3 ms·
I recall a documentary of over 10 years ago mentioning phage therapy in USSR and how it was completely dismissed and ignored in the west (not invented here synd
by 627467 7y ago
I recall a documentary of over 10 years ago mentioning phage therapy in USSR and how it was completely dismissed and ignored in the west (not invented here syndrome, I suppose). If my memory doesn't fail me, they showed nursed collecting sewage (?) water to isolate the needed phages.
It's great to see this whole field finally overcoming prejudice.
- crmrc114 7y agoNot sure why you were down voted but yes, the Russians have been using phage therapy for years. The issue (for the USA at least) is how do you approve a drug or treatment that can evolve? We simply don't have a regulatory framework for this mechanism of treatment. Fun read here: https://www.nature.com/news/phage-therapy-gets-revitalized-1.15348 https://www.nature.com/news/phage-therapy-gets-revitalized-1...
- thrownblown 7y agoI don't know if its the same one but Vice/Motherboard made this mini doc in 2017 and researcher dude does this in connecticut: https://youtu.be/aVTOr7Nq2SM?t=462 https://youtu.be/aVTOr7Nq2SM?t=462
- Fomite 7y agoIt's not a matter of NIH syndrome. There's very real obstacles to phage therapy. The west was using phage therapy...until it started killing people (bad phage preps are dangerous). Penicillin came along, and you have something that's just outright better. Antibiotics are by and large less dangerous, more stable, broader spectrum, etc. It's also a difficult challenge from the regulatory perspective - as with fecal transplant, "bespoke set of microbes" is...weird...from a legal perspective. The reasons the USSR was leading phage research was they were behind on antibiotics. We've come back around because we need a backstop against antibiotics failing.
- m0zg 7y agoPenicillin came along in late 19th century though. Well before anyone even knew what a "phage" was.
- Fomite 7y agoFlemming's work was in 1928, over a decade after folks were using phage therapy, and the mass production of penicillin was in the mid-40's. Note that we were using phage therapy before we knew what phages were, because as it turns out, that's not really necessary. Except that if you don't know what they are, you also don't know that your preparation is full of endotoxins from ruptured bacteria, which are a threat to your patient. Which is one of the reasons it wasn't terribly popular.