On Immunity: An Inoculation - Eula Biss

Upon becoming a new mother, Eula Biss addresses a chronic condition of fear--fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what is in your child's air, food, mattress, medicine, and vaccines. She finds that you cannot immunize your child, or yourself, from the world.In this bold, fascinating book, Biss investigates the metaphors and myths surrounding our conception of immunity and its implications for the individual and the social body. As she hears more and more fears about vaccines, Biss researches what they mean for her own child, her immediate community, America, and the world, both historically and in the present moment. She extends a conversation with other mothers to meditations on Voltaire's Candide, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Susan Sontag's AIDS and Its Metaphors, and beyond.On Immunity is a moving account of how we are all interconnected-our bodies and our fates.

Published: 2014-09-30 (Graywolf Press)

ISBN: 9781555976897

Language: English

Format: Hardcover, 205 pages

Goodreads' rating: -

Genres

Essays Health Writing Medicine History Science Nonfiction

Reviews

Hayley rated it

An absolute must-read no matter what side of the vaccination fence you are sitting on. If I could have highlighted every single word I would have. I am very very pro-vaccination, but I also do not have children, and so have never been confronted with the rational and irrational fears that accompany motherhood. I have never had anyone dependent upon every decision I made, and so just cannot understand what it is like to be so completely overwhelmed with data, decisions, troubles, fears, and love. This book helped me there, and has definitely also helped me to understand internationally some of the debate over vaccinations (for instance, the middle east has wildly different problems with vaccinations- mainly that at times we have embedded spies in medical crews, etc.). Bisss discussions on the civic implications of vaccinations, how herd immunity works within the socio-economic structure of America, how we may even possibly be risking the lives of the less fortunate in our country and others by not vaccinating, but also how vaccinations have always been a source of a personal power and freedom struggle in America is amazingly thoughtful and is dealt with beautifully. She put the whole conversation in terms that I have never before realized or been able to verbalize and she did so with wonderful prose. I whole-heartedly recommend.

Tris rated it

I love Eula Biss. Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays is soooo important to me and so stylistically impressive. This is different--one structured narrative rather than an essay collection, but she does trace different topics related to the history of vaccinations and anti-vaccinations. Ugh she's just so SMART and so good at making connections between things. And I love that she writes openly from her perspective as a new mother, a privileged mother, who can understand the panic that anti-vaccinators feel while so, so perfectly destroying their arguments on both a medical and ethical level. Just. Great. And she's such an impressive writer. I already said that. I'm just very impressed by her. *_*

Cary rated it

Despite the fact that this book has been deemed one of the best non-fiction books of 2014, it completely took me by surprise. By combining historical information and personal essays, Biss takes on the hot button topic of vaccinations and brings it to a level that can appeal to anyone. Plus she is able to take the idea of vampires and our cultural history with those creatures and integrate them into our current cultural fear of vaccinations. Without shaming people who may be wary of vaccines and providing her own personal stories of motherhood, Biss does a really fantastic job explaining how we have vaccines, what they can do compared to what we think they can do, and why they are so important. Rincey AbrahamFrom The Best Books We Read In February: http://bookriot.com/2015/03/02/riot-r...