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In this decision, the Supreme Court addressed for the first time the issue of compulsory vaccination. The decision upheld the right of a state under its police power to provide for compulsory vaccination and to delegate to a municipality the authority to determine when compulsory vaccination was necessary. The decision was welcomed by states in an era when smallpox epidemics were common. In the fo…
In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, upholding the right of the city to impose and enforce compulsory smallpox vaccination on all its inhabitants, including those who objected. On appeal, the Court limited its discussion to Jacobson's claim that compulsory vaccination violated the Fourteenth Amendment. With respect to this claim, Jacobson argued that his liberty is in…
The Court ultimately ruled that neither the statute nor the methods employed by the city were unconstitutional, and that application of the statute to Jacobson did not violate his Fourteenth Amendment rights. Underlying the Court's ruling was the Court's unwillingness to second-guess the state legislature, the board of health, and the medical profession as to the efficacy and safety of the smallpo…
Although the Massachusetts statute exempted children whom a physician declared "unfit" for vaccination, it provided no exemption for adults. Jacobson claimed that the city ordinance was broad enough to require a person to submit to compulsory vaccination even when his physical condition might be such as to render such treatment dangerous to life and even cruelly oppressive. The Court held that Jac…
The Jacobson decision is rich in law. It has been used in many subsequent Supreme Court decisions to support rulings on a wide range of issues, including the scope and limits of police power, the right of privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment, and the power of the judiciary to review legislative action. In Zucht v. King, (1922), the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to an ordinance requiring va…
Even though vaccines are intended to prevent illness, sometimes illness itself results when a patient, because of an allergy or for other reasons, responds adversely to a vaccination. Such a reaction can even be fatal, or at least permanent in its damage--a tragedy under any circumstances, but particularly in the case of a child. Such was the situation for Billy McCarren, whose parents alleged in …
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