Can our immune system be or become partially defective?

[Spinnor]

Can our immune system be partially defective to some small class of pathogens (say flesh eating bacteria) either from birth, due to genetic defect, or latter in life?

Our body has a lot of "bad guys" to look out for, maybe it just stops looking for some of the bad guys?

Thanks!

 

[jim mcnamara]

First off, "class of pathogens" would not be the pathogens involved in Necrotizing fasciitis. Several different and very unrelated bacterial pathogens have been detected and labelled as the causative agent. Which is why physicians need to know which pathogen is involved in order to use the best possible antibiotic.

The actual answer to the more general questions is yes. To all of the above.

Some simplified examples:
AIDS turns off immune response,
allergies can be thought of as immune response run amok,
in some instances immune response dwindles over time which is why we get booster shots

Aging affects immune response. Example: age of exposure to a pathogen like influenza type A, very young people benefit more in terms of immune response later on from exposure than do adults.

X-Linked Agammaglobulinemia is an x-linked genetic problem that affects immune response. Males only, obviously.

 

[MichelleAllan]

The most common causes that have been proved to be harmful enough to damage the immune system as reported by sciencedaily are unsuitable sanitary conditions, malnutrition and HIV infection. So these causes may damage the immune system partially. And if we get it treated at the right time, it can be cured completely but even a bit of carelessness may cause it to grow and the damage may not be limited to just partial.

 

[CWatters]

Sometimes the immune system is deliberately suppressed (eg immuno suppressants for treating Colitis or Crohn's disease) or a side effect (chemotherapy for cancer).

 

[Evo]

The most common causes that have been proved to be harmful enough to damage the immune system as reported by sciencedaily are unsuitable sanitary conditions, malnutrition and HIV infection. So these causes may damage the immune system partially. And if we get it treated at the right time, it can be cured completely but even a bit of carelessness may cause it to grow and the damage may not be limited to just partial.

Get what treated at the right time? What can be cured? Please do not paraphrase from different parts of an article because it becomes nonsense. Instead, directly quote a small portion of the article and then link to it.

 

[BillTre]

The immune system is very complex.
There are many ways it can be affected to enhance or reduce its responses to particular antigens.
It has a lot of moving parts.

In addition to to what has been mentioned above here are some examples:
• Research Techniques: As part of my thesis project, I made monoclonal antibodies and did several different immune system manipulations. One was what I called a "negative immunization". After injecting the mice with a mixed set of antigens (mushed-up fish embryos) which activated a bunch of immune cells that could bind some antigen in the mix, I injected them with cyclophosphamide (which kills responding cells), and then injected the mice with more antigen mix (activating cells that were not responding in the first round. This leads to antibody production against less common antigens in the antigen mix and eliminates responders to the most common antigens.
• Natural Selection: When the Black Death plague killed off about 1/3 of the population of Europe, it resulted in changes in their genetics, and presumably removed from the breeding population those whose immune systems were most susceptible to that disease. This is an extreme example of natural selection shaping a population's immune system to respond to big environmental challenges.
• Human Genetics: Here is a list of genetically inherited human immune deficiencies.