{"id":1165849,"date":"2021-12-28T15:49:27","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T20:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1165849"},"modified":"2021-12-28T15:49:29","modified_gmt":"2021-12-28T20:49:29","slug":"exclusive-nuclear-scientists-sound-alarm-on-lab-vaccine-mandates-fallout-will-be-felt-for-months-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-nuclear-scientists-sound-alarm-on-lab-vaccine-mandates-fallout-will-be-felt-for-months-to-come\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive \u2014 Nuclear Scientists Sound Alarm on Lab Vaccine Mandates: &#039;Fallout Will Be Felt for Months to Come&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">36<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-nuclear-scientists-sound-alarm-on-lab-vaccine-mandates-fallout-will-be-felt-for-months-to-come%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1165849&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-476794198.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">If the unfathomable tragedy of nuclear war ever struck the United States, the&nbsp;Lefebvre twins would be called in, like a scene from Ben Affleck\u2019s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0164184\/\">The Sum of All Fears<\/a><\/em>, to execute&nbsp;<span>modeling and simulation for nuclear fallout.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But for now,&nbsp;<\/span><span>Jordan and Robert Lefebvre are on the frontline of another kind of fight \u2014 a lawsuit against their employer UT-Battelle and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for trying to place unvaccinated employees who obtained religious and medical exemptions on unpaid leave.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p><span>In an exclusive two-hour December video call, the brothers meticulously detailed how pandemic politics have infiltrated ORNL, a 30,000-acre campus with over 300 buildings that house a publicly unknown amount of top secret projects pertaining to national security. The lab is overseen by UT-Battelle and contracts 100 percent of its business with the U.S. Department of Energy \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ornl.gov\/file\/ornl-fact-sheet\/display\">$2.4 billion worth<\/a> \u2014 doing research and development on nuclear energy and modeling systems, stockpile testing, and many other activities that require special clearances to participate in.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>ORNL\u2019s roughly 5,700-plus employees worked through the pandemic, many remotely, preparing \u201cdeliverables\u201d and executing their various projects while adhering to masking, testing, and social distancing measures. Now, several hundred unvaccinated employees have either been fired, or are waiting with bated breath as a class action lawsuit makes it way to a federal appeals court.&nbsp;<\/span><span>From truck drivers, to people who are \u201cclose to the codes,\u201d ORNL has lost or stands to lose employees the Lefebvre\u2019s described as \u201cunique and specialized\u201d and \u201cvery difficult to replace\u201d \u2014 all while America\u2019s enemies, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/news\/president-of-belarus-offers-to-host-russian-nuclear-weapons\/\">Russia<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/news\/pentagon-chinas-nuclear-arsenal-growing-much-faster-than-expected\/\">China<\/a>, bolster their arsenals.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could go on about the impact on the morale, the near-term milestones, and objectives of many, many projects \u2014 all of that fallout\u2026will be felt in the months to come,\u201d Jordan said, noting that he easily worked 60 hours per week before a vaccine mandate was announced. \u201cIt is being felt onsite at the national labs right now because we were already overwhelmed with the amount of work that we needed to accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Robert said ORNL is not the only lab suffering from the \u201cfallout\u201d of coronavirus vaccine mandates and noted that UT-Battelle <a href=\"https:\/\/solvers.battelle.org\/90\/national-lab-management\">oversees several other labs<\/a> and has likely facilitated similar policies elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are people who are leaders in their specialization who are being ostracized. Who\u2019s picking up that slack? Who\u2019s continuing that mission? It\u2019s difficult to have backups for people who are so specialized,\u201d he said when asked about implications for national security. \u201cAnd so there\u2019s a lot of loss of continuity in efforts \u2014 your mission scope\u2014 and obviously, you can imagine the mission scope across the national lab and security complex and how this could fall out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even though District Court Judge Charles Atchley Jr. for the Eastern District of Tennessee in late October ultimately denied ORNL employee\u2019s motion for a preliminary injunction while litigation continues, Atchley said UT-Battelle\u2019s mandate could arguably be called \u201cill-advised and underthought.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMuch can be said about the way UT-Battelle handled their accommodation processes. For a company that prides itself on the importance of its national security mission and the role it plays in protecting the interests of the United States, it is difficult to view its treatment of employees as thoughtful or prudent,\u201d the judge wrote in his decision.<\/p>\n<h3>Going Nuclear<\/h3>\n<p>The Catholic brothers described their careers as being marked by a \u201cmeteoric trajectory\u201d \u2014 both have degrees in computer science and have worked together at ORNL since 2009 (though Jordan resigned on December 1, 2021), and ultimately became group leaders responsible for multi-million dollar projects. In their personal lives, they said their faith shapes how they view the world \u2014 specifically their passion for the pro-life movement.