How to choose the color of the mask? Bright colors aggravate coughing
发布时间 : 2022-08-23
(Summary description)Recently, a video about tips for wearing a mask has gone viral. The video says medical masks are sterilized using ethylene oxide, a Class I carcinogen that remains on masks. Although the residue has been tested and found to meet the national standard, it is still recommended to open the mask package, wave it in the air a few times before putting it on, which will help the ethylene oxide to dissipate and further reduce the residue.
(Summary description)Recently, a video about tips for wearing a mask has gone viral. The video says medical masks are sterilized using ethylene oxide, a Class I carcinogen that remains on masks. Although the residue has been tested and found to meet the national standard, it is still recommended to open the mask package, wave it in the air a few times before putting it on, which will help the ethylene oxide to dissipate and further reduce the residue.
Recently, a video about tips for wearing a mask has gone viral. The video says medical masks are sterilized using ethylene oxide, a Class I carcinogen that remains on masks. Although the residue has been tested and found to meet the national standard, it is still recommended to open the mask package, wave it in the air a few times before putting it on, which will help the ethylene oxide to dissipate and further reduce the residue.
Is this statement reliable?
It is safe to say that medical masks that meet the national standard purchased from regular channels are safe. If anyone likes to wave it twice before wearing it, of course, there is no problem, but the so-called dissipation effect is actually not obvious, and it is not necessary.
Ethylene oxide is a "sterilization expert"
Ethylene oxide is a common and easy-to-use disinfectant. Its chemical properties are very active, and it can undergo non-specific alkylation with the proteins and nucleic acids of microorganisms, causing them to lose their normal functions, thus achieving the sterilization effect. And like bacteria, spores, spores, viruses, etc., all of them can be killed. It can be said to be a "sterilization expert".
Another great advantage of ethylene oxide is that it works in "cold and dry" conditions.
For example, everyone knows that heating anything to two or three hundred degrees Celsius will definitely kill germs, but things like masks are completely broken at this temperature. Although the autoclave only needs to be heated to 120°C-130°C, it will generate a lot of water vapor, and it has to be dried out. With ethylene oxide there is no such problem. Because ethylene oxide has a low boiling point and high vapor pressure, it only needs to maintain the temperature at about 50 °C during disinfection, and it can easily enter any crevices and corners of the items to be sterilized to achieve comprehensive disinfection. And because ethylene oxide is sterilized in a gaseous state, there will be no bubbles. Ethylene oxide also does not corrode common materials such as plastics, paper, cotton, chemical fibers, metals, ceramics, etc.
Because of these advantages, ethylene oxide has become one of the most important low-temperature sterilization methods. Such as food packaging, baby diapers, sanitary napkins, etc., can be sterilized with ethylene oxide. Of course, disinfection objects also include medical devices such as masks.
Disinfecting masks increases cancer risk?
Like many disinfectants, ethylene oxide does have certain toxicity. If you inhale too much ethylene oxide gas at one time, you will be poisoned on the spot, and frequent exposure to ethylene oxide is also harmful to your health and increases the risk of cancer.
However, these risk factors, only workers in related industries need to guard against, ordinary people do not need to worry about it.
It is precisely because of the toxicity of ethylene oxide that the country has strict standards for the use of ethylene oxide to disinfect masks. According to the industry standard "Medical Surgical Masks" (YY0469-2011), the residual amount of ethylene oxide in masks sterilized by ethylene oxide should not exceed 10 μg/g.
That is to say, we unpacked and took out a mask, cut out 1 gram of mask fabric, extracted and measured, and the ethylene oxide inside should not exceed 10μg. In order to meet this standard, masks sterilized with ethylene oxide need to be air-dried in a ventilated analysis room for a week or two to wait for the ethylene oxide to dissipate. Therefore, the content of ethylene oxide in the masks we usually use is already minimal. When we wear masks, part of the remaining little ethylene oxide will also run into the air, and we actually inhale even less.
Comparing the residual limit of ethylene oxide, it will be found that if a medical mask weighs about 3g, each mask contains at most 30μg of ethylene oxide. According to persistent contact, if the daily dose is ≤ 0.1mg (1mg=1000μg), You have to swallow at least 3 masks every day to be able to exceed the standard. The premise is that you have to cover it tightly when you swallow it, otherwise the ethylene oxide will run into the air... (thought experiments do not imitate)
Is it necessary to wave before wearing a mask?
Increasing ventilation can indeed make ethylene oxide volatilize as quickly as possible, but, as said in the video, is it really effective just by waving the mask a few times? Some researchers have also done experiments on the effect of ventilation on the ethylene oxide content in masks.
They placed the medical masks that had just been sterilized with ethylene oxide and placed for a few minutes in the ultra-clean bench with strong wind blowing for different periods of time, and then measured the content of ethylene oxide. The results showed that ventilation can indeed be effective. Reduce the residual ethylene oxide in the mask, but it takes several minutes to blow with strong wind to reduce the ethylene oxide content a little.
Therefore, if you wave the mask a few times, the dissipative effect may not be as obvious as the video says, which may require further research to confirm.
In a word, ethylene oxide is a very good and commonly used disinfectant. As long as the residual amount is controlled within a safe range, it is safe to use it. For qualified masks, there is no need to worry about ethylene oxide threatening health.
In the face of the epidemic, in addition to vaccination and less gatherings, wearing a mask is the most affordable means of protection. We must not wear masks because of choking.
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