In a unanimous vote in 2009, the California OSHA Standards Board adopted The Aerosol Transmissible Disease Standard (ATD), the nation’s first workplace standard designed to protect healthcare and other workers from aerosol (airborne and droplet) transmitted diseases.

Learn more about this standard here.

SEIU Nurses led on this issue from the beginning and were tireless advocates to see this standard passed. We fought to address the risks to healthcare workers and workers in other high-risk environments due to exposure to aerosol transmissible pathogens, such as the agents which cause tuberculosis (TB), measles, pertussis, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), H1N1 (swine) flu and other pandemics.

Our hospitals were resistant, telling RNs for example to stop wearing respirators because it scared the public. But we didn't give up.