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On Immunity: An Inoculation, by Eula Biss
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The hugely acclaimed New York Times Best Seller, now available in paperback!
*A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist*
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2014:
The New York Times Book Review (Top 10), Entertainment Weekly (Top 10), New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune (Top 10), Publishers Weekly (Top 10), Time Out New York (Top 10), Los Angeles Times, Kirkus, Booklist, NPR's Science Friday, Newsday, Slate, Refinery 29, and many more...
In this bold, fascinating book, Eula Biss addresses our fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what may be in our children's air, food, mattresses, medicines, and vaccines. Reflecting on her own experience as a new mother, she suggests that we cannot immunize our children, or ourselves, against the world. As she explores the metaphors surrounding immunity, Biss extends her conversations with other mothers to meditations on the myth of Achilles, Voltaire's Candide, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Susan Sontag's AIDS and Its Metaphors, and beyond. On Immunity is an inoculation against our fear and a moving account of how we are all interconnected-our bodies and our fates.
- Sales Rank: #30872 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-15
- Released on: 2015-09-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.18" h x .62" w x 5.55" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 224 pages
Review
“Subtle, spellbinding . . . Sontag said she wrote Illness as Metaphor to ‘calm the imagination, not to incite it,' and On Immunity also seeks to cool and console . . . [Biss] advances from all sides, like a chess player, drawing on science, myth, literature to herd us to the only logical end, to vaccinate.” ―Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Book Review
“By exploring the anxieties about what's lurking inside our flu shots, the air, and ourselves, [Biss] drives home the message that we are all responsible for one another. On Immunity will make you consider that idea on a fairly profound level.” ―Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A)
“On Immunity . . . weaves metaphor and myth, science and sociology, philosophy and politics into a tapestry rich with insight and intelligence.” ―Jerome Groopman, The New York Review of Books
“A philosophical look at the history and practice of vaccination that reads like Joan Didion at her best. If you are yourself a nonfiction author, your initial response to this book might be to decide immediately on another line of work; Biss is that intimidatingly talented . . . .This is cultural commentary at its highest level, a searching examination of the most profound issues of health, identity and the tensions between individual parenting decisions and society.” ―The Washington Post
“[An] elegant, intelligent and very beautiful book, which occupies a space between research and reflection, investigating our attitudes toward immunity and inoculation through a personal and cultural lens.” ―Los Angeles Times
About the Author
Eula Biss is the author of The Balloonists and Notes from No Man's Land, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism and which Salon deemed "the most accomplished book of essays anyone has written or published so far in the twenty-first century." Her work has appeared in The Believer, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Times. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Howard Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in the Chicago area and teaches at Northwestern University.
Most helpful customer reviews
155 of 181 people found the following review helpful.
Parents and doctors / This is a "Must Read" for you / It's wisdom and truth
By S. Goldstein
I work in pediatrics- a field that deals with immunizations and questions about immunizations on a daily basis. I have lectured about vaccines to numerous parent and medical groups. There are a cornucopia of books about vaccines out there, and there are many that are good and very good. On Immunity is just excellent.
In my medical training, during the late 1990's-early 2000's, we were taught very little about how to discuss vaccines with parents. The attitude was that the doctor would tell the parent "your child is getting some shots today" and the parent would say "that's great, thanks!" and we would all go on with our day. When I entered the real world, I found that parents had many questions - some crazy and some very legitimate. As I was about to have my own child, I worried that some of the fears I was hearing could be true, and I spent a great deal of time doing further research. In the subsequent years, I put together a lecture that addressed the common fears about vaccines, and discussed with families and other health care workers the validity of those fears. I read many good books about vaccines (like the Mnookin book, and some of Paul Offit's books). I also read some bad ones (the Sears book, Jenny Mccarthy's odd views). On Immunity is definitely at the top of the heap.
If you are a parent who wants to understand the truths and consequences about vaccines in a concise but literate way, or if you are a health care worker who wishes you had a better way of framing answers to questions from concerned families, then you absolutely must read this book. It is gripping but light, short but detailed, and above all it is true. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
77 of 90 people found the following review helpful.
Brilliant, profound exploration of cultural and historical forces that culminate in the decision not to vaccinate
By Amy R.
ScienceThrillers Review: On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss is an extraordinary, unclassifiable, vital book that deserves to be widely read and reflected upon. Written by a critically acclaimed essayist, On Immunity is a memoir, an essay collection, a history, a social commentary, a parenting guide, a literary work...The author herself has a hard time succinctly answering the question, "What is your book about?"
