Links from the National Library of Medicine site are claiming that parents can't be compelled to have their children vaccinated, though of course these vaccination sites VERY strongly recommend it in all cases except allergy, illness, exposure of unvaccinated family members, etc.For example, the immunizationinfo.org "Common Questions" site has the following quote on page 25 of the .pdf navigator:
"Are there legal consequences for parents if they choose not to vaccinate their children?"
As of Mar 2004 all 50 states allow vaccination exemptions for medical reasons, 48 states allow exemptions for religious reasons, and 20 states allow exemptions for philosophical reasons.
- There is no legal penalty for parents or guardians who obtain exemptions for these reasons.
- However, unvaccinated children are at greater risk of catching vaccine-preventable diseases.
In most states, a child can attend school or day care if a proper exemption is obtained. However, when there is an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease, children who have not had the disease and who have not been vaccinated are often excluded from school or day care.
Mississippi and West Virginia are the only states that do not allow exemptions for religious reasons. The 20 states that allow exemptions for philosophical reasons are Arizona, Arkansas, California,Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. Updated information on state immunization requirements is available on NNii’s Web site:
--Source: The National Network for Immunization Information
Here are other Medline Plus links.
St. Mary's University links to some free web sites, from Supreme Court decisions, down to District and State court decisions.
Cornell Univ Law school has a search for titles of the laws themselves. The search: vaccine gets 119 hits, vaccination gets 13, including "US CODE: TITLE 42,247B. PROJECT GRANTS FOR PREVENTIVE HEALTH SERVICES TITLE 42 - THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE/CHAPTER 6A - PUBLIC HEALTH
SERVICE/SUBCHAPTER II - GENERAL POWERS AND DUTIES/Part B -
Federal-State Cooperation" which says the following: "(g) Use of grant funds; mandatory treatment pro¬hibited (2) Nothing in this section shall be construed to require any State or any agency or political subdivision of a State to have a preventive health service program which would require any person, who objects to any treatment provided under such a program, to be treated or to have any child or ward treated under such program.
The problem with Lexis, of course is that very strict licenses prevent off campus access (or copying and sending on our part). It does appear there is plenty of stuff in that database - the search: vaccination requirement* and parent* and refus* and school* (latest 2 years in law reviews) gets 9 hits, 7 of them relevant ones. The Lexis Academic categories "Legal News" or even "General News" will probably have many more, if you can get onsite access at a large academic library. One big advantage of the "Law Reviews" is their huge lists of references - not only to actual cases, but also to other articles, books, and reviews.
In google NEWS, where the phrase "vaccination requirements" gets 3 hits, and the search: vaccination requirements parents gets 9 hits. In google as a whole, the search: "vaccination laws" "school requirements" gets 7 hits. "vaccination requirements" parents lawsuits gets 150+ hits, some with names of people and cases that you can then use to narrow down. If you already know of a case, you can use that name. For example, the search: terran health "human services" gets 165 hits, including sites talking about the Michele Y Terran case.
