The war over vaccinations went viral on social media this week as measles, once considered eradicated in the U.S., continued to spread. The current outbreak started when an infected person visited Disneyland over the winter holidays; cases have multiplied because an increasing number of parents choose to delay or forgo vaccinating their children -- largely over concerns related to the discredited theory linking vaccines to autism. An article in The New York Times painted the majority of "anti-vaxxers" as white, affluent, and liberal, rejecting vaccines (one parent called them "toxins") just as they eschew pesticide in food or contaminants in the environment. Meanwhile, vaccination supporters took to Twitter to disseminate a heartbreaking reminiscence by Roald Dahl about his daughter's death from measles at age seven.

In this excerpt from her book On Immunity: An Inoculation, Eula Biss argues that while vaccination debates are usually presented as debates about science, "they could just as easily be understood as conversations about power." During the smallpox outbreak around the turn of the last century, blacks were vaccinated at gunpoint to help ensure the safety of whites -- enlisting the poor, Biss writes, "in the protection of the privileged." Now, she wonders, what if wealthy mothers could be persuaded to vaccinate their children in order to protect the children of the poor, who are likely to be undervaccinated by circumstance (e.g., lack of consistent medical care) rather than by choice? We might come to see vaccination as a social responsibility on par with paying taxes or obeying traffic laws: at times a burden for the individual, but far less dangerous than the alternative -- for everyone.