A New York Times Best Seller A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book of the Year A Facebook "Year of Books" Selection One of the Best Books of the Year * National Book Critics Circle Award finalist * The New York Times Book Review (Top 10) * Entertainment Weekly (Top 10) * New York Magazine (Top 10)* Chicago Tribune (Top 10) * Publishers Weekly (Top 10) * Time Out New York (Top 10) * Los Angeles Times * Kirkus * Booklist * NPR's Science Friday * Newsday * Slate * Refinery 29 * And many more... Why do we fear vaccines? A provocative examination by Eula Biss, the author of Notes from No Man's Land, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award 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.
When Eula Biss became a mother, she stepped into a new world of fear: fear of the government, the medical establishment, the contents of her child's air, food, mattress and vaccines. 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. Weaving her personal experiences with an exploration of classical and contemporary literature, Biss considers what vaccines, and the debate around them, mean for her own child, her immediate community and the wider world. On Immunity is an inoculation against our fear and a moving account of how we are all interconnected; our bodies and our fates. Eula Biss is the author of Notes from No Man’s Land, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and The Balloonists. Her essays have appeared in the Believer and Harper’s Magazine. She teaches at Northwestern University and lives in Chicago. ‘So well written, it’s unbelievable’ Bill Gates ‘It’s fascinating reading, made possible by Biss’ particular blend of scepticism and empathy...Although the book is beautifully written in minimal prose and organised sharply, it is hard to overstate the wealth of information threaded and elaborated throughout its tidy, sturdy structure.’ Saturday Paper ‘Her [Biss] exploration of the history of vaccinating is absorbing.’ Adelaide Advertiser ‘She advances from all sides, like a chess player, drawing on science, myth, literature...What she seems to be suggesting is that knowledge isn’t an inoculation. It doesn’t happen just once. There are things that must be learned and learned again, seen first with the mind and felt later in the body.’ New York Times Book Review ‘This elegant, intelligent and very beautiful book...is elliptical, elusive, neither collection nor narrative exactly but more a set of questions about how we frame our interactions with the world.’ Los Angeles Times ‘The power of Biss’s book stems, in the end, from its subtle insistence on the interrelationship of things—of the mythological and the medical, the private and the public, the natural and the unnatural—and on the idea that one’s relationship with disease and immunity is not distinct from one’s relationship with the world.’ Slate ‘Biss’s project, it turns out, is far grander than a simple explanation of the facts...On Immunity is as much a book about trust as it is a book about vaccines.’ Millions ‘On Immunity is a history, a personal narrative, ultimately a powerful argument that reads, the whole time, like a poem.’ Guernica ‘On Immunity casts a spell...There’s drama in watching this smart writer feel her way through this material. She’s a poet, an essayist and a class spy. She reveals herself as believer and apostate, moth and flame.’ New York Times ‘[Biss] brings a sober, erudite, and humane voice to an often overheated debate.’ New Yorker ‘Brightly informative, giving readers a sturdy platform from which to conduct their own research and take personal responsibility.’ STARRED Review, Kirkus ‘On Immunity needs no topical hook to recommend it, such is its power as a work of literature. Eula Biss is as fine a thinker as she is a stylist.’ Sydney Morning Herald ‘Biss has produced a book that’s like a luxurious quilt, beautiful and comforting...[her] approach is subtle and indirect, circling the subject to illuminate it from different angles.’ Weekend Press ‘On Immunity is essential reading for anyone genuinely interested in the subject. Pro or con, it will shake up what you think you know.’ Australian ‘Thoughtful and thought provoking.’ Otago Daily Times ‘A lively examination of many of the troubling aspects of how we make decisions for ourselves and our communities...[Biss] dispels myths and delineates our fears. She notes her own fallibilities and transient misconceptions, and through this brisk and readable book enlightens us all.’ On MAS ‘This important book is highly recommended for anyone interested in how vaccination works, its history and current debates... On Immunity richly rewards a casual dip and, indeed, can be sampled in almost any order to experience the beguiling, life-saving world of the immune system and all that surrounds it.’ Australian Book Review
This first comprehensive history of the social and political aspects of vaccination in the United States tells the story of how vaccination became a widely accepted public health measure over the course of the twentieth century. One hundred years ago, just a handful of vaccines existed, and only one, for smallpox, was widely used. Today more than two dozen vaccines are in use, fourteen of which are universally recommended for children. State of Immunity examines the strategies that health officials have used—ranging from advertising and public relations campaigns to laws requiring children to be immunized before they can attend school—to gain public acceptance of vaccines. Like any medical intervention, vaccination carries a small risk of adverse reactions. But unlike other procedures, it is performed on healthy people, most commonly children, and has been mandated by law. Vaccination thus poses unique ethical, political, and legal questions. James Colgrove considers how individual liberty should be balanced against the need to protect the common welfare, how experts should act in the face of incomplete or inconsistent scientific information, and how the public should be involved in these decisions. A well-researched, intelligent, and balanced look at a timely topic, this book explores these issues through a vivid historical narrative that offers new insights into the past, present, and future of vaccination.
