Fundamentals of Public Health Law (HPM 561), Topic Summary for Scholarly Paper,
The title of my paper will be “Would a State School Entry Requirement for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Vaccine be Constitutional?” Since the mid-19th century, at various times, governments have required smallpox vaccination for children entering school and in other situations. Beginning in the 1960s, when a large measles epidemic affected the nation, many U.S. states began requiring measles vaccination for school entry. Since then, school vaccination entry laws have expanded into all the 50 states and have encompassed many more vaccines, including vaccines against hepatitis B, rotavirus, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, Haemophilusinfluenzae type b, pneumococcal disease, poliovirus, influenza, mumps, rubella, varicella, hepatitis A, and meningococcal disease. Many more vaccines are in development: herpes simples type 2, atherosclerosis, and others. Someday, it is possible that a vaccine might become available for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Under Jacobson v. Massachusetts and subsequent cases, courts in the United States have turned back virtually every challenge to state school entry immunization requirements. Generally, courts have used a basic rationality test to determine whether various requirements meet constitutional requirements for substantive due process. My paper will examine whether the same analysis would apply to a new vaccine against OCD, a disease that is vastly different from smallpox, the disease underlying Jacobson.