the.com/immunity
your body's grudge-keeping bouncer that remembers every face that ever tried something
means The ability to resist or avoid something — whether a disease your body has learned to fight off, or a legal exemption that puts you beyond reach of a rule, tax, or prosecution.
from From Latin 'immunitas,' meaning exemption from public service or duty — built from 'in-' (not) plus 'munus' (a duty, office, or obligation to the community). The same 'munus' gives us 'municipal' and 'commune.' So the original immune person wasn't dodging germs but dodging civic chores; the medical sense — the body 'exempt' from a disease — is a much later borrowing of that legal idea of being let off the hook.
- memory cells
- can recall a pathogen for decades after one encounter
- borrowed defense
- babies get antibodies through breast milk
- trained killers
- T-cells literally rehearse on your own cells first
- too good
- allergies are immunity overreacting to harmless pollen
- vaccine trick
- a fake threat builds real lifelong protection
polio vaccination campaigns — global effort that reduced polio cases from 350,000 annually in 1988 to 3 in 2012
measles mmr vaccine — 95% effectiveness established in thousands of studies; eliminated measles in many countries by 1990s