A peer-reviewed article by two of Stand Up Michigan stalwarts who work in Industrial Hygiene, OSHA compliance and Personal Protection Equipment that disects the recent OSHA ETS

Here are a few highlights:

On November 12, an Appeals Court reaffirmed the stay on the Biden Administration’s push for this mandate, therefore, no employer in the United States is legally able to cite OSHA's recent ETS as justification for forced vaccination, testing, or mandating face coverings in the workplace, neither is any individual state OSHA agency. This stay applies nationwide, not just to the states covered by the 5th Circuit Court.

Until there is an approved ETS, there is no standard. Where there is no standard, there can be no enforcement.

There is no statutory authority to implement this type of ETS as OSHA does not get their guidance or orders from the Executive Branch.

Perhaps the strongest argument against the grave danger and necessity requirements, however, are the fact that infectious diseases are not recognized “workplace hazards,” so OSHA does not have jurisdiction or authority over infectious disease control measures.

OSHA’s role is workplace health and safety, not infectious disease mitigation strategies or public health policy. Infectious diseases are not considered workplace hazards and OSHA has no jurisdiction or authority to control the spread of infectious diseases. This is within the scope of Health and Human Services and public health officials, not OSHA.

Another concern is the overreach of asking employees to disclose their vaccination status. One of the most misunderstood aspects of HIPAA and protected health information (PHI) is that it only applies to healthcare settings, which is false. Any employee who handles another employee's protected health and private health information or that of any customer or client, is subject to annual HIPAA training and has a "right" to know said historical medical information... Asking an employee their vaccination status is considered PHI. To do so without being fully HIPPA trained and certified puts the employer at risk of violating privacy laws and opens the employer up to lawsuits.

One major area of misunderstanding is in the area of liability. We hear all the time that OSHA won’t punish an employer if an employee is injured due to the vaccine. This is not at all true. Employers, you need to understand your risk of liability for requiring employees to utilize any medical device (masks are considered medical devices) without proper oversight and training, or to take any experimental vaccine that is still under emergency use authorization (EUA) and has not been tested for safety or efficacy (the Covid-19 vaccines are still in stage 4 testing phases and still under EUA), or any vaccine as a condition of employment for that matter. The injuries and deaths associated with these vaccines are too great to be ignored, yet employers are 100% liable for the injuries and deaths sustained if they are received because of a condition of employment.

Safety and health is never a one-size-fits all approach. In addition, the main rule of public health policy-making is to consider the best control measure for the problem that does not violate the public’s civil liberties.

To summarize, it doesn’t matter which agency is being threatened, targeted, and weaponized. It is all the same. The Executive Branch of our government does not have the authority to simply tell a regulatory agency, hospital system, doctors, or healthcare workers, schools, etc. to do what they order them to do in an attempt to implement their own edicts.

Business owners and schools must be informed on the extent of all of this so they are not complicit in the illegal promulgation and enforcement of self-proclaimed mandates that only create greater harm to their employees and customers, and students and staff, but they also need to understand the increased risk of liability they have to their employees, staff, and students if they DO enforce any mandate that creates an injury or illness above first aid.