofit research institute, said, ‘Battelle is authorized to decontaminate up to 10,000 compatible N95 respirators per chamber load,” in its new machine that decontaminates the safest masks against coronavirus and can allow 20 re-uses of the devices, which are in perilously short supply.’ The company has two machines — each capable of cleaning 80,000 masks a day — ready to go at its West Jefferson Ohio facility. Another two are currently being set up on Long Island, with a third headed to New York City soon. It also is deploying machines in Seattle and Washington, D.C. That means the new order could allow for up to 400,000 clean masks a day in the short run.