Got my flu shot at the Healthier You Expo last Sunday at the Civic Centre.
Had finished the fine book On Immunity: An Innoculation by Eula Biss the day before, a short read that was on numerous best of 2014 non-fiction lists.
Her book is philosophy, history and deeply personal memoir, rolled into one compelling, sensitive account of what vaccinations really mean. Unlike many critics of the anti-vaccine promoters, including myself, Biss takes their concerns seriously.
She opens her book talking about the cover, a reproduction of a 17th century painting depicting Thetis dunking her baby son Achilles into the River Styx to burn away his mortality. The problem, as the legend of Achilles later reveals, is she holds onto his heel, making it the only vulnerable spot on his entire body. Thetis is no different from any mother in history, willing to go to extraordinary lengths to protect their children from the dangers of the world.
Like dunking a baby in the River Styx, vaccination poses risks and is still an imperfect guard against illness and death.
Biss brings the reader to the present by talking about the difficult birth of her own son (her vagina inverted during his delivery, requiring dramatic medical intervention, including a blood transfusion). She points out the irony of vaccine critics who eagerly accept emergency blood transfusions. Both acts involve the invasive immersion of a foreign body into our own, the only difference being the clear and present danger a transfusion is used for, in contrast to the uncertain but still real threat a vaccine counters by inserting a tiny sample of sickness inside us.
Viewed through her challenges as a new mother and her own nagging doubts about the legitimacy of the full vaccination schedule for her baby boy, Biss addresses not the ideology behind the anti-vaccine movement but the source of those powerful feelings, which lie in parenthood itself and the deep need to protect our children from threats both real and imagined.
The most poignant moment in On Immunity comes when Biss explains that most human beings are dependent on one another not just for their lifestyles but for their very existence. The philosophical distinctions regarding individuality, both in body and mind, are false in the real world. The space between us is an illusion. We breathe the same air, we eat the same food, the same bacteria live in our guts, we are exposed to the same contaminants, we all share the same potential for healthy lives and crippling illness, with only the lottery draw of geography, genetics and wealth influencing our odds one way or the other.
As a result, the personal act of accepting a needle containing a vaccine (or the blood from a transfusion) is a social act, demonstrating our physical connection to each other and our trust that we mean one another no harm. The added benefit of the flu shot or any other vaccine injection is we help protect others from getting unnecessarily sick.
Vaccinations are not a new invention, created by multinational pharmaceutical companies to make money. It is centuries old and remains low-tech (and low profit for drug companies) but is much safer than "natural" exposure to deadly viruses. The potency of all of today's childhood vaccinations, she notes, does not equal the potency of just the smallpox vaccine was available to prior generations. The understanding of the immune system has helped take much of the guesswork out of how much exposure is really needed to offer protection.
In the end, however, the protection offered by an annual flu shot or a childhood vaccine is not immunity, just as Achilles was not immune from death. Vaccines offer no certainty but merely the seriously reduced likelihood of injury, in exchange for the small risk of harm from the shot itself.
For me, the flu shot is an annual commitment to the health of my teenaged stepson, who has a heart condition and the weakened immune system that comes with it. He is not my flesh and blood but I am as deeply connected to him as if he was. He may still contract influenza, which is far more dangerous to him than to his sister and his friends, but I have contributed in a small way in helping make sure he doesn't get it from me, nor does any other child or adult with compromised immunity I may come into contact with.
He doesn't appreciate any of that, of course. For him, social connection is playing Grand Theft Auto 5 on a shared online network with his buddies. Like any child, he doesn't need to know how he's being kept as safe as possible, so long as he is.
