OSHA Suspends Enforcement of Employers’ Duty to Record Adverse Effects to Vaccines
Huh?
Click here, scroll down (or control-F, or click on the link that says vaccine-related) to the heading that reads: “Are adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine recordable on the OSHA recordkeeping logs?” and click on that. You’ll see this:
DOL and OSHA, as well as other federal agencies, are working diligently to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations. OSHA does not wish to have any appearance of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination, and also does not wish to disincentivize employers’ vaccination efforts. As a result, OSHA will not enforce 29 CFR 1904’s recording requirements to require any employers to record worker side effects from COVID-19 vaccination at least through May 2022. We will reevaluate the agency’s position at that time to determine the best course of action moving forward.
This is fuel for Tucker Carlson conspiracy theories. More information is always good; suppressing information is bad. What are these people thinking?
This doesn’t preclude employees from reporting directly to the VAERS system but, yes, if Biden is going to mandate that private employers vaccinate their workforce, then he shouldn’t pick-and-choose on other mandates.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 10/21/2021 @ 2:21 pmI suspect they were not thinking about suppressing information but rather streamlining the process. If they were hearing from employers that the OSHA requirements were a burden that was preventing them from encouraging workers from getting vaccinated.
Think of a school district that had previously never encouraged employees to get vaccinated, now suggesting that, and running into OSHA compliance issues they’d never had to deal with. Should the school district a) hire multiple people to handle OSHA compliance, b) be worried they will be fined for OSHA noncompliance, c) not encourage employees to be vaccinated?
That said, I agree it’s bad optics and a dumb move.
Nate (8f526f) — 10/21/2021 @ 2:25 pmThey’re thinking that people who should be opposing this full-throatedly will go mealy-mouthed and say THIS OVER-COMPLIANCE IS PROPAGANDA FOR OUR HATEFUL, LYING, AND BIGOTED ENEMIES THAT NO ONE SHOULD BE PAYING ATTENTION TO ANYWAY (implicitly justifying their original actions) instead of saying WHAT FACTS ARE YOU HIDING THAT SUPPRESSING THIS INFORMATION IS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU (the proper tack to take when you’re a real advocate who actually cares about the facts, like, for example, Tucker Carlson.)
Nevertheless, you have the answer to your question already: “OSHA does not wish to have any appearance of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination”…i.e., someone from the ‘Mandatory Pharmaceutical’ lobby is legally bullying them a hell of a lot harder than anyone from the ‘consistency’ lobby.
At least, that’s what a normal and reasonable person whose doesn’t automatically trust the results of processes generated only by one side would assume. What level of absolutely transparent and official cover-up might cause you to actually change your mind on this issue, I wonder?
“This doesn’t preclude employees from reporting directly to the VAERS system”
Yes, when the relevant government regulatory body sends you a big, red, blinking “YOU WILL GET INTO LEGAL AND REGULATORY TROUBLE IF YOU DO ANYTHING INTERPRETED AS DISCOURAGING THE VACCINE” signal, you’re not precluded from doing otherwise. At your own risk.
Tuckyboy Charls (7a4235) — 10/21/2021 @ 2:37 pmNah – this is fuel for people to realize the people in charge refuse to deal honestly with them and prioritize obedience over common good.
How many bricks have to fall from this wall of BS for some to realize the incompetence and dishonesty of many of those in charge?
The willingness of the gullible to repeatedly issue excuses is extraordinary.
Obudman (cef237) — 10/21/2021 @ 3:14 pm@4 We’re on the other side of the delta curve but I’m pretty sure you can still round up a crowd of people convinced that firing people and mandating the vaccine is “the way back to normal”. They would probably bring their own pitchforks, tar, and kerosene even if you didn’t ask them.
