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In Sweden, smallpox vaccination was compulsory between the years 1816- 1976. Resistance against compulsory vaccination was widespread in the early decades of the twentieth-century, and there were repeated demands in the Swedish parliament to upheave or relieve compulsion. These proposals, as for a conscience clause, never gained majority, although at times with very poor margins. Medical reasons or personal experience of negative effects from vaccination was required; scientific reports or statistics concerning negative side-effects were considered illegitimate reasons for exemption. Very few applications were approved by the medical authorities and government. Although the legislation was very restrictive, the claims of medicine and the state had to fit what was considered politically possible in order to gain public support.

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