Karen L. WallochThe Antivaccine Heresy: Jacobson v. Massachusetts and the Troubled History of Compulsory Vaccination.

Abstract

Karen L. Walloch. The Antivaccine Heresy: Jacobson v. Massachusetts and the Troubled History of Compulsory Vaccination . (Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press. 2015). Pp. x + 352. $125 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-58046-537-3. Jacobson v. Massachusetts is the Rorschach test of constitutional law. Ever since the Supreme Court issued the decision in 1905, jurists and legal scholars have cited it for different, often inconsistent, principles, including the deference that courts should give to the state’s police power, the inclusion of public health within the social compact, the constitutionality of mandatory vaccination laws, a patient’s right under the Due Process Clause to reject unwanted medical treatment, the Constitution’s protection for individual privacy, and the constitutionality of mandatory sterilization. Karen L. Walloch’s new history adds yet another perspective to this most famous public health law case. Jacobson upheld the conviction of the Reverend Henning Jacobson who was fined $5 for refusing to be vaccinated during a smallpox outbreak, despite … w.parmet{at}neu.edu