Jacobson V Massachusetts Quotes

Taking the position that the common man should decide whether to be vaccinated, the movement was underwritten by a handful of wealthy demagogues until it was finally stopped in its tracks by the 1905 Supreme Court decision Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which ruled that compulsory vaccination was in the best interest of the state.79

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, an editorial appeared in the New York Times: “The contention that compulsory vaccination is an infraction of personal liberty and an unconstitutional interference with the right of the individual to have the smallpox if he wants it, and to communicate it to others, has been ended. [This] should end the useful life of the societies of cranks formed to resist the operation of laws relative to vaccination. Their occupation is gone.” The prediction couldn’t have been more wrong. Anti-vaccine activism in the United States was just getting started.