The principle of informed consent stands as one of the most important safeguards of personal freedom. Yet, as many have painfully discovered—especially during the COVID-19 era—this principle is frequently violated.

“Informed Choice” Is the Better Term

True informed consent is not merely signing a form or hearing a quick disclaimer. It is the receipt of all information material to make an intelligent, voluntary decision about a medical procedure.
More accurately, it should be called informed choice, because once a person is fully informed, they may reasonably refuse the intervention. Giving or withholding consent is the outcome of a process that respects the patient’s autonomy.

The 1972 Turning Point: From Physician Standard to Patient Standard

Before 1972, the prevailing legal rule in most American jurisdictions was the “professional” or “physician-based” standard: doctors were only required to disclose what was customary among their peers. A doctor could satisfy the duty of informed consent by telling a patient whatever other reasonable doctors in the community typically disclosed—often very little about serious risks.
That changed dramatically in 1972 with two landmark rulings decided just months apart:

• Canterbury v. Spence (1972, D.C. Circuit)
  A 19-year-old underwent spinal surgery after being told – shockingly – that the risks were no greater than “any other surgery.” He became permanently paralyzed. The court rejected the physician-based standard and ruled that even a 1% risk of lifelong paralysis was material information that a reasonable patient would want to know.
• Cobbs v. Grant (1972, California Supreme Court)
  A man with an ulcer agreed to surgery that ultimately led to removal of his entire stomach due to undisclosed complications. The California Supreme Court explicitly adopted the “patient-based” standard: disclosure must be judged by material information a reasonable patient would need to know to make an informed decision—not by what physicians customarily say.

These twin 1972 decisions shifted the legal benchmark across the United States from “what doctors usually tell” to “what a reasonable patient needs to know.” The patient, not the profession, became the measure of adequate disclosure.

Vaccines and the Erosion of Informed Choice

Despite these clear legal precedents, the routine administration of vaccines—especially childhood vaccines and the COVID-19 shots—has often operated as though the old physician-based standard never left.

Those Pastel-Colored Information Sheets

Most parents and patients receive the CDC’s Vaccine Information Statements (VIS)—those familiar pastel sheets handed out in doctors’ offices that legally satisfy the bare minimum of “informed consent.” A detailed analysis of these sheets reveals a troubling pattern:

• 63% of the conditions listed focus on mild or temporary reactions (soreness, low-grade fever, fussiness).
• Only 37% address severe outcomes or death.

This framing dramatically understates the material risks a reasonable person would want to consider before injecting a pharmaceutical product, especially into a healthy child. In reality, 90% of the VIS should be the material sequelae – the serious or deadly consequences and the chance that someone will experience one of those.

Many healthcare providers justify withholding or downplaying risks by appealing to the “greater good.” This is pure utilitarianism—and it has no place in the doctor-patient relationship. A physician’s primary ethical and legal duty is to the individual patient, not to public health statistics.

The old canard that vaccines only cause a serious adverse event in 1 in a million people has been used as a tool of coercion. Coercion is not consent.

Evidence from Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Research

About a dozen true vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated studies show unvaccinated children have dramatically lower rates of asthma, allergies, autism, ADHD, and autoimmune disorders. Approximately 60% of American children and adults now live with at least one chronic illness—most commonly the “4-A” conditions: asthma, allergies, autism, and autoimmunity. Those conditions are seen almost exclusively in the vaccinated.

Severe outcomes from vaccination are clearly not 1 in a million – it’s greater than 1 in 2 – and this is material information that is absolutely necessary to meet today’s patient-centered informed consent (choice) standard.

The Biggest Violation: COVID Shots Were Unlawfully Mandated While Under EUA

Under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), federal law (21 U.S.C. § 360bbb-3) explicitly requires that individuals be informed of the option to accept or refuse, of known and potential risks, and of the extent to which risks are unknown.

Yet millions received COVID shots under workplace and school mandates without any meaningful disclosure of risks such as myocarditis, pericarditis, blood clots, neurological injuries, or emerging reports of aggressive (“turbo”) cancers. In 2021, coercion replaced choice most egregiously. The legal requirement for informed consent under EUA—and the patient-based standard established in 1972—was violated on a massive scale.

Reclaiming Your Right to Informed Choice

You do not need to be “anti-vaccine” to defend medical liberty. You simply need to insist on your long-established legal and ethical right—grounded in the patient-based standard of 1972—to make fully informed medical decisions for yourself and your children.

Never allow yourself or your child to be bullied, rushed, or shamed into a medical decision.
The power imbalance in medicine only persists if patients allow it. Informed choice is not a privilege granted by the medical establishment; it is your fundamental right.

You are in control.

The Mayer Medical Liberty Moment is a monthly feature at the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley.