Analysis Of The Book 'On Immunity' By Eula Biss

“On Immunity”, the book by Eula Biss is a very informative for people who want to learn more on vaccine. Writer expresses her feelings and fears of the vaccine and the immunity that her child will be getting after the birth. The book, “On Immunity” is not just about vaccination, but our relationship between our body, community, government, and the big Pharmaceutical companies. In this book, Eula herself being a new mother has researched, studied immunology, and explained that vaccines are safe and effective to children against many diseases. In her book, she clearly mentioned her research on the two different thoughts of the people about the vaccine, relationship with big Pharma, the cultural myths of vaccine, and provided us more evidence-based

answer to our fear.
People’s understanding of vaccine and the immunity varies in different population group, level of education on health sector, social group, and the ability to understand. In the book, Biss noted that women with children feel more venerable than any other population due to negative views of the people on different things around them. For example, these could be fear of the adverse effects of vaccines, viruses injected into body, and the concept of boosting immune system. Before giving birth to her child, Biss went to Pediatric doctor to learn and get advice on Hepatitis B vaccine. The provider was not able to give her clear and concrete answer, but was racist on who should get the vaccine and who should not. According to writer (2014), the provider states, “Hep B was a vaccine for inner city, designed to protect the babies of drug addicts and prostitutes” (p. 24). The above quoted sentence shows that the vaccine was not necessary for her unborn child. In fact, there are many benefits of this Hepatitis-B vaccine, which saves the newborn from any blood related disease, liver disease, and cancer.
The writer also mentioned that her father being in the medical field says, “There are very few perfect therapies in medicine” (P. 40). It is hard to find evidence that we should trust on the big Pharmaceutical industries because some drugs have very high adverse effects than the therapeutic effects in the body systems. Also, the writer hardly finds evidences that tell us how to save the useful microorganism from completely sanitizing our body. No single human being is capable to fight every disease from the environment; therefore, we believe and depend on drugs to fight against those harmful diseases.
There are many cultural perspective, believes, and myths on vaccination and immunity. The writer found different myths and beliefs about the vaccination from different individuals. Some people believe that the vaccination leads to autism and other believe that it could lead to serious threats to children’s health. In addition, most of us do not believe that food could be fatal to the health of a person. In fact, if we are allergic to certain food, it could be worst enemy to our health and body system. According to Biss (2014), “my son had already been vaccinated against the flu, just as he had already eaten many eggs, but I could see the irony in the possibility that a vaccine posed him special danger” (p. 146). In the health sector, the health workers encounter with many contagious diseases, resistant bacteria, and viruses. These health care workers keep their fear away by using safe practice behaviors. Therefore, the message we get from this book is that anything could be dangerous and fatal to our lives. It does not mean that we have to run away from the fear, but we have to see pros and cons and tackle down to be on the safe side.