Thread by @drbairdonline

For a concise overview of why #SCOTUS should overturn Jacobson v Massachusetts (1905) that public health officials regularly invoke to uphold state police power to mandate compulsory vaccination, check out Barbara Loe Fisher's 15-min video
Thread
1/

In a nutshell, #SCOTUS back in 1905 used bad logic, relied on old science & made ridiculous assumption that doctors are infallible to give govt green light to force healthy Americans to risk their lives with a pharmaceutical product based on “common belief” rather than fact
2/

Piously waving the “greater good” flag, #SCOTUS in Jacobson v Massachusetts threw civil liberties out the door creating the legal club used today to take away your right to freedom of thought, conscience & religion when making vaccine decisions for yourself or your children
3/

"In 1904, a Lutheran minister, Swedish immigrant Henning Jacobson, objected to a Cambridge, Massachusetts Board of Health law requiring all adults to get a second smallpox vaccination or pay a $5 dollar fine."
4/
newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/henning-jacobs…

"Pastor Jacobson and his son had suffered severe reactions to previous smallpox vaccinations and he logically argued that genetic predisposition placed him at higher risk for dying or being injured if he was revaccinated."
5/
nvic.org/nvic-vaccine-n…

"He [Pastor Jacobson] correctly concluded that smallpox vaccine ingredients were toxic and often caused injury and even death and that medical doctors were unable to predict who would be harmed."
6/

"He [Pastor Jacobson] made the legal & ethical argument that being required to get revaccinated was an assault on his person & violation of his 14th Amendment right to liberty and equal protection under the law."
7/

But attorneys representing medical doctors persuaded judges in MA state court that Pastor Jacobson didn't know what he was talking about & ruled agst him. Instead of simply paying the $5 fine (about $150 today), Jacobson appealed to #SCOTUS.
8/

Jacobson's decision to appeal his case to the US Supreme Court was "a mistake that led to one of the most unethical and dangerous legal decisions in American jurisprudence."
9/
medicalveritas.org/jacobson-v-mas…

In a split decision w/one dissenting vote, the Court majority (inc Oliver Wendell Holmes) said citizens do not have the right under US Constitution to be free at all times b/c there are “manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subjected for the common good.”
10/

#SCOTUS majority said state legislatures have the constitutional authority to enact compulsory vaccination laws & exercise police power to restrict or eliminate liberty during smallpox epidemics to “secure the general comfort, health and prosperity of the state” #CommonGood
11/

"The judges dismissed Jacobson’s concern abt being genetically susceptible to vaccine harm. Instead they chose to INCORRECTLY affirm the infallibility of doctors making this ignorant statement: 'The matured opinions of medical men everywhere, and the experience of mankind...
12/

Comparing compulsory vax of adults w/wartime military draft, the judges declared a citizen “may be compelled, by force if need be, agst his will & w/o regard [to] even his religious or political convictions, [to] risk the chance of being shot down in [his country's] defense.”
13/

"Of course, today, most of the citizen soldiers being forced to “risk the chance of being shot down” in America are babies in newborn nurseries and little children who want to go to school."
14/

"Although the 1905 Supreme Court judges dismissed concerns about the safety of smallpox vaccine as completely unfounded, they were clearly uncomfortable about Jacobson’s contention that his life was on the line."
15/

"Not once, but repeatedly, they [#SCOTUS] returned to the knotty problem of individual risk only to ridicule Jacobson and point out that his uneducated opinion was no match for the “common knowledge” expert opinion of medical doctors."
16/

"In fact, the judges went so far as to say that - even if Jacobson could prove medical experts were wrong about the safety of smallpox vax - STATES still have the constitutional power to enact laws based on MAJORITY OPINION & 'COMMON BELIEF' and NOT on TRUTH or PROVEN FACTS."
17/

"I wonder how many legislators know that the 1905 Supreme Court ruling being used to eliminate exemptions from vaccine laws was based on the idea that 'common belief' – not hard evidence - can rule the day?"
18/

