Are Vaccine Mandates Constitutional?

Constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz was recently interviewed by Jason Goodman on Crowdsource the Truth when he made some alarming and rather shocking remarks. First Dershowitz said, “Let me put it very clearly, you have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread disease, even if you disagree.” 

When Goodman asked whether the federal government has the ability to mandate vaccines, Dershowitz replied, “Absolutely. And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”

I have to wonder how a Constitutional lawyer could make such claims or arguments given that our Constitution and Declaration of Independence both base any government power on that which is granted to it by sovereign citizens. Government is not sovereign – WE ARE. Our government only has the power we grant to it, irrespective of all the legislation passed in the intervening years, which pervert the original intent. 

So, a couple thoughts on the Supreme Court rulings on forced vaccination in response to Alan Dershowitz’s comments. 

First, despite Dershowitz’s assertions, it bears mentioning that healthy unvaccinated people aren’t spreading anything – they aren’t magically vessels of disease. The argument that unvaccinated individuals spread disease is further undermined by the fact that vaccine-induced immunity wanes and 2-10% of vaccine recipients never mount an antibody response which is the putative goal and indication of a successful vaccine. Additionally, the recently vaccinated can and do spread disease and this is why cancer hospitals warn their patients to avoid the recently vaccinated and sick individuals. At the Disneyland outbreak a few years ago, 38% of the cases were actually vaccine-strain measles, not wild measles, meaning the vaccine caused the infection.

With respect to Jacobsen V. Massachusetts, the original order allowed people to pay a fine but the pastor and his son who’d been harmed by vaccines did not want to do either, hence the case. That said, Justice Harlan wrote in his opinion, ““We are not inclined to hold that the statute establishes the absolute rule that an adult must be vaccinated if it be apparent or can be shown with reasonable certainty that he is not at the time a fit subject of vaccination or that vaccination, by reason of his then condition, would seriously impair his health or probably cause his death.” In sum, the court did not provide for forced vaccination. 

Given that federal law enacted in 1986 recognizes vaccines injure and kill some recipients yet no one knows in advance whether he or she will be injured, Justice Harlan most certainly would disagree with Dershowitz. And Harlan didn’t have the benefit of all the science we do today.

Of more importance, in the years since that decision, the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, and UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights have all concluded that the practice of ethical medicine requires voluntary informed consent.

With respect to Breusewitz v. Wyeth, it was a horrible decision. The original legislation, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, provided that those who petitioned the special vaccine court (a kangaroo court by any metric – no due process, no discovery, no jury, etc.) but were dissatisfied with the outcome could still sue the vaccine maker in federal court. Congress took that avenue away and Scalia was surely assuming that avenue would remain. The whole thing is a travesty of justice.

Today we face a situation where federal law recognizes vaccines injure and kill some recipients yet the federal government purchases over $4 billion of vaccines each year and distributes them to the states which mandate them, all while the vaccine makers bear zero liability. It is no wonder the childhood vaccine schedule has tripled since the 1986 Act was passed and vaccine makers have hundreds of new vaccines in development.

Given the vast amount of science demonstrating vaccine failure and danger together with the human rights declarations from Nuremberg onward, shouldn’t Jacobsen, a 115-year-old decision, be challenged?