On September 18, the Cal/OSHA Standards Board (effectively, the quasi-legislative body that considers and approves all regulations enforced by Cal/OSHA) voted to empanel an advisory committee to consider and report recommendations to the Board to revise the existing Zoonotic Aerosol Transmissible Disease (ATD) Standard, adopting a decision proposed to the Board by staff. 

The Standards Board’s directive specified the scope of the advisory committee’s charge to include but not be limited to whether provisions of the ATD applicable when a dairy is subject to quarantine overlap or conflict with ATD provisions applicable when culling or disposing of diseased animals, and exclusion of infected or exposed employees and considerations such as exclusion pay and maintenance of job rights and benefits. 

It’s noteworthy that the Board elected to empanel an advisory committee rather than considering specific changes to the ATD sought by the petitioner, Valley Voices, a voter education and registration non-profit making its first foray into occupational safety and health by petitioning the Board for a much more substantial revision of the ATD.  No information is available about the composition of the advisory committee. FELS parent organization, California Farm Bureau, urged the inclusion of representatives of the California Department of Public Health and the Department of Food and Agriculture to augment the scientific expertise of the advisory committee.