I think it's a stretcher to say those could raise risks. I doubt anyone wearing one of those believes they are filtering out anything more than dust, but where

I think it's a stretcher to say those could raise risks. I doubt anyone wearing one of those believes they are filtering out anything more than dust, but wherever there's traffic dust will be thicker on a dry day and that dust gets contaminated from pollutants too, but that wasn't even mentioned. The real stretch comes in the assumption that "They have the potential to lull people into a false sense of security, encouraging them to spend more time outside in dirty air." That's bullshit. If one is wearing a mask they're more likely to be very aware of the problem with sucking in polluted and dusty air and also more likely to avoid it as much as possible. The obvious proof of that would be they're wearing a mask. And it's pretty easy to see when they're getting worn out. Despite what they say about not being able to filter gases they still filter out a lot of junk and turn from bright white to nasty light yellow/brown pretty quickly so it'd be easy to spot people wearing over used ones but we don't see much of that. And that is something that would stand out to me but I don't recall ever seeing a photo where that was obvious. Finally, I was one of the very few people among all those I worked with at manufacturing products in an industrial environment that was diligent about wearing respirators and dust masks. The greater risks come from not wearing them when and where you should.