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Vaccination and religion


Vaccination and religion have interrelations of varying kinds, with some opposing and others supporting the use of vaccinations.

The influential Massachusetts preacher Cotton Mather was the first known person to attempt smallpox inoculation on a large scale, inoculating himself and over 200 members of his congregation with the help of a local doctor. While his pro-health view became standard, he also caused the first reaction against the practice.

Rowland Hill (1744–1833) was a popular English preacher acquainted with Edward Jenner, the pioneer of smallpox vaccination, and he encouraged the vaccination of the congregations he visited or preached to. He published a tract on the subject in 1806, at a time when many medical men refused to sanction it. Later he became a member of the Royal Jennererian Society, which was established when vaccination was accepted in Britain, India, the USA, and elsewhere. John C. Lettsom, an eminent Quaker physician of the day wrote to Rowland Hill commenting:

Several Boston clergymen and devout physicians formed a society that opposed vaccination in 1798. Others complained that the practice was dangerous, going so far as to demand that doctors who carried out these procedures be tried for attempted murder.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was the first state in America to make vaccination mandatory, in 1809.

Iceland in 1816 made the clergy responsible for smallpox vaccination and gave them the responsibility of keeping vaccination records for their parishes; Sweden also had similar practices.

When vaccination was introduced into UK public policy, and adoption followed overseas, there was opposition from social cranks and trade unionists, including sectarian ministers and those interested in self-help and alternative medicines like homeopathy.

Anti-vaccination proponents were most common in Protestant countries. Those that were religious often came from minority religious movements outside of mainstream Protestantism, including Quakers in England and Baptists in Sweden.

Catholic and Anglican missionaries vaccinated Northwest Coast Indians during an 1862 smallpox epidemic.

In the UK, a number of Vaccination Acts were introduced to control vaccination, starting in 1840, when smallpox inoculation was banned. The 1853 Act introduced compulsory free infant vaccination enforced by local authorities. By 1871, infant vaccination was compulsory and parents refusing to have their child vaccinated were fined and imprisoned if the fines were not paid. Resistance to compulsion grew, and in 1889—after riots in Leicester—a Royal Commission was appointed and issued six reports between 1892 and 1896. It recommended the abolition of cumulative penalties. This was accomplished in the 1898 Act, which also introduced a conscience clause that exempted parents who did not believe vaccination was efficacious or safe. This extended the concept of the "conscientious objector" in English law. A further Act in 1907 made it easier to obtain exemption.


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