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cOur mother had us on the prayer lines, holding our own prayer banners, pro-life banners very early, 6 a.m. at the abortion clinics saying our rosaries. So we\u2019ve always been very, very aware. The sanctity of human life runs deep in our veins,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n<p>When the pair found out the coronavirus vaccines were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/faith\/2021\/04\/14\/pro-life-leaders-assess-concerns-about-the-use-of-abortion-derived-cell-lines-in-coronavirus-vaccines\/\">created using fetal cell lines<\/a> in lab testing, development, or both, they decided to forego vaccination.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>On September 16, 2021, ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia sent an email to all staff that accommodations such as face coverings and testing, accommodations employed throughout the pandemic, \u201cmight not adequately protect staff,\u201d court documents allege.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe therefore threatened, before ORNL began any interactive process of interviewing employees with religious objections, that \u201cstaff members who are granted a religious exemption should be prepared to be on unpaid leave\u201d beginning October 15, \u201cpotentially until the end of the pandemic,\u2019\u201d the complaint continues.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan said they both quickly submitted their application for religious exemptions. On September 17, Jordan checked ORNL\u2019s online portal throughout the day, and in the evening he said he noticed his exemption application went from \u201cpending\u201d to \u201cdeclined.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThere was no communication,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had been promised on the forms that it would be an interactive process.\u201d For context, an interactive individual process when giving employees the chance to receive a reasonable accommodation is a standard legal process under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan said he emailed Human Resources about the portal change, but never received a response. Within an hour, the decision column was reportedly removed from the portal.<\/p>\n<p>Monday the following week, higher-ups asked Jordan to participate in an interview pertaining to his religious beliefs. On September 21, Jordan entered a smaller than 12\u00d712 room with four people inside. Notably, ORNL\u2019s coronavirus policy mandated that Jordan have no more than two people in his office at a time. Jordan said his office was slightly bigger than the interview room, meaning management was allegedly breaking its own rules to interview an unvaccinated employee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey subsequently started to interrogate me,\u201d&nbsp;Jordan said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Jordan, the panel asked him to describe his objections to the vaccines, describe the depth of his faith, explain his opinion on religious leaders\u2019 beliefs about the vaccines, and asked him if he has taken over the counter medications, many of which have been tested using fetal cell lines.<\/p>\n<p>After the interview, Jordan said he helped prepare Robert for his interview, which was scheduled for the next day \u2014 but the interview was canceled a few hours before it was supposed to take place. The brothers later found out everyone\u2019s interviews had been canceled and an email went out to those who obtained exemptions officially telling them they were to be placed on unpaid leave.<\/p>\n<p>According to the brothers, ORNL canceled the in-person interviews because a few people who had been interviewed (in the small room which management selected and which was not in line with pandemic protocol) tested positive for coronavirus. Despite the fact that many employees were working remotely, management did not move exemption interviews online.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey said we \u2014 the unvaccinated \u2014 were putting the vaccinated panel at risk because both days individuals tested positive,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n<p>Subsequently, the brothers noticed their benefits were rewritten several times, and that is when they said they knew management was definitely not \u201cbluffing.\u201d Then, on September 25, Zacharia sent a lab leadership email titled \u201cToday\u2019s Meeting\u201d which included a message from&nbsp;Associate Lab Director Stan Wullschleger stating that UT-Battelle employees \u201cmake decisions that impact themselves and their families\u201d based on their \u201cvalues, beliefs, and worldviews,\u201d and that \u201c[t]hose decisions have consequences and I\u2019m both confident and comfortable that we have communicated those consequences to everyone,\u201d according to court documents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRob and I started hunting down \u2014 we pretty much put a serious campaign together to reach out and find absolutely everybody who had put in for an exemption,\u201d Jordan said, adding that they were eventually able to find 130 employees who obtained religious exemptions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had the option to walk away from it or stand up and, and fight,\u201d Robert said.<\/p>\n<p>The pair spent the next several weeks preparing for the lawsuit after finding representation with&nbsp;Schaerr Jaffe, a powerhouse D.C. law firm which is also representing United Airlines employees in another&nbsp;<a title=\"This external link will open in a new window\" href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/12\/16\/exclusive-airline-employees-4-health-freedom-sen-ted-cruz-spot-on-slamming-united-airlines-ceos-shameful-treatment-of-employees\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">high-profile vaccine mandate case<\/a>,&nbsp;as well as additional mandate challenges in other states.