There’s no way “back to normal” from here.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/21/2021 @ 3:31 pmLuckily the DOJ has started paving the way on this with tracking down those domestic terrorists attacking the school boards. Now that we’ve got a list we just need to add anti-vaxxers to it.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/21/2021 @ 3:50 pmWe test too much.
nk (1d9030) — 10/21/2021 @ 4:34 pmThe McCornpop regime loves dealing 3-card monty.
mg (8cbc69) — 10/21/2021 @ 6:13 pmDr Sayid Haider:
“My experience using ivermectin and fluvoxamine in 4000 acute COVID-19 patients: 5 hospitalized. 0 dead. 4000 recovered. 5 pharmacist threats. 1 medical board complaint. 1 lawyer retained. Hundreds of medication transfers for pharmacist refusals.”
https://twitter.com/drsyedhaider/status/1451285955743207427?s=21
Obudman (cef237) — 10/21/2021 @ 6:32 pmOkay, then.
nk (1d9030) — 10/21/2021 @ 7:09 pmI’m a little confused. Are you saying if somebody says they had an adverse event from getting the vaccine that that’s a conspiracy theory?
I know that the CDC‘s VAERS system is either self reported or Doctor reported and according to their own data only 1% of actual adverse events are reported. Just because an adverse event is reported to the system doesn’t mean it’s real. Yes I know that. But some of them are real and that’s why they have the system.
I had adverse events in January and February with the moderna Covid vaccine. I’ve also had Parkinson’s symptoms for over 25 years. Usually symptoms for people with early onset Parkinson’s proceed a slower pace than those who get Parkinson’s later in life. I notice in the VAERS database that there are a number of people reporting Parkinson’s like symptoms. Since I took the vaccines the severity of my Parkinson symptoms have gone into overdrive. This does not happen to people with early onset Parkinson’s. I know correlation does not mean causation, but I do question it.
Tanny O'Haley (8a06bc) — 10/21/2021 @ 7:15 pmSame Syed Haider?
Okay, then.
nk (1d9030) — 10/21/2021 @ 7:16 pmThey may have been getting bogus reports as part of a disinformation campaign.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/21/2021 @ 8:59 pmonly 1% of actual adverse events are reported
people believe what they want to believe.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 10/21/2021 @ 9:01 pm@14 I’d say the best thing you can say about VAERS is that it’s telling you we need a better review of this. There are reasonable arguments that it’s both under and over reporting issues. I don’t think it’s a system suited to any of the various claims I keep seeing.
The fact that your statement is 100% true is reason enough to consider something better.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/21/2021 @ 10:01 pm“ A separate NIH report said, “In this limited experiment, laboratory mice infected with the SHC014 WIV1 bat coronavirus became sicker than those infected with the WIV1 bat coronavirus,” adding that “as sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research, as opposed to something that the researchers set out to do.”
It adds, “EcoHealth failed to report this finding right away, as was required by the terms of the grant. EcoHealth is being notified that they have five days from today to submit to NIH any and all unpublished data from the experiments and work conducted under this award.”
This comes after Fauci and NIH Chief Francis Collins claimed NIH did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Rutgers University professor Richard Ebright told the Washington Examiner this week the NIH letter is a “bombshell” because it “corrects the untruthful assertions” by Collins and Fauci “that NIH had not funded gain-of-function research on in Wuhan.”
This is to say nothing of the fact that the letter also reveals EcoHealth Alliance violated the terms of its federal grant.“
Rand Paul was right — Anthony Fauci is a liar
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/rand-paul-was-right-anthony-fauci-is-a-liar
There are people who still trust these folks as they push the vaccine (and perpetual boosters) for healthy young adults and kids.
Obudman (cef237) — 10/22/2021 @ 5:34 amPatterico,
This can be made to look bad, but it makes some sense to me when I think about the actual business impacts beyond the political stuff we like to talk about here.
Most large companies have internal policies that require them to track, root cause, and countermeasure recordables on a case by case basis per event. Doing that for every adverse vaccination event would be a paperwork nightmare. There are common minor side effects, such as a having a sore arm from getting the shot, that arguably meet that requirements of a recordable event.
We know that the vaccine can give you chills, aches and fatigue that can last a day or so as a common side effect. Making every company treat that as a recordable event doesn’t add any value to their process. There’s no action they can take to that event that would make their workplace safer and prevent future injuries.
Also, OSHA wants to understand and track how dangers a given work environment is. Adding this to the number of recordable injuries for a factory could easily make it harder, not easier because the number of people who put in for this could overwhelm the number of people who were actually injured at work.
