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(Joke) I'm still waiting for bacteria to evolve a resistance to boiling! (Seriousness) Different infectious agents can / can not evolve around their vaccines.

(Joke) I'm still waiting for bacteria to evolve a resistance to boiling! (Seriousness) Different infectious agents can / can not evolve around their vaccines. We don't get yearly polio shots, we do get yearly covid/flu shots. (Speculation) It's probably too early to tell if there's a way for HIV to evolve around this, but it might have something to do with how effective we are at killing HIV in our population to begin with.

shrimp_emoji 2y ago
Are you an elcor?
Vecr 2y ago
Polio can and does mutate almost instantly around the vaccines, but since some of the vaccines are live polio anyway people don't really care. "Mutation" is not really a word that matters, what matters is if a variant is causing problems.
- foobiekr 2y ago
  On rare occasions the live vaccine actually reverts. Polio is an amazing story because the live vaccination campaign may have had collateral impact on the families of the vaccinated as they shed particles.
  - Vecr 2y ago
    Rare? It's in almost everyone who gets the vaccine. I don't have a direct citation, but I don't think it's generally doubted, though it's not something that's easy to do a direct controlled test on.
    - foobiekr 2y ago
      reverts as in becomes an acute polio case
foobiekr 2y ago
I know it was a joke but lots of bacteria can survive simple boiling as endospores.