The Natural Products Association (NPA) is petitioning the U.S. Court of Appeals to declare the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate unlawful, warning that it will have an immediate adverse impact on employers, including those in the natural products industry.  

“We are sounding the alarm today because we have serious concerns this extreme regulation imposes an unrealistic timeline and significant economic burden on businesses across the United States facing historic labor challenges,” stated Daniel Fabricant, PhD, president and CEO of NPA. “Vaccine and testing mandates will only slow delivery times and drive-up costs for consumers, retailers and manufacturers and damage the ability to keep products on store shelves that consumers have relied on to stay healthy for the past 20 months.”

The Emergency Temporary Standard for COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing (“ETS”) issued by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) requires all employers with more than 100 employees to mandate that their workers are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or to require weekly testing and masking of unvaccinated employees.

“We don’t need the ETS grinch during the holidays when the country is already plagued by concerns of rising inflation and product availability,” said Fabricant. “We are asking the Court to declare this mandate unlawful because we believe it exceeds the government’s authority, is unconstitutional, is unsupported by substantial evidence, and improperly preempts state law. We are hopeful that cooler heads will prevail so we can have a real debate on the best course of action.”

According to a statement from the White House, the Administration is calling on all employers to ensure that as many of their workers are vaccinated as quickly as possible. As detailed in a recent White House report, vaccination requirements work and are good for the economy. Vaccination requirements have increased vaccination rates by more than 20 percentage points—to over 90 percent—across a wide range of businesses and organizations. Wall Street analysts report that vaccination requirements could result in as many as 5 million American workers going back to work, and a survey of prominent, independent economists found unanimous agreement that vaccination requirements will “promote a faster and stronger economic recovery.”

For more information, visit www.npanational.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/MDL-1-Notice-of-Multicircuit-Petitions-for-Review.pdf.