"The 1905 Supreme Court judges tried to defend their decision by explaining that if individuals like Jacobson were able to get exempted from vaccination, it would mean that, 'Compulsory vaccination could not, in any conceivable case, be legally enforced in a community...
19/

#SCOTUS thus told state govts "they can make vaccine laws based on 'deep and universal' beliefs abt vaccination, especially beliefs held by medical doctors, but can ignore the deeply held beliefs of individuals with good reason to conclude they will be harmed by vaccination."
20/

"What were the beliefs of doctors in the early 20th century? Well, many influential doctors in academia and those leading social reform movements believed in a political philosophy called utilitarianism, which has its roots in hedonism."
21/

"Utilitarianism is a theory of morality based on a mathematical equation: the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Legislators like it b/c law making becomes a simple matter of adding & subtracting numbers"
22/

"What #SCOTUS did in Jacobson v Massachusetts was to codify the utilitarian rationale into US law so govt officials could use it to make public health policy."
23/
ncchpp.ca/docs/2016_Ethi…

"But the morally bankrupt core of utilitarianism was revealed in 1927, when Chief Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes & his colleagues used Jacobson v Massachusetts to endorse the practice of eugenics, an idea that Hitler took and ran with during the Holocaust."
24/

"In Buck v Bell (1927), Holmes ruled that the state of Virginia could use police power to protect the public health by involuntarily sterilizing a poor 17-year old single mother, Carrie Buck"
25/
exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/eugenics/3-buc…

"State officials had incorrectly judged [Carrie Buck] to be morally unfit and mentally retarded – in effect, genetically defective - just like they said Carrie’s daughter and mother were."
26/

In one of the most chilling statements in American jurisprudence, Holmes declared, “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough”!
27/

"In the merciless 1927 Buck v. Bell decision, just as in the Machiavellian 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts decision, ethical principles grounded in respect for individual human life and civil liberties were stripped from U.S. law."
28/

"The reasoning was that if utilitarianism could be used to create forced vaccination laws to immunize society from infectious disease, then forced sterilization laws could be created to immunize society against becoming infected with bad genes."
29/

"The immoral premise that 'the ends justifies the means' created a perfect climate for what became a tyranny of the majority." #TyrannyOfTheMajority #TyrannyOfPublicOpinion
30/

"By 1932, mandatory sterilization laws had been passed in 29 states. More than 60,000 Americans were involuntarily sterilized by public health officials before the barbaric medical practice was ended by most, but not all, states in the late 1940s."
31/
learningforjustice.org/magazine/sprin…

"Utilitarianism was discredited as a pseudo-ethic in 1947 at The Doctor’s Trial at Nuremberg after World War II. The horrifying truth about what can happen when utilitarianism is used to create public health law was exposed for the whole world to see"
32/
utmj.org/index.php/UTMJ…

The Doctor's Trial at Nuremberg "gave birth to the informed consent principle articulated in the historic Nuremberg Code. The next year, basic human rights...were affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
33/
qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences…

"Ever since, informed consent to medical risk taking has been the central ethical principle guiding the ethical practice of modern medicine. Except that public health officials and doctors giving vaccines in America today don’t want to respect that ethical principle."
34/

In 2005, professors of law & bioethics at Boston Univ wrote about how Jacobson v Massachusetts is no longer relevant. "Jacobson was decided in 1905, when infectious diseases were the leading cause of death" & “Few weapons existed to combat epidemics."
35/
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

"Public health programs that are based on force are a relic of the 19th century; 21st-century public health depends on good science, good communication, and trust in public health officials to tell the truth” AND "preserving respect for personal liberty"
36/

"How we can we trust public health officials who think that some children are expendable for the rest? Jacobson v. Massachusetts is a Supreme Court decision that allows government to commit human rights abuses."
37/End of Thread