I'll tell you what On Immunity is about by telling you why it's an important book. As a scientist and medical professional myself, I "believe" in vaccination. My kids get their immunizations on schedule, I get my flu shot every fall. I bristle when I encounter anti-vaccine people and propaganda. And like many other people in my shoes, I look at the data on the benefits versus risks of vaccination, and I wonder why "those people" don't get it. Essentially, I'm asking, "What is WRONG with those people?"
But did I ever truly, honestly explore the question from a more neutral perspective, not, what is wrong with vaccine refuseniks, but, why do they perceive the world so differently from the way I do?
Fortunately, Eula Biss has deeply explored this important question, and in unfailingly beautiful, intelligent prose, she has answered it with a depth and breadth that astonishes.
Clinical study data have nothing to do with it, which really shouldn't surprise anyone. In how many aspects of our lives do we ignore data and make decisions based on other considerations? Many-no, most.
Biss makes crucial insights into the numerous complex streams that feed the anti-vaccine movement. To begin, she uses an ongoing metaphor of the vampire. The act of injecting a foreign substance into the body is fraught with metaphysical significance. Biss links it to violation, corruption, and pollution. Historically, others have, too. An Anglican bishop in 1882 referred to a smallpox vaccination scar as "the mark of the beast." (Her analysis of the history of vaccination amply demonstrates that vaccine refusal is not new.)
If there is one idea that Biss contributes which is most novel and most important to the conversation about vaccination, it is this: the decision to vaccinate is not a private one. It is intimately a part of our how we view ourselves in relation to our community, our government, and our institutions. Indeed, Biss argues that our own bodies are not as individually disconnected from the body public as we believe. She links immunization to our membership in a group, to the fundamental connectedness of people. She likens universal vaccination to a blood bank. Each person donates part of her own body to protect the health of another. Ultimately, she shows that "immunity" isn't something that happens inside our bodies. It happens to our community. And certain privileged members of this community have a responsibility to act for the benefit of those who are less so.
As difficult as it is to summarize this slender volume, it's even more challenging to highlight the best or most important passages. I swear I highlighted, commented, or dog-eared half the pages in the book. Profound ideas and syntheses follow one after another.
This is an intellectual book. It is ill-suited to soundbites, and is painted entirely in shades of gray, something our over-opinionated culture finds discomfiting. Therefore it will not appeal to every reader. What makes On Immunity the perfect book for the conversation on vaccination is, the author herself is a member of the class most likely to refuse vaccination: educated, married, white mothers. She writes as one of them, and communicates in a way that should appeal directly to the intelligent, socially concerned, well-read women who object to vaccines, women who experience a modern American trauma of "feeling responsible for everything and powerless at the same time."
I hope that many book groups consisting of such women will have the courage to engage with this book. It speaks to them from the heart, and it understands how they feel. While Biss explicitly rejects the idea of a middle ground on the question of vaccination as a false peace, she remains utterly grounded in and sympathetic to the worldview of those who want to protect their children. Her persuasion has nothing in common with the data-haranguing of the medical/scientific establishment. She asks for a larger view of the self, and an embrace of the community.
An advance copy of this book was given to me by the publisher with no promises on my part.
45 of 55 people found the following review helpful.
"A child cannot be kept from his fate, though this does not stop the gods themselves from trying."
By Amelia Gremelspacher
"I am no longer fearless." She is a new mother who finds that the most perilous thing we may do is to bear children. No longer an entity contained within her skin, she sets off to determine the real risks inherent in inoculations, among other interventions in the modern world. she notes in a lucid voice, that to act is to start the future in motion, and to do nothing still sets that future in its course.
I found this to be an amazing voice who has placed the fears and and anxieties of our modern medicine in the context of our existence as true beings in the whole of our world. Her various observations of the philosophy of immunizations are truly startling and clear in her well researched discussions of the role of science in our world.
She makes a cogent argument for out inability to rationally assess true risk in the face of fear. In another instance, her discussion of "herd immunity" point to the obligation that those who have access to care have to those who do not. The risk of contagion is much higher for one person who is inoculated among many who are not than for a person not inoculated in a crowd of those who are. The more people who are protected, the more protection for those who are not protected. She also explores the continuum of our bodies with the world around us, and notes that toxicity to a scientist is one of degree of exposure. While she does not address the evils of high fructose syrup, plastics bleeding toxins or other villains in definitive terms; she does point out that each threat must be taken in context.
This is a book that challenges the mind without torturing the reader with obscure or overly technical writing. The education on risk, immunity, ad the role of medicine in our world is succinct and at times lyrical. I cannot recommend this book too highly.
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