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On Immunity
- An Inoculation
- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
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Publisher's summary
Upon becoming a new mother, Eula Biss addresses a chronic condition of fear - fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what is in your child's air, food, mattress, medicine, and vaccines. She finds that you cannot immunize your child, or yourself, from the world.
In this bold, fascinating book, Biss investigates the metaphors and myths surrounding our conception of immunity and its implications for the individual and the social body. As she hears more and more fears about vaccines, Biss researches what they mean for her own child, her immediate community, America, and the world, both historically and in the present moment. She extends a conversation with other mothers to meditations on Voltaire's Candide, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Susan Sontag's AIDS and Its Metaphors, and beyond. On Immunity is a moving account of how we are all interconnected - our bodies and our fates.
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In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted - and often permanently altered - global politics, race relations, and family structures while spurring innovation in medicine, religion, and the arts.
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A Predilection for Those in the Prime of Life
- By Cynthia on 02-12-18
By: Laura Spinney
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Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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This comprehensive and gripping narrative, which received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history, covers all the challenges, characters, and controversies in America's relentless struggle against polio. Funded by philanthropy and grassroots contributions, Salk's killed-virus vaccine (1954) and Sabin's live-virus vaccine (1961) began to eradicate this dreaded disease.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
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The Remedy
- Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis
- By: Thomas Goetz
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1875, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accountable for a third of all deaths. A diagnosis of TB - often called consumption - was a death sentence. Then, in a triumph of medical science, a German doctor named Robert Koch deployed an unprecedented scientific rigor to discover the bacteria that caused TB. Koch soon embarked on a remedy - a remedy that would be his undoing. When Koch announced his cure for consumption, Arthur Conan Doyle, then a small-town doctor in England and sometime writer, went to Berlin to cover the event.
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thought-provoking
- By Jean on 07-06-14
By: Thomas Goetz
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Missing Microbes
- How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues
- By: Martin J. Blaser
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In Missing Microbes, Dr. Martin J. Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human microbiome, where for hundreds of thousands of years bacterial and human cells have existed in a peaceful symbiosis that is responsible for the health and equilibrium of our body. Now this invisible eden is being irrevocably damaged by some of our most revered medical advances-antibiotics-threatening the extinction of our irreplaceable microbes with terrible health consequences.
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Very enlightening and information well supported
- By James on 05-03-15
By: Martin J. Blaser
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The Great Influenza
- The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
- By: John M. Barry
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision between modern science and epidemic disease.
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Great book but very disturbing...
- By Tim on 01-15-09
By: John M. Barry
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Push Back
- Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting
- By: Amy Tuteur
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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A Harvard-trained obstetrician-gynecologist, a prominent blogger, and author of the classic How Your Baby Is Born delivers a timely, important, and sure to be headline-making exposé that shines a light on the natural parenting movement and the multimillion-dollar industry behind it.
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A perspective all birth workers should examine
- By HeatherW on 10-25-19
By: Amy Tuteur
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Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
- From the Plague of Athens to COVID-19
- By: Heather E. Quinlan
- Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.
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Somewhat elemental
- By Bertha Watkins on 10-23-21
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The Undead
- Organ Harvesting, The Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers - How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death
- By: Dick Teresi
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Important and provocative, The Undead examines why even with the tools of advanced technology, what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear - and how this problem has been further complicated by the business of organ harvesting.
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Eye opening
- By Amy Giglio on 07-01-18
By: Dick Teresi
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An Epidemic of Absence
- A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases
- By: Moises Velasquez-Manoff
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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An Epidemic of Absence asks what will happen in developing countries, which, as they become more affluent, have already seen an uptick in allergic disease: Will India end up more allergic than Europe? Velasquez-Manoff also details a controversial underground movement that has coalesced around the treatment of immune-mediated disorders with parasites. Against much of his better judgment, he joins these do-it-yourselfers and reports his surprising results.
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The point of view from a Veterinarian immunologist
- By rtgymnast on 11-03-17
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Flu
- The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It
- By: Gina Kolata
- Narrated by: Gina Kolata
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
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Feeling feverish, tired, or achy? Listening to Gina Kolata's engrossing account of the 1918 Influenza epidemic is sure to give you the chills. A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and considers what can be done to prevent it.
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overexcited
- By Marilyn on 07-23-03
By: Gina Kolata
What listeners say about On Immunity
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Yaman
- 02-26-15
I have no more questions about vaccines!
Thanks to this book, I have no more concerns when it comes to having my kids vaccinated. I will, however, still keep avoiding the seasonal flu shots as long as I have a choice.
