ugh.

[Julie]

It's ok, no biggie, just didn't want to go public yet that I think vaccinating is an evil, demonic practice sent to ruin the world by aliens!

[archangle]

I, too, have wondered about the push for widespread flu vaccination and whether we are getting enough people vaccinated that we are actually causing the virus to mutate faster and make the vaccine less effective. A downside to "herd immunity."

I was mostly talking about statistical questions, not virus evolution. i.e. without the vaccine, we might have had just as many cases of strain D, but wouldn't notice it because of a bigger outbreak of strain C.

However, the idea of the flu or some other bug adapting somehow to vaccines is interesting. It doesn't seem to be happening, at least not yet, but the bugs seem to adapt to countermeasures over time. I wonder if that will happen over time. Organisms do tend to adapt to countermeasures. If some strains of flu somehow become resistant to vaccines, they will tend to win out in the evolutionary battle. It seems that viruses could adapt in various ways, including mutating more rapidly to vary their antigens. Flu is already harder to vaccinate against than other bugs because it mutates faster.

Not that I'm arguing against vaccines by any means. Even if flu does start to adapt, we'll probably be better off with vaccines than without. At worst, it seems we'd probably just be back where we were without flu vaccines.

[ChicagoGranny]

However, the idea of the flu or some other bug adapting somehow to vaccines is interesting. It doesn't seem to be happening, at least not yet, but the bugs seem to adapt to countermeasures over time. I wonder if that will happen over time. Organisms do tend to adapt to countermeasures. If some strains of flu somehow become resistant to vaccines, they will tend to win out in the evolutionary battle. It seems that viruses could adapt in various ways, including mutating more rapidly to vary their antigens. Flu is already harder to vaccinate against than other bugs because it mutates faster.

archangle, I was just getting ready to praise you on some of your posts in this thread and now you start talking out of your butt.

Exotic, new strains of flu usually originate in regions where vaccination rates are low, such as Mexico or Southeast Asia. Virulent strains are more likely to arise from bad animal husbandry practices - like where people/pigs/chickens sleep, eat and crap in the same house/sty/coop - in which the virus jumps species.

Exotic, new strains of flu rarely originate in wealthy countries with good sanitation and high vaccination rates.

Flu viruses are mutating all of the time, regardless of vaccination rates. The job of vaccine scientists is to try to keep ahead of the curve.