On Immunity-- An Inoculation

By Eula Biss

 

This book tackles a very difficult question—when and how can we trust science and modern medicine? What breaks this trust? How can we tell good science from bad? And of course, why do some people refuse to be vaccinated.

 

The book comes up with less an of answer and is more of a  tour through the history of vaccination and epidemics.

 

Biss talks us through some pervasive ways of thing…

 

First, "My body is my temple" The idea that my body is clean and special and that I must not let invaders in. That disease happens to bad people as punishment for not taking care of them selves. Because I'm a good person and because I'm raising my children right, vaccines are not right or needed for us.

 

This isn't necessarily bad thinking. Taking HIV and AIDS for example. Or HEP B. These diseases are transmitted largely by less than savory behavior. Frequently by needles.

 

Oh, and there are nurses who have reused the same needle on many patents.

 

Is a fear and needle born disease really that irrational? Misguided perhaps, but not groundless.

 

The metaphor that our immune system wages war against invaders also doesn't help. It builds up the idea that to be healthy, we just have to build up our immune system. Vaccines are a tool, but not necessary.

 

There are two faults with this way of thinking. One our immune system isn't a general purpose army. It's more like an endlessly evolving chess game. Second, sometimes the overly strong response of our immune system that kills us. Spanish flue, for example, killed the strong because their immune systems produced too much fluid In their lungs, thus drowning them. Those with weaker immune systems survived.

 

She digs more into the "Vaccines Cause Autism scare." Trying to figure out it's roots. Biss found many studies that  pointed to potential causes for autism—living conditions, proximity to free ways, illness during pregnancy. But the idea that vaccines could cause autism took off like wild fire.  Her Biss digs into the scientific process. And shows how it's not one study that shows us truth, but the accumulation of many studies that do so. If one small study shows a tendency for X, then your judgment should be suspended, but you should hope for more, larger studies to test X better.

 

In the end Biss concludes that our bodies are a wilderness. That health consists of balance between many things. Bacteria and virus must live in our system for us to be healthy, but there are limits. Vaccines are a powerful tool for establishing those limits.