Fear of “germs.”

Fear of viruses.

Fear of contagion.

Fear of getting sick by an invisible microbe that is breathed out by the person who coughed on you in the elevator or by something your kids brought home from school.

Fear of being a victim of a “deadly virus” that you are told is circulating in the world and could kill you.

Thoroughly researched and clearly written, Walking Away From Fear explains from a non-scientist’s perspective the lack of evidence that bacteria cause disease and that viruses exist. Elizabeth Barnum also describes what it really means when we get sick: symptoms are not signs of illness, but signs of our wise and competent bodies pushing out toxic substances and cleaning up dead tissue to make way for new healthy cells.

Elizabeth argues that the germ theory and virus narratives―that pathogenic microbes make us ill by jumping into us and destroying our cells―have given us a highly incorrect understanding of sickness, health, and how our bodies work. These narratives mislead us into being dependent on pharmaceutical drugs for health and constant monitoring and intervention from the medical system, such as vaccines, to survive.