How immunity became a political issue: Eula Bliss’s timely study of disease and vaccination

With "anti-vaxxers" dominating the headlines, Biss's new book is a thoughtful examination of how people feel about vaccines.

By Steven Poole

(Photo By A health worker administers the polio vaccine to children in Yemen. Photo: Reuters)

On Immunity: an Inoculation
Eula Biss
Fitzcarraldo Editions, 216pp, £12.99

In recent news, no one is immune from: making mistakes, random acts of violence, heartbreak, or our intention to thwart attacks against us. The metaphorical use of the word “immunity” (originally a legal, then a medical term) is, it seems, a temptation to which few writers are immune. At the same time, biological immunity (or the lack of it) is on our minds as carriers of the latest potential pandemic virus hop around international airports, or ebola vaccination trials begin in Africa. And for the worried rich who believe the misinformation put about by “anti-vaxxers”, immunity from disease is to be weighed against the supposed risk of worse disease from the act of vaccination. Fear of the MMR vaccine, for example, is being blamed for the current outbreaks of measles in the US and Germany.