Volume 100

Lars Noah

With growing resistance to vaccinations—premised, for instance, on misplaced fears of side effects or religious objections—it takes little effort to imagine that a state might act to prohibit some or all uses of a particular vaccine licensed by the federal government. Indeed, one year ago, legislators in a couple of states toyed with the idea of banning the primary vaccines against Covid-19, and, twenty years ago, half a dozen states effectively barred certain uses of one flu vaccine formulation. Although federal law should preempt at least some of these types of state restrictions, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution provides only a limited safeguard against such extremism.

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