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21 people found this helpful
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- Janice
- 04-06-15
Falls short
While striving to explain the complexities of the vaccination issue, this book has actually done little to satisfy either side. Because the author eventually (and seemingly reluctantly) comes down on the side of pro-vaccination, anti-vaxers call the book a promotion of big pharm and big government, ignoring what science was presented. For the pro-vaccination camp, there were too many emotion-fed anecdotes on motherly fears, including the author’s own obsessive fascination with vampires, which led to a Dracula metaphor being stretched beyond the breaking point. While I appreciate her attempts to show the rationale and concerns of those opposing vaccination, I have to wonder how many really think of Bela Lugosi coming through the window to consume their child’s life force. She was at her best when she stuck with science and history to make her points, but lost me when her politics got in the way, including diatribes against capitalism and the insistence that military metaphors are inappropriate to any discussion of fighting disease.
Readers looking for a coherent discussion of the pros and cons of vaccination may find some useful information, but at the expense of muddling through multiple angst-ridden stories of her labor and delivery, blood transfusions (which just confuses the picture) and her ongoing fears of the contaminations her child must face in this world. I was hoping for a more reasoned presentation of the issues at hand, including suggested solutions to bring the camps together, but this book simply confirmed that the discussion continues to be clouded by emotions and prejudices, whether they are justified by science or not. Viruses and bacteria are shrewd survivors, evolving past the medications we have to treat them. I’m afraid we will have to face a full-blown outbreak of something terrible before people realize that prevention is the world’s protection.
I'll round up to a 3 because the science that was presented was well described in terms that should be understandable to non-medical readers, and because the author does seem to have tried to make a balanced presentation of both sides of the vaccination questions. I just wish her editor could have convinced her to make it less of a personal confessional of parental angst.
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3 people found this helpful
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- MChow
- 05-14-15
Informative and balanced
Fair and non judgemental exploration of vaccines and their history as well as the culture surrounding health and medicine. Very interesting and educational. The performance was also well done.
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- Mrs.B
- 03-20-15
some good info
It was a struggle to finish. My impression before buying it was that it was a coming from the same perspective as our family - concerned parents wanting to be informed. I learned about some of the history of this debate which showed me that there have always been people of either opinion. The reader always had an unconfrontational tone even while defending government forced vaccinations and ridiculing capitalism. One contradiction in my view is how the author explains how mother and fetus are two separate bodies, but then defends ending the unborn baby's life. It kinda creeped me out, such a gentle voice explaining why I should be forced to be injected. It reminds me of the overly - referred - to - book "1984." I admit I don't understand herd immunization, but if it can't be explained concisely then maybe it's not true. I love debates and reasoning, but don't force me or mine to be injected.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Erica42
- 03-14-19
Interesting
I thought it was interesting. Not a fan of all of the vampire comparisons. Probably could do without all of the analogies.
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- Iris Pereyra
- 03-22-15
A Provocative Set Of Essays On Immunity
Eula Biss, the author of "On Immunization: An Inoculation" is the daughter of a poet and a doctor. She is herself a poet and a renowned essayist, this creates a seemingly absurd but interesting background that I think allows her to bring a unique perspective to an issue that could be otherwise tedious and dull.
Before reading this book, I never considered that the subject of immunizations was as complex and vast as it is. But as I discovered our seemingly never ending argument about vaccines is not only a health issue, it is also a political/economic/philosophical/ theological and bio-ethical debate.
"On Immunization: An Inoculation", provides a very comprehensive, rational and thorough research of vaccines and their history, how they are developed, why they are so controversial and why we feared them so much. Bliss's takes a nuanced approach on the issue and although she comes strongly on the side that favors the widespread use of vaccines, she seems to make a a point of being respectful of people that are on both sides of the so called "vaccination debate".
The rise of the anti-vaccine movement in the United States, has created an unusual (and from my point of view dangerous) alliance across some extreme ideological political lines. On the left side of the spectrum, we have liberals skeptic of pharmaceuticals companies that developed, patent, manufacture and aggressively market vaccines, on the other side there are conservatives and libertarians that held a cynical view of government and its involvement in monitoring, distributing and regulating them.
As the mother of a boy who was diagnosed with Autism at 2 1/2 years-old, I experienced a fair amount of apprehension when deciding whether or not my child should continue receiving all his immunization shots and if so, if he was to get them on the schedule recommended by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and his pediatrician.
It was a difficult and unnerving experience because back in 2007, there was so much to learn about the whole Autism spectrum, its causes, best treatments and whether or not we had reliable studies confirming or denying a link between the MMR (stands for Measles, Mumps & Rubella) vaccine and the outbreak of Autism we were facing.
So I did my best to research the issue, discussed the matter with my child doctors and ultimately decided to err on the side of caution: when outweighing the risks of not being immunized vs. the non-proven risks that linked Autism to the MMR vaccine, the former was scarier than the latter.
The book reads as a collection of essays and at it starts with Bliss's interesting connection of Greek mythology (Achilles was " made immune to injure but not to heal") and Gothic horror (Dracula demonstrates our deep fears of contagion) with the overall theme of our fears over the practice of immunization. The idea of contaminating our children with the very hazard with hope to avoid sounds indeed almost mythological.
