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Study: Certain Vaccines Could Make Diseases More Deadly
sciencehabit writes: New research suggests that vaccines that don't make their hosts totally immune to a disease and incapable of spreading it to others might have a serious downside. According to a controversial study by Professor Andrew Read these so-called "imperfect" or "leaky" vaccines could sometimes teach pathogens to become more dangerous. Sciencemag reports: "The study is controversial. It was done in chickens, and some scientists say it has little relevance for human vaccination; they worry it will reinforce doubts about the merits or safety of vaccines. It shouldn't, says lead author Andrew Read, a biologist at Pennsylvania State University, University Park: The study provides no support whatsoever for the antivaccine movement. But it does suggest that some vaccines may have to be monitored more closely, he argues, or supported with extra measures to prevent unintended consequences."
The idea is that if you vaccinate people but they still get the disease and don't get it as badly, they might not die as quickly, or might not die.
So if they get sick but don't die, the disease has longer to spread.
So I suppose if you're an Anti-vaxxer it's a great argument for why only you should get vaccinated for highly virulent diseases, but you should just let everyone else die faster.
I don't think the strains that survive an incomplete round of antibiotics have mutated. They are simply the strongest ones that are now given a chance to multiply, since someone didn't take their complete prescription. These stronger bacteria can now be exposed to more antibiotics and the strongest again survive and reproduce. Soon we have antibiotic resistant bacteria strains that otherwise would have been a tiny percentage of the population. They haven't "learned" anything. It's survival of the fittest only.