I understand why anti-Vaxers are angry because the want to make the vaccine look as bad as possible for their own reasons. Especially people who aren’t familiar with how Health & Safety actually operates. Being able to grandstand about all the ‘recordable events’ would help them with their conspiracy theories, especially if they tried to make ‘recordable event’ sound scary when they explained what it is. But I think the CDC is the better place to summarize and present information around adverse outcomes for a vaccine.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 10/22/2021 @ 7:05 am17: Time123 takes a very large amount of words to say that the OSHA mandate is absolutely wrong because it’s not actually in OSHA’s jurisdiction, among other things.
Also has the gall to assert, without evidence, that a mandate that’s already destroyed thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in value is justifiable but simply recording vaccine adverse events “doesn’t add any value to their process” and “could overwhelm the number of people who were actually injured at work.” We can destroy shipping and logistics jobs just fine, but imagine the workload on the poor, poor, compliance officers!
Finally, he simpers over how people becoming familiar with how a system works might lead them to possibly abusing that system:
“Especially people who aren’t familiar with how Health & Safety actually operates. Being able to grandstand about all the ‘recordable events’ would help them with their conspiracy theories, especially if they tried to make ‘recordable event’ sound scary when they explained what it is.”
THEY’RE PENETRATING THE BUREAUCRACY!
Didn’t Mr. Incredible once punch you through several cubicle walls to worldwide audience cheers?
Monsier Incroyable (b986bd) — 10/22/2021 @ 8:25 amThey aren’t thinking. That is the problem.
It might also explain why they work for OSHA instead of a for-profit company.
No company wants to carry around dead weight like that.
Hoi Polloi (ade50d) — 10/22/2021 @ 8:29 amI am absolutely unsurprised that the NeverTrumpers who wailed for years about the “violations of norms” would engage in such shameless doublespeaking on the issue. Reminds me of how the official California explanation for their port woes is somehow simultaneously both longshoremen aging out of the jobs and HATEFULLY GUARDING AGAINST THEIR REPLACEMENT, when the actual explanation is the easiest thing in the world:
Meanwhile, those who harped on about THE SPECTER OF AUTHORITARIANISM in Trump’s day are literally calling out the National Guard to do basic logistics and hospital work, which is the sort of big-brained play that should ideally have at least 5 “Are you SURE?” prompts before making that decision. The left serves absolutely no one but its own corporate sponsors and various urban parasites whose main motivation for producing complex systems is enriching themselves with every dollar ‘saved’ by cutting out redundancy and human elements and absconding with the money when the system breaks down.
Hope to see the day when all of the pencil-necked lawyers and PR men for these official state famine justifications get shot and hung in a public place as an example to the others on the importance of clear communication(“Don’t shoot the messenger? Who the hell else are you going to shoot?” -Leonidas)
Kunstmang (8d66d5) — 10/22/2021 @ 9:39 amTime123 (9f42ee) — 10/22/2021 @ 7:05 am
I’d be interested in them collecting the data hoping that it was more accurate than VAERS. Are you discounting the possibility that these numbers would show little to no impact from the vaccine? It seems like there is an opportunity here to have data that would allow someone to say something like “over the last several months we’ve seen no significant impact on worker productivity, sick time, sick days, etc from the employees who’ve taken the vaccine”.
Do you think the numbers would be unreliable? I don’t think they’d be any more or less reliable than these ‘recordable events’ of other issues and it might avoid some of the reliability problems with VAERS. If there is any reliability to the numbers at all wouldn’t help resolve the conspiracy theories question?
I would like to agree with that. I think they should be the better place. I don’t think they have been. At the same time I think the OSHA numbers might give us data on worker productivity that could only be inferred by CDC numbers.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/22/2021 @ 9:52 amThe rule is not being changed. OSHA has decided not to enforce it for COVID-19 vaccines.
OSHA’s concern is the “appearance of discouraging workers”.
Why is OSHA afraid that people won’t get the vaccine if the normal rules for reporting side effects and adverse reactions are followed? I don’t trust bureaucrats to be honest with us. The past has shown that when the government hides something it’s not good. So why are they hiding/deciding not to enforce this rule?
When I see something like this my first question is always “what are they hiding“? You can see how it might rile up the conspiracy theorists.
Tanny O'Haley (8a06bc) — 10/22/2021 @ 1:05 pmI’m not sure what you’re saying, but from the report.
