On Immunity Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus On Immunity

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Zusammenfassung von On Immunity

Name: On Immunity
Rating: 3.3 (49 reviews)
Author: Eula Biss

Eula Biss

An Inoculation

3.3 (49 Bewertungen)

20 Min.

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On Immunity
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What’s in it for me? Find out why people fear vaccines.

Do vaccines cause autism? Will they harm my child? Where do they come from anyway? Why should I trust them?

These questions worry many people who are considering vaccinating themselves or their children. The media and experts don’t always help: They throw statistics and research around in favor and against vaccines, further baffling people!

These blinks show why people are so passionate about, misinformed on, and traumatized by vaccines. It also explains whether or not your child should be vaccinated.

In these blinks, you’ll discover:

why UN workers were murdered for administering polio vaccines;
how fake vaccines helped the US find Osama Bin Laden; and
how disgusting the first vaccine processes were.

Ancient stories are full of parents trying and failing to keep their children safe – or mistakenly harming them.

Among the overwhelming number of factors to sift through, how can you know what’s best for your child? In fact, although vaccination is one polarising topic among parents today, the debate on what’s best for our children is ancient.

Even thousands of years ago, there are stories about parents trying and failing to keep their children safe.

Take the well-known myth about the goddess Thetis. After hearing a prophecy that her son Achilles will die young, she does everything she can to help him avoid his fate. She dips infant Achilles into the underworld river Styx to make him invulnerable. As she takes him by the ankles to do this, Achilles’ heels are the only part that the water does not touch. To further protect her child, she also asks the god of fire to create a magical shield for him. However, Achilles dies when an arrow pierces his heel – the only part of him that remains vulnerable.

Another myth is the story of the King of Argos and his daughter Danae. He imprisons her in a bronze tower to ensure she stays a virgin. But this doesn’t stop the powerful Zeus, who disguises himself as gold rain and impregnates Danae.

In fairy tales, too, parents unwittingly endanger their children. Most of these parents want to shield their children, but they are fooled into actions that instead hurt them.

For example, in The Girl Without Hands, to bring his family out of poverty, a miller makes a deal with the devil and exchanges everything that lies behind his mill for riches. Later he discovers, to his horror, that his daughter was standing just behind the mill.

When it comes to vaccinations, modern parents can relate to these narratives: they hope vaccination will keep their children safe, but fear their choice might prove to be harmful.

Vaccinations scare parents when they’re linked with neurological and immune disorders.

Many parents are wary of vaccinations. But what is it exactly that makes them so cautious? Well, in the past, vaccinations came with certain risks.

For decades after vaccines were introduced in the nineteenth century, they could transmit serious diseases such as syphilis. Immunizations involved cutting the persons’ arm and applying pus to the cut from the blister of another recently vaccinated person.

In many people’s minds, vaccinations are associated with violence, sin and impurity.

The vaccination debate isn’t all about proven facts. Rather, we view the act of vaccinating someone in different metaphorical ways. These metaphors influence our judgement and whether or not we decide to vaccinate.

Vaccination is often regarded as a violent invasion of the body. Primitive vaccinations left a scar that many people saw as the “mark of the beast” – a reference to the devil. Traces of that fear seem to have permeated modern culture.

For generations, people refused vaccination because they associated the illness or the vaccine with an “unsavory” group.

None of us want to wear clothes we associate with a group we don’t identify with. For the same reason, many people reject certain medical treatments.

Particular illnesses are often connected with otherness, or poverty, promiscuity, addiction, and some minority groups. For example, during the last smallpox epidemic in the US, beginning in 1898, the disease was called “Italian itch” or “Mexican bump.”

There’s a mass misperception that vaccinations are unnatural.

Besides symbolizing violence or otherness, vaccinations are also shunned for other reasons. For example, in highly industrialized countries, “natural” is considered healthier.

Today, we seem to embrace a kind of pre-industrial nostalgia. We’re wary of the countless and potentially noxious chemicals omnipresent in our environment, and buy into the idea of natural products as pure and healthy. Just think of all the cosmetics that are touted as natural and all the food we choose because it’s organic.

Vaccinations are sometimes viewed as an act of power and suppression.

In many former colonies, people are distrustful of mass vaccinations. Why?

In former colonies, mass vaccinations may be perceived as yet another act of imperialism or an anti-Muslim scheme.

War metaphors dominate discussions about vaccinations and the immune system.

Our opinions on whether to use vaccination or not are influenced by how we speak about it.

The general public and journalists in particular have a tendency to use war metaphors when describing vaccinations.

A vaccination doesn’t only impact the child, but the entire community.

Imagine it’s election day. Two people are running for mayor, and one of the candidates is planning a massive, highly problematic waste incineration plant in your city. Do you go out and vote, or stay home, hoping there will be enough voters without you?

Just like with vaccinations, because the individual decision to vaccinate — or, in the election example, to “vote” — or not affects the whole community.

The risks of most infections vastly outweigh the moderate risks of vaccination.

As we’ve seen, there are many things that make people skeptical about vaccinations. But how risky are vaccinations versus the risk of infections?

Severe infections like measles are far riskier than vaccinations. For instance, aside from other serious consequences, measles leads to encephalitis in one in around 1,000 cases. However, encephalitis occurring immediately after a measles-mumps-rubella-vaccination is reported just once in every three million vaccinated people.

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Worum geht es in On Immunity?

Being afraid that vaccinating our children creates more harm than good isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s a fear informed by numerous cultural narratives. On Immunity looks at the different historical myths and metaphors in the vaccination debate, and presents statistics on vaccination’s effects.

Bestes Zitat aus On Immunity

Immunity is a myth, these stories suggest, and no mortal can ever be made invulnerable.

—Eula Biss

Wer On Immunity lesen sollte

Parents who are unsure whether or not to vaccinate their child
Anyone who is interested in the cultural history of vaccination
Anyone who’s heard Jenny McCarthy say that vaccinations are dangerous

Über den Autor

Eula Biss is a non-fiction writer. She has won various awards such as the Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, and the Pushcart Prize. She is a fellow of the National Endowment of the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.

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