Two days ago I wrote about the legality of mandating medical treatment against the patient's or guardian's will. That post led me to some material on mandatory vaccination laws.
The mandatory vaccination movement seems to have begun in England in 1853 when the government required every child to be vaccinated or the parents would have to pay a fine of £1. There was a strong public backlash (partly due to the fines) and a committee was formed to re-investigate the matter and the fine was repealed. In 2004, the British Medical Association announced that vaccination policies should be based purely on voluntary participation. For a book on this topic see Bodily Matters: The Anti-Vaccination Movement in England, 1853–1907 (Radical Perspectives) by Nadja Durbach.