Electronic Support for Public Health–Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS)
Tanny O'Haley (8a06bc) — 10/22/2021 @ 1:15 pm“I’d be interested in them collecting the data hoping that it was more accurate than VAERS. Are you discounting the possibility that these numbers would show little to no impact from the vaccine? It seems like there is an opportunity here to have data that would allow someone to say something like “over the last several months we’ve seen no significant impact on worker productivity, sick time, sick days, etc from the employees who’ve taken the vaccine”.”
Save your breath on anything involving Time123 or KevinM, they both retreat to either long-winded explanations that end with “ITS ALL THE ANTIVAXXERS FAULT” or non sequiters as soon as pressed on points of fact. But they are usefully emblematic of the public figures they idolize.
Nobody pushing the mandatory vaccine cares one whit about “saving lives.” Nobody pushing the mandatory vaccine cares one whit about “saving lives.” Nor do they actually care about ‘good data’. They care only about making money, protecting their own reputations, and punishing their enemies. There is no science, there is only politics and careerism.
When you write a line like this:
“I understand why anti-Vaxers are angry because they want to make the vaccine look as bad as possible for their own reasons.”
…you are operating the furthest possible distance from good faith, understanding, precedence, discussion, or ‘the facts.’ Your conclusions are foregone, your mind is made up, PLUSVAXX IS GOODVAXX.
Do you feel all warm and fuzzy over a shot that will turn your body into a spike protein generator, considering how spike proteins behave in a human vascular system?
Got any questions or doubts about the number of adverse events seen so far? Looks like more than ten thousand deaths in the USA directly attributable to the vaxxes under the VAERS registry, and millions of injuries around the world. Not to mention the murky origins of the disease, the participation of US public health officials in its design and development, and the colossal profits reaped by the pharma companies that sell the vaxxes?
Have you noted the draconian desperation to vaxx up absolutely everybody, despite some excellent reasons for people to say “no thanks?”
Does the Big Picture look a little nefarious to you? Like some parties are out to bump off a pretty large number of people — including parties who have repeatedly stated out loud that steeply reducing the global population would be a swell idea?
Then according to Totally Not a Pharma Advocate pushing something that’s Totally a Vaccine except for the Fact that it Doesn’t Actually Work Like Every Previous Vaccine in History, you “want to make the vaccine look as bad as possible for your own reasons.” If you ask them about data on vaccine side effects, you get them talking cryptically about how “people believe what they want to believe.”
You don’t reason such wretched shills out of their position, you either remove their source of income for pushing their lines or their heads.
Ankle Harrier (4bf519) — 10/22/2021 @ 6:40 pmLet the record show that Socko is advocating murder.
Paul Montagu (5de684) — 10/22/2021 @ 7:08 pmMr. VPN,
If you are a Russian troll (with excellent English), I hope you’re getting paid well.
If you are a performance artist, acknowledge it and take a bow.
If you are neither, get some help, because your fevered brain could use a palliative.
norcal (b9a35f) — 10/22/2021 @ 7:11 pmAnkle Harrier (4bf519) — 10/22/2021 @ 6:40 pm
I almost didn’t notice you quoted me there. If we’re handing out advice
My situation there is already bad enough. I don’t need help from ALL CAPS or Changes Name Frequently making that worse.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/23/2021 @ 4:51 amFrosty, I don’t have time to reply to you comment as fully as is deserved. Sorry in advance.
If we want better data we should use public funds to get that, and not put the burden of vetting adverse effects claims on every small shop around the country.
When you report that you hurt your set at work the safety office/plant doc investigates to understand the nature of your injury as well as how it occurred. They’ll work with your doctor to review relevant medical records. It’s a lot of work. But it’s worth it because it (usually) results in actions to make the job safer. It wouldn’t have that benefit here. If we want this done as part of public policy the public should pay. Not a bunch of private companies . If you did it anyway I’d expect a lot of variation between all the different business in how thinngs are tracked and described.
Time123 (66c0bd) — 10/23/2021 @ 6:03 amTime123 (66c0bd) — 10/23/2021 @ 6:03 am
I think this argument applies to the vaccine as well. If it makes sense for OSHA to require companies to require vaccines it makes sense to collect data on the effects. Neither or both seems logical. One or the other doesn’t make sense to me.
