A review by sterlingisreading
On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.75

Spent a snowy day reading one of my favorite writers, Eula Biss. In this book, she tackles vaccines, immunity, and inoculation from every angle. She weaves together history, science, culture, and her personal experience into a book that’s highly informative and also moving. She writes from her perspective of being a new mother, having to make choices for her child, and being bombarded by anti-vax opinions of those around her. She runs in very white, privileged circles and she’s aware of it. (Don’t worry, she’s pro-vaccines.) So many of the topics she covers, in this and in her other work, often come down to this: In this modern world, where we feel like community is crumbling and the divides between people only grow larger, what do we owe to each other? She takes the concept of herd immunity and not only breaks it down by its scientific merits but also the emotional, social ones. At the end of the day, vaccination is not about the individual, but about the collective. It’s about the healthy making a choice not just for themselves, but to help keep those around them, who may not share their same privileges, safe. This book was published in 2014 but obviously holds new relevance now. I could write a rambling personal tangent about being disabled and my relationship to the concepts she covers in this book, but I’ll spare you. Basically, I’ll leave it at this: every time I read Eula Biss’ work, I come away from it feeling more knowledgeable and thoughtful about the way I live my life and the world around me.