Enduring Tolerance During an infection, the host organism deploys multiple defense strategies. Disease resistance, the process by which the immune system decreases pathogen burden is perhaps the most well-known, and certainly the mechanism that is best studied and understood. Other defense strategies range from pathogen avoidance, through tolerance of pathogen-induced tissue damage, and endurance of the overall pathogen burden. Medzhitov et al. (p. 936 ) review the concept of disease tolerance and suggest that particularly in animals, it is an overlooked mechanism of host defense.