You’d at least want to know if in fact the mandates do make the job safer.
If the problem is the burden on small shops we can increase the mandate requirement to companies with 1000 or 10000 employees.
frosty (f27e97) — 10/23/2021 @ 8:09 amFrosty, It doesn’t make sense to me for OSHA to require it. It’s clearly a pretext to allow the executive branch to create policy. It’s an horrible policy. Fortunately it hasn’t been enacted yet. Today only government employees or contractors are legally required to mandate the vaccine.
If we want to know details about adverse effects of a vaccine OSHA, working with people who do slips, trips, falls, sprains, and repetitive stress is the wrong place to get that.
I’m not viewing this as a covid/vaccine policy issue. I think that’s the wrong framing and the main flaw with the post from patterico. I’m viewing this as a misuse of government oversight and not making burdensome regulations that add little to no value
Time123 (2125d5) — 10/23/2021 @ 10:17 amFrosty, wanted to add that I have no idea what the troll said when it quoted you. I usually don’t read it’s comments but usually do read yours. 😎
Time123 (2125d5) — 10/23/2021 @ 10:22 amTime123 (2125d5) — 10/23/2021 @ 10:22 am
Thank you
frosty (f27e97) — 10/23/2021 @ 10:59 am5. frosty (f27e97) — 10/21/2021 @ 3:31 pm
They keep on thinking they won’t have to actually fire many people, because, after all, not getting the vaccine is illogical. Then it happens.
9.
There are lawsuits against hospitals, usually citing the Right to Try a=Act demanding that critically ill patients be given ivermectin. And the mocking descriptions we get of what ivermectin is for (relying on the label use as if that was all) don’t help the opposition to ivermectin.
I think that’s too late for ivermectin, but maybe a triple or higher dose of the antibodies, plus the right nutrition and the right vitamins (and nutrition is awful in hospitals) could help. And the antibodies are not approved for already hospitalized patients. Nobody, or almost nobody, is steering these families right.
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 10/24/2021 @ 3:01 amTanny O’Haley (8a06bc) — 10/21/2021 @ 7:15 pm
The Moderna vaccine is very strong (100 units versus Pfizer’s 30 units) because they wanted to make sure the FDA would approve it n 2020. he last I read, they ware trying to get the FDA to authorize a half strength booster.
There’s A plausible medical connection – autoimmunity.
By the way:
https://retractionwatch.com/2021/10/25/covid-19-vaccine-myocarditis-paper-to-be-permanently-removed-elsevier
Sammy Finkelman (c49738) — 10/26/2021 @ 11:38 amThe reporting requirement has been around since 1994 and including mandated vaccine reactions does not seem unusual to me, although this is new since this may be the first mandated vaccines (as opposed to voluntary vaccines, which are explicitly not covered).
There are many exceptions including businesses with less than 10 employees in a calendar year, and a long list of partial exemptions.
It makes sense to want as much reporting as we can get,, but it also makes sense to exempt this from
DRJ (03cb91) — 10/29/2021 @ 11:04 amIt makes sense to want as much reporting as we can get,, but it also makes sense to exempt this from the reporting requirement. The statute is designed to identify work-related injuries. This is work-related because it is mandated, not because it really fits the idea of occupational injuries.
DRJ (03cb91) — 10/29/2021 @ 11:06 amMaybe this is trying not to increase adverse events reporting for this vaccine, but it seems like a business-friendly move from a Democrat Administration.
DRJ (03cb91) — 10/29/2021 @ 11:14 amBut you’re not going to get good reporting on adverse effects front his process. The people who do this reporting have backgrounds in traditional workplace injuries and how to prevent them. Not adverse effects from medication. You’re going to get a lot of noise that makes it harder to see injuries that business can do something about.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 10/29/2021 @ 11:49 amMaybe that is why OSHA decided not to require reporting here. But I think employers watch their workers for a broad range of problems in these times. They may not be required to report everything but they have to watch for many potential problems including signs of suicide, mental health, addiction, possible workplace violence, etc.
DRJ (03cb91) — 10/29/2021 @ 4:32 pmAs for good reporting, my feeling is that supervisors and coworkers may see us more than our families and may be as/more likely to notice problems.
DRJ (03cb91) — 10/29/2021 @ 4:34 pm