In states where vaccine exemptions are under attack, advocates for "no exceptions" mandatory vaccination laws argue that you and your children can be forced to get vaccinated because eight men sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court said so in 1905.  Public health officials and industry and medical trade lobbyists often invoke the Victorian era ruling in Jacobson v. Massachusetts1 to deny Americans the freedom to make voluntary decisions about vaccination.

Attorney Lawrence Gostin has said that Jacobson v. Massachusetts "is often regarded as the most important judicial decision in public health."2 He got that right. He knew he could use it after 9-11 to re-write state public health laws giving government more police power to trample on freedom whenever health officials declare a "public health emergency."3 4 5