PositiveThe Literary ReviewAlthough On Immunity concerns itself with a specific medical debate—the question of a link between vaccination and mental defects—it is, in its heart, an investigation of human fear in the face of lethal enemies that exist all around us, but that we cannot see ... There is no protection from interacting with the outside world, and no chance to remain indefinitely in a sealed bubble. One of the great strengths of Biss’s work is how she embraces this theme of community and champions the role of a collective social body in the fight against disease. This is the counterbalance to all her fretful anxiety, the note of hope and harmony that rings out over the chatter of fear ... rather than...stoke the flames of our instinctual terror, as so many talking heads gleefully did during the CDC debacle, she instead offers a rallying cry to disband the Us-and-Them mentality that underlies much of vaccination skepticism.
