{Washington, D.C.}...The Mine Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health announced Thursday they are ordering mine operators nationwide to immediately begin phasing out use of an emergency breathing device that testing has proven unreliable. Some 70,000 air packs called self-contained self-rescuers could be in use. They must be out of every mine by December 31, 2013. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says the SR-100 model failed too many tests and is therefore critically flawed. The SR-100 contains chemicals that help recycle exhaled breath, giving miners an hour of oxygen so they can seek refuge or escape from a fire or explosion. The SR-100 was made by Pennsylvania-based CSE Corp. which voluntarily stopped production of the model when internal reviews found problems and redesigned the defective oxygen-starter system.