Unlock your potential and finally move forward. A recent study showed that when doctors tell heart patients they will die if they don't change their habits, only one in seven will be able to follow through successfully. Desire and motivation aren't enough: even when it's literally a matter of life or death, the ability to change remains maddeningly elusive. Given that the status quo is so potent, how can we change ourselves and our organizations? In Immunity to Change, authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey show how our individual beliefs--along with the collective mind-sets in our organizations--combine to create a natural but powerful immunity to change. By revealing how this mechanism holds us back, Kegan and Lahey give us the keys to unlock our potential and finally move forward. And by pinpointing and uprooting our own immunities to change, we can bring our organizations forward with us. This persuasive and practical book, filled with hands-on diagnostics and compelling case studies, delivers the tools you need to overcome the forces of inertia and transform your life and your work.
The authors describe the main causes of infection that our bodies have to battle against - from bacteria to viruses - and explain the intricate and fascinating way that our bodies respond to infection - from detection of these potentially dangerous organisms, to their ultimate elimination
Awareness among clinicians about PIDs, which consist of more than 400 different entities, plays an important role in ensuring that patients receive a timely diagnosis. Furthermore, clinicians who are educated about PIDs can give their patients access to optimal management of their condition, thus helping the patient achieve a better quality-of-life and long-term prognosis. Inborn Errors of Immunity: A Practical Guide provides the most up-to-date information for busy students, nurses, clinical residents, practicing physicians, and even basic researchers. Readers will benefit from a well-structured breakdown of complicated PID diseases, including approaches to their clinical signs/symptoms and immunologic/laboratory findings. - Presents valuable contribution of more than 40 expert chapter authors, from top centers spanning five continents, each in a specific PID field - Covers various aspects of PID using updated clinical guidelines and standard stepwise pipelines - Focuses on the latest developments in the molecular diagnosis and pathogenesis of diseases, with easy explanation and schematic representation of defective signaling pathways - Includes dedicated sections for clinical features and immunological tests with carefully-curated figures of PID manifestations, imaging, and histological/pathological illustrations to create the first PID medial-color atlas - Summarizes the updated conventional and specific treatments and follow-up notes for different PID diseases
The Janeway's Immunobiology CD-ROM, Immunobiology Interactive, is included with each book, and can be purchased separately. It contains animations and videos with voiceover narration, as well as the figures from the text for presentation purposes.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize A frank and fascinating exploration of race and racial identity Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays begins with a series of lynchings and ends with a series of apologies. Eula Biss explores race in America and her response to the topic is informed by the experiences chronicled in these essays -- teaching in a Harlem school on the morning of 9/11, reporting for an African American newspaper in San Diego, watching the aftermath of Katrina from a college town in Iowa, and settling in Chicago's most diverse neighborhood. As Biss moves across the country from New York to California to the Midwest, her essays move across time from biblical Babylon to the freedman's schools of Reconstruction to a Jim Crow mining town to post-war white flight. She brings an eclectic education to the page, drawing variously on the Eagles, Laura Ingalls Wilder, James Baldwin, Alexander Graham Bell, Joan Didion, religious pamphlets, and reality television shows. These spare, sometimes lyric essays explore the legacy of race in America, artfully revealing in intimate detail how families, schools, and neighborhoods participate in preserving racial privilege. Faced with a disturbing past and an unsettling present, Biss still remains hopeful about the possibilities of American diversity, "not the sun-shininess of it, or the quota-making politics of it, but the real complexity of it."
Survivors of a deadly planetary outbreak take on a new, sinister adversary in the white-knuckle sequel to Contagion, which New York Times bestselling author Amie Kaufman called “gripping, thrilling, and terrifying in equal measures.” Thea, Coen, and Nova have escaped from Achlys, only to find themselves imprisoned on a ship they thought was their ticket to safety. Now the nightmare they thought they’d left behind is about to be unleashed as an act of political warfare, putting the entire galaxy at risk. To prevent an interstellar catastrophe, they’ll have to harness the evil of the deadly Achlys contagion and deploy the only weapons they have left: themselves. Fans of Jonathan Maberry, Rick Yancey, and Madeleine Roux will relish Bowman’s tense, high-stakes conclusion to the events of contagion.
Lessons in Immunity: From Single-cell Organisms to Mammals stems from the activity of the Italian Association of Developmental and Comparative Immunobiology (IADCI), represented by the editors. This book is presented as a series of short overviews that report on the current state of various relevant fields of immunobiology from an evolutionary perspective. The overviews are written by authors directly involved in the research, and most are members of the IADCI or have otherwise been involved in the related research for their respective overview. This publication offers scientists and teachers an easy and updated reference tool. - Provides simple and updated reviews on the immunobiology of a wide spectrum of organisms, considered in an evolutionary context - Focuses on both cells and humoral components of a variety of non-classical model organisms - Offers in a single volume many contributions which can help with understanding the evolution of immune responses and the main adaptations in animal phyla - Presents a valuable holistic cross-sectional approach for teaching immunology and its applications
