We reported earlier this month that the Bering Straits Native Corporation has ordered its 2,000 plus employees to get the COVID shot by Aug. 1. Failure to comply and your livelihood could be on the line.

The native corporation owns 22 businesses, one of the most recognizable being Alaska Industrial Hardware (or AIH). By coercing its employees to submit to an experimental injection, the native corporation is on dangerously thin ice.

“While COVID vaccine manufacturers are immune from legal liability, employers who try to impose these shots on their employees are not.”

Remember, not a single COVID vaccine has received FDA approval – only emergency use authorization. That means these products are still considered experimental and in need of further investigation and testing. Since federal law recognizes that Americans have a right to refuse experimental treatments, COVID shots cannot be forced upon people against their will.

But here’s where things get interesting. While COVID vaccine manufacturers are immune from legal liability, employers who try to impose these shots on their employees are not.

Employers that require COVID shots may be liable for damages – including legal fees – if their employees are harmed by the vaccine. The same goes for schools and other entities that attempt to mandate this investigational product that is still undergoing clinical trials.

Since hundreds of Alaskans have, in fact, suffered severe adverse reactions, including at least 14 deaths after receiving COVID shots, there is a very real possibility that the Bering Straits Native Corporation could find itself mired in serious and costly lawsuits in the months and years ahead.

If you want to take the COVID shot, fine, take it, but no one should support a corporation whose board threatens employees’ livelihoods by bullying them into submitting to an experimental vaccine.

If you have questions about your legal rights regarding COVID, check out the Health Care Civil Rights Task Force at healthcarecivilrights.org.

Despite an unprecedented public relations campaign to maximize vaccination numbers, there is a lot that the FDA simply does not know about the COVID shots, including how effective they are in preventing infections, transmissions and deaths.