What Does U.S. Law Say About Vaccines?

     With a wave of the mutated COVID-19 spreading throughout the United States, businesses, cities and some parts of the federal government are beginning to require proof of vaccination. Is it legal? What does the law actually say? 

     A Supreme Court case from 1905, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, was about a vaccination mandate. In the early 1900s, smallpox outbreaks were frequent and many people had been vaccinated earlier as children, but needed booster vaccinations. Massachusetts passed a law that gave authority to local boards of health to make a decision in response to an outbreak that smallpox vaccination should be mandatory for all residents if, in the opinion of the medical experts on the board, it was necessary to protect the public's health. 

     The city of Cambridge launched an outreach program to get everyone vaccinated, but Henning Jacobson objected because, he said, vaccines were ineffective and harmful. The Supreme Court said his arguments were nothing more than reciting alternative views that differed from medical opinion and they did not warrant an exemption. 

     It's common practice for health care employers to require flu shots and as well as other shots as a measure to protect patients, but also to some extent to protect health workers themselves. For years the Cleveland Clinic has required employees to receive annual flu shots. Other examples are hepatitis vaccinations and all of the childhood vaccines given as a condition of attending school. Also, college students in many states are required by law, not just by the college, to get a meningitis vaccine.  And, the federal government mandates vaccines for military service members. 

     Can government forcibly require you to get vaccinated? Legally, no, you can't be forced to take a vaccine. You're not going to be physically restrained and vaccinated. But, that's not the same as a vaccine mandate. A vaccine mandate means the government is requiring a person to be vaccinated as a condition of taking part in society or participating in a particular activity. The US Supreme Court has ruled that vaccine mandates at the state or local level can be established. 

     States and private employers are setting vaccine mandates because legally they can. In other words, the government and private entities cannot force people to get vaccinated, but they CAN make it a condition of going to work, going to college, attending certain events, etc. 

     Is an employer trying to maintain a safe workplace for employees and customers discriminating against the unvaccinated? While they can't keep unvaccinated people out of their business, they can require them to wear masks as long as they require everybody to wear masks. 

     What about religious exemptions? Most states recognize some religious exemptions, but not every state...California and New York, for example. To date, the Supreme Court has never ruled that people have a First Amendment right to reject vaccine mandates on religious grounds. 

     What about HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which includes privacy protection about when a person's health data is shared? Does a store or employer have the right to ask if a person is vaccinated? Legally the HIPAA privacy rule does not even remotely prevent that! 

     The privacy rule is about what a hospital has to do to protect a patient's medical information, not what a business can do. Businesses are free to ask, but a person is not required to answer if they don't want to. 

     Short version...state and federal governments can't force people to receive the coronavirus vaccine against their will, but lawmakers can create a mandate that imposes consequences for not being vaccinated. And, that's the way it is...for right now at least. 

 

As of yesterday the Supreme Court made THIS ruling!