The author looks at our unease with immunization as a metaphor that reflect on the larger fears and anxieties we have regarding government intervention, unethical medical and pharmaceutical companies and our overall predisposition to distrusts the injection of anything that doesn't feel "natural" into our bodies. And I do believe that these fears are particularly enhanced when it comes to making decisions that affect our children.
Bliss also makes an important moral and social argument in favor of Immunizations: vaccines protect not only those that have been immunized, but also those that for different reasons, sometimes very valid and justifiable reasons, are unable to do so. This include people with impaired immune systems, pregnant women and people that are too young or too old, to name a few.
This was a really enlightening book to listen and read to (I bought the Kindle version of the book as well).
Tamara Marston was a perfect choice to narrate this book. She has a pleasant voice and modulates it in a way that does not distract the listener from concentrating on the content of the book. Really a great narrator especially for Non-fiction books!
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7 people found this helpful
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- Customer
- 12-14-15
Too "liberal arts" and sensational
I was expecting more scientific evidence or arguments. Instead it was more a "from a mother to another" treatment. I suppose it works fine for its target audience (parents weary of vaccines or at least question the cost vs. benefits). Unfortunately I do not feel the book was speaking to me at all.
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- Brook
- 03-02-15
Wonderful, smart, nuanced book
Would you consider the audio edition of On Immunity to be better than the print version?
No
Any additional comments?
Intelligent, thoughtful, and even-handed. Wish we could make this required reading for every anti-vax parent out there.
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17 people found this helpful
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- Dvdmon
- 05-14-15
Like the debate itself YMMV
I so wanted to like this book. I heard Ms. Bliss on a talk show about vaccines and she seemed intelligent and gave some great concrete examples of why certain myths that anti-vaxxers use, while at the same time showing empathy towards them since she seemed to be saying that she was in the same camp initially.
I was initially not so much an anti-vaxxer as someone who, 10 years ago when my wife was pregnant and the modern debate was relatively new, had suspicions based on my own leanings of wanting to do things "naturally" - not just with vaccinations but child-birth, eating, etc. As such, we decided to delay some vaccines initially and opt out of the Hep-B, as many "under-vaxxers" as Bliss calls them do. Over the years, however, doing more research, I've become a staunch promoter of vaccinations, but still wince at some of the rhetoric on BOTH sides. And as such, I thought this book would be a good antidote to the debate which is often more heat than light, deteriorates into name calling, accusations of extreme selfishness or on the other side imposed poisoning, etc. I thought, hoped, this would go through a list of talking points and address each of them in a fair way, trying to shed light on where the fears came from, and when, in perhaps a small number of cases, these were due to legitimate concerns which should not be shouted down but addressed reasonably.
Unfortunately, as others have noted better than I could, the book was more of a hodgepodge, meandering here and there from personal anecdotes to historical information, to literary references. This was indeed a book written by a poet and an essayist, but one that seems to be written more for the literati rather than the common person. It certainly contains some interesting ideas, but despite having an MA I feel that one reading is inadequate in fully "getting it." Unfortunately the vast majority of folks, I fear will have much less patience and toss it aside after reading only a fraction of it.
The sense I got from Ms. Bliss's account was that she never really was someone who was at all in the anti-vaxx camp, or even close. It wasn't even clear to me whether she "undervaxxed" only that the social group that she travelled in were pretty anti-vaxx and suggested she should be as well. She even talks about disagreeing with some of them, so I don't get the sense that she ever didn't follow the regular schedule even though she may have felt some social pressure to. Most of her thesis seems to be around making anti-vaxxers or under-vaxxers not so much being stupid as rather being duped by their own special interests, and particularly based on a generally xenophobic/racist/anti-semetic/classist paranoia. This may all be true, but I don't think this will convince people who hold a lot of suspicion towards vaccines. Unfortunately it will be perceived as yet another attack not only on their intellect, but on their morals and psychological profile.
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3 people found this helpful
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- W. Quigley
- 08-07-15
Good information, but tainted by political bias.
What made the experience of listening to On Immunity the most enjoyable?
Plenty of information on inoculation and the history of vaccination.
What about Tamara Marston’s performance did you like?
Even inflection; pleasant voice
Any additional comments?
The author's extreme liberal bias comes through, which is distracting. Her lack of objectivity in historical and cultural matters makes you question how even-handed she was in her treatment of the information. For example, she seems to suggest that capitalism is unique in creating suffering among the powerless; she doesn't consider the suffering inflicted on tens (or hundreds) of millions by communism, fascism, etc. And her opinions on such matters are totally irrelevant to the main points in the book. Why include them? Otherwise, there seems to be a lot of good and useful information in this book which in many instances is well presented.
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3 people found this helpful