From Dr. Bob to RFK
This former Playboy model became one of America's loudest anti-vaccine voices after her son was diagnosed with autism.
Who is Jenny McCarthy
According to Biss, this kindergarten rule — 'if you brought enough for yourself, bring enough for everyone' — is essentially the moral logic behind herd immunity."
What is sharing
One person with measles can give it to this many unvaccinated people in the same room — making it the most contagious disease we know
What is 18?
Biss wrote 'On Immunity' after becoming this — the role that made her question every needle, ingredient, and piece of advice she'd ever trusted.
What is a mother?
When COVID vaccines arrived in 2021, millions of Americans refused them by citing this argument about their body — the same argument Biss had already answered in 2014.
What is bodily autonomy (or 'my body, my choice')?
Dr. Bob Sears became popular with worried parents by offering this — a slower, stretched-out approach to childhood shots.
What is an alternative (or delayed) vaccine schedule?
"_____, like vaccines, show you are responsible not just for your own health, but the health of the person next to you."
What is a driver's license?
The MMR vaccine is this percent effective after two doses — making it one of the most reliable vaccines ever made.
What is 97%?
Many vaccine-hesitant parents Biss describes weren't uneducated. They were this — buried in information and no longer sure who to trust.
What is an anxious (or over-researched) parent?
The fight over COVID vaccine mandates in schools and workplaces was a direct replay of the tension Biss documented — between this and collective responsibility
What is individual rights (or the social contract)?
This British doctor published a 1998 study claiming the MMR vaccine caused autism. His study was later retracted and he lost his medical license.
Who is Andrew Wakefield
The Latin root of 'immunity' — munis — translates to this word, suggesting that biological protection was always entangled with civic obligation."
What is duty (or obligation)?
Biss uses this economic concept to argue that unvaccinated individuals benefit from — without contributing to — the protection built by those around them."
What is the commons (or the free rider problem)?
Biss unpacks the fear of this ingredient listed on vaccine labels — which actually appears in higher concentrations in breast milk and bananas.
What is aluminum (or formaldehyde)?
COVID vaccination rates were lowest in communities with high levels of this — something Biss traced directly to America's history of medical abuse and broken institutional trust.
What is medical distrust?
RFK Jr.'s 2025 appointment to lead this federal agency gave the anti-vaccine movement its most powerful institutional platform in U.S. history.
What is the Department of Health and Human Services?
"Biss challenges this Susan Sontag idea — that illness should be understood in purely biological terms — by arguing that disease metaphors are politically unavoidable and morally consequential.
What is Illness as Metaphor?
COVID's delta variant required an estimated vaccination rate of this percentage to achieve herd immunity — far higher than seasonal flu, and nearly as high as measles.
What is 90% or higher?
The 'natural parenting' movement frames vaccines as an unnatural intrusion on the body. Biss counters by pointing out that this — one of history's most efficient killers — is entirely natural."
What is smallpox (or disease)?
Biss warned that fear travels faster than facts. COVID's 'infodemic' — the flood of misinformation alongside the virus — confirmed that this spreads faster than any pathogen.
What is misinformation (or fear)?
"This man's 'veil of ignorance' — choosing social policy without knowing your place in society — is the stated moral logic behind Biss's case for herd immunity."
Who is John Rawls?
Biss uses this framework to argue against "making a special exemption just for yourself" (i.e., refusing vaccines while relying on the herd immunity created by others).
Biss's argument sits at the fault line between these two concepts — named by Isaiah Berlin — where the freedom from government interference collides with the freedom to live in a healthy society.
What is negative liberty vs. positive liberty?
In 1952 — before the polio vaccine — this many Americans were paralyzed or killed by polio in the worst single-year outbreak in U.S. history.
What is 58,000 cases (or 3,000+ deaths)?
Biss challenges the 'precautionary principle' — the idea that when in doubt, do nothing — by pointing out that in public health, inaction is always this.
What is a choice (or a risk)?
"Biss argued immunity is a commons — a shared resource that collapses when individuals opt out. Delta and omicron variants emerged precisely because of low vaccination rates, demonstrating this ecological principle.
What is the tragedy of the commons?