I talked to lots of people who are vaccine-hesitant, and I actually was one myself until I got further into this project, and most of them actually are in my demographic: so well-educated people with advanced degrees who are upper middle-class and have read quite a bit on the subject. Eula Biss Read Quote
When I was researching the Victorian anti-vaccination movement, those activists often used a vampire as a metaphor for the vaccinator. Eula Biss Read Quote
I think that people’s resistance to vaccination isn’t going to disappear until we address some of the nonmedical reasons for that resistance and people’s discomfort and distrust of the government. That’s bigger than what most medical professionals can handle. Eula Biss Read Quote
The risk of getting Hep B from a blood transfusion is a tiny number, but it’s a bigger number than the risk of side effects from the vaccine. Eula Biss Read Quote
Herd immunity is, it turns out, not incredibly easy to understand. It took me quite a bit of reading before I fully grasped it. But understanding herd immunity is essential to understanding why we vaccinate the way we do. Eula Biss Read Quote
I think that protecting children at the age where they’re most vulnerable against diseases that are highly contagious is prudent. Eula Biss Read Quote
We’ve been using vaccination in some form for hundreds of years now. We have almost nothing in our modern medicine that we’ve been using that long, and it’s been consistently productive even though, you know, the older vaccines were much more dangerous than vaccines we’re using now. Eula Biss Read Quote
One of the shortcomings of our medical system is that doctors have very little time with their patients. Eula Biss Read Quote
Fears that formaldehyde from vaccines may cause cancer are similar to fears of mercury and aluminum, in that they coalesce around miniscule amounts of the substance in question, amounts considerably smaller than amounts from other common sources of exposure to the same substance. Eula Biss Read Quote
What I saw when I was doing research is that in pursuit of a middle ground, people will kind of split the difference between the two extremes that they’re hearing. And I think what’s problematic is that people are seeing vaccinating on schedule, on time, as an extreme position. Eula Biss Read Quote
