BUT THE rIGHT HATES AMERICAN HISTORY:

On Feb. 5, Washington wrote John Hancock, president of Congress, sharing his plans to "innoculate all the Troops now here, that have not had it," as well as his intention to "innoculate the Recuits as fast as they come in to Philadelphia [sic]." The general assured Hancock that the army would lose no time while the recruits were in quarantine, as they had to wait while "their cloathing Arms and accoutrements are getting ready" anyway.

Washington also alerted the nearby state conventions, urging them to inoculate their troops before sending them to winter quarters. He also reminded them: "We intend for the present to keep the Matter as much a Secret as possible, and I would Advise you to do the same." If the British discovered that the Continental Army was recovering from the inoculation, they would certainly seize the opportunity to strike.

A more effective and less gruesome smallpox vaccine was invented in 1796 and since then, American soldiers received the vaccine from the War of 1812 to World War II. Starting in World War I, the Army added vaccines against typhoid. During World War II, vaccines for influenza, tetanus, cholera, diphtheria, plague and yellow fever were also required. By 2006, soldiers in the armed forces received 13 different vaccines, with additional doses depending on location and regional conditions.

But soldiers weren't the only Americans required to receive a vaccine. In 1902, Massachusetts was once again at the forefront of the vaccine charge and once again, the focus was smallpox. As an outbreak spread across the state, the Board of Health in Cambridge issued a regulation ordering the vaccination of all residents. Pastor Henning Jacobson refused the vaccination, on the grounds that his childhood inoculation had gone badly back in Sweden. He pursued the legal case all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing that the law was a violation of his personal liberty and "unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive."

In 1905, the Court declared that the Massachusetts law did not violate the Constitution and affirmed that "in every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint." They also determined that mandatory vaccinations were neither arbitrary nor oppressive if they do not exceed what is "reasonably required for the safety of the public."

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