Vaccine Mandates for Children
An interview with Prof. Dorit Reiss
CLE Credit — Approved in 4 States
Since the early 20th century, state and local governments have mandated vaccines to residents in their jurisdictions based on public health needs and to segments of the population most at risk, including children. Today, all 50 states require children enrolled in schools to be vaccinated against a number of preventable diseases. Though vaccines have been around for over a century and have been proven to protect people from infectious diseases and against communicable spread, an anti-vaccine movement of parents has been growing in the United States over the past decade or so, resulting in pockets of under-immunized communities and more frequent and widespread outbreaks of potentially serious diseases like measles. Professor Dorit Reiss of UC Hastings Law explains the advent of vaccine mandates in the United States and the constitutional framework for school mandates. She examines the various states’ exemptions to school mandates, some legislative responses to recent outbreaks, and enforcement and other measures to improve immunization rates among children.
About Prof. Dorit Reiss
“If this vaccine backfires, we may have mistrust in vaccines in general, and we may be giving more ground to claims against vaccines that are tested, are well supported by data, and that will lead people to be more vaccine hesitant.”
Dorit Reiss is a Professor of Law and the James Edgar Hervey '50 Chair of Litigation at UC Hastings Law. Reiss’ expertise is in administrative and government law, health care law and policy, international law, and vaccine law and policy. Her recent focus has been on vaccines, examining the constitutional framework for vaccine mandates and the legal remedies for non-vaccinations. She serves as a member of the Parents Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines and is a frequent contributor to the Skeptical Raptor blog, with over 160 articles published on their website. Her articles have been published in numerous prestigious journals, including the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, the Stanford Law Review, and the Hastings Law Journal. She has been a source on vaccine mandates and under-immunization risks for a wide range of news outlets, including the National Geographic, CNN and USA Today.
