Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: Herman Melville on 13/07/2009 09:32:57
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The entire UK may be vaccinated against swine flu. Three questions:
1. If everyone is vaccinated, will they be immune to future mutations of the virus? If so, how can this be the case when we don't yet know how it might mutate?
2. If we would not be immune to future mutations, why bother vaccinating?
3. Could the vaccination encourage the virus to mutate/become stronger?
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1) No, new vaccine will be required for future mutations.
2) Good question.
3) I doubt it needs any help from us!
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So all this vaccine would do would be to immunize us from something we are being told is very mild in most cases?
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The entire UK may be vaccinated against swine flu. Three questions:
1. If everyone is vaccinated, will they be immune to future mutations of the virus? If so, how can this be the case when we don't yet know how it might mutate?
2. If we would not be immune to future mutations, why bother vaccinating?
3. Could the vaccination encourage the virus to mutate/become stronger?
1. possibly not.
2. to protect those that are at risk to this virus. Herd immunity - it works
3. doubtful. If you look at the history of vaccinations they are *on the whole* a positive thing. We don't see a new strain of polio.. but we do see almost zero cases in vaccinated generations.
Vaccines get a bad rap.. and while I don't dispute there are risks to a small number of individuals, the point of vaccination is to protect the *whole* not just the individual.