<br \/>\u201cYou\u2019re talking about hours and hours of reading peoples\u2019 stories \u2014 just emotionally eviscerating,\u201d Robert said, specifically mentioning an employee who has a loved one that requires tens of thousands of dollars in cancer treatments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am six-foot-two, and I dropped to 145 pounds,\u201d Jordan said, detailing how the stress took a toll on him physically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, 10 percent of my body mass lost,\u201d Robert added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lawsuit Limbo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Judge Atchley initially granted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on October 15 until he could be presented with more evidence at a later hearing. During that those few weeks, ORNL called back employees whom it had begun to place on unpaid leave. Many of these employees had already read out of their security clearances \u2014 clearances which can take months to retrieve.<\/p>\n<p>On October 29, the judge ended up denying the employees a preliminary injunction, saying unpaid leave did not constitute irreparable harm.&nbsp; However, Atchley did note that \u201cplaintiffs\u2019 arguments appear convincing\u2014particularly concerning their Title VII failure to accommodate claim,\u201d and slammed UT-Battelle for reflecting a \u201cshocking indifference&nbsp;to some of its employees.\u201d The case is apparently on hold while a similar case is pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over Tennessee.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the current state of the lawsuit, UT Battelle\u2019s mandate has been crushed \u2014 at least temporarily \u2014 by other outside factors. Tennessee has a state law that says companies cannot mandate vaccines. While there is an exemption for companies that receive federal funding like UT-Battelle, a November 30 preliminary injunction placed on President Joe Biden\u2019s vaccine mandate for federal contractors was issued for Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. According to the Lefebvre\u2019s, UT-Battelle decided to comply with state law following the preliminary injunction and told people they could report back to work in early December.<\/p>\n<p>While the move may seem like a victory for the unvaccinated, Robert warned the action may only be temporary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of the group who were called back were outright told that it\u2019s temporary, that it might be X number of weeks, Y number of months, but\u2026 don\u2019t expect it to be permanent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan ultimately decided to part ways with ORNL, though Robert still works for the company. Robert said what has been most disappointing is seeing how those who wish to forego the vaccine are being painted, including highly trained scientists and engineers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a sense that anyone who is a scientist or an engineer cannot have religious convictions. And so in their mind they don\u2019t mesh. So if, if somebody gets ostracized because of this, then they weren\u2019t a good scientist, or they\u2019re not a scientist, we\u2019re all just janitors,\u201d Robert said.<\/p>\n<p>He continued:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This is something that I\u2019m&nbsp; seeing on social media, surrounding the news stories \u2014 they\u2019re not necessarily understanding that we are scientists. We are the people that are working and leading the mission space in our national labs and security complexes. It comes down to the logic of why, and history will hopefully tell. What we know right now is that because of our religious convictions, they removed our site and cyber access, even though we had been working throughout the pandemic, significantly remotely.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Jordan agreed, adding that as scientists who work with nuclear energy, safety is obviously a top priority and the pandemic is no different.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe as scientists, we as staff at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory hold safety on a pedestal. It is the foremost thing \u2014 it\u2019s the first thing we do above security even at the lab, is safety first,\u201d he said \u201c\u2026They trust of with millions of dollars worth of project funds, project execution, national security, sensitive information, mentorship of our staff, hiring new staff \u2014 and they don\u2019t trust us with checking ourselves for symptoms before we come onsite or getting tested.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLiterally, they treat us like COVID,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n<p>The case is&nbsp;<em>Bilyeu v. UT-Battelle<\/em>,&nbsp;No. 3:21-cv-352 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><em>Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on&nbsp;<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/katherineeeeee2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If the unfathomable tragedy of nuclear war ever struck the United States, the\u00a0Lefebvre twins would be called in, like a scene from Ben Affleck\u2019s The Sum of All Fears, to &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1165849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1165849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1165849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1165849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1165849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}