March
17
The Forgotten Cure Chapters 5-8
- Antibiotics were introduced to the Soviet Union through the Western culture and was funded by Great Britain, and therefore Russia started to produce antibiotics. Due to World War II occurring during the 1940’s-50’s, the Soviet Union’s funding for antibiotics, which was used for funding of the war weapons, were decreased and the Russians had to rely on their scarce supplies. They did not have equipment or the people to support the production and use of antibiotics as well. The main issue that arose from this was the lack of funding. The way that the USSR’s health care system was operating did was inefficient due to the issue The USSR health care system provided all medical care for free for the patients but charge to the state. Without the adequate funding for antibiotics the USSR encouraged alternative medicines such as anise seeds, dill seeds, chamomile tea, and phage therapy to treat diseases. Phage therapy, due to its inexpensive nature of production, became a popular alternative for antibiotics.
- The Hirszfeld Institute located in Poland was founded by Ludwik Hirszfeld. He faced oppression from Stalin due to being e a Jew and forced to endure harsh living situations and face the death of his daughter as well. Due to being Jewish, the “Doctor’s Plot” incident where doctors who were prominently Jewish had been accused of trying to poison army members, did not help in the advancement of the Hirszfeld Institute. The Eliava Institute located in Tbilsis faced similar consequences as did Hirszfeld Institute. They faced oppression from Stalin, and the family was executed as well. The Eliava Institution in 2001 operates without heat and electricity leading to the members of the lab taking the phages home to keep refrigerated which led to the loss of many phages. The Eliava Institute focusses mainly on the research of bacteriophages and practical applications of phages, while Phage Therapy Center created by Gorski in Wroclaw focusses on treatment of patients and clinical uses.
- Merril was interested about the use if phages to treat diseases. He inserted phages into mice and observed the amount of time the phages were present in the body. He observed that the phages were removed by the spleen and liver. In order to obtain a phage that could invade the spleen and liver, Merril and his team performed a procedure called serial passage using phage lambda with E coli. A lambda phage was inserted into an E coli strain which was then inserted into the mice’s stomach. When observing the blood samples of the mice seven hours later the research team isolated phage which could invade the spleen and liver and was present even eighteen hours later. This phage was called Argo1 and Argo2. Three groups of mice were treated with the phage, and the fourth group, was left untreated. After a few days the untreated mice had died, showing that the phages could help the mice survive. When observing the figures of the PNAS paper, when injected with more phage the mice recovered faster and didn’t have prolonged symptoms of the disease.
- Phage therapy is becoming an increasing interest for the alternative of antibiotics. GangaGen is a company based in India, inspired by the phages discovered near the Ganges and Jamuna River. The company focusses on alternative ways of treatment such as the use of bacteriophages rather than antibiotics. The company focusses on ectolysins which lyses the bacteria quickly. Ectolysins are also created to target one type of bacteria and therefore does not destroy other bacteria in the process. This company focusses on drug resistant bacteria which create diseases in humans. Companies have done some experiments to focus effectiveness of the phage therapy on specific strands of bacteria. More analysis needs to be done on the experiments and results of these companies. Clinical trials, both positive and negative, should be conducted under differing conditions to check the validity of the findings of these companies. Also, effectiveness of phage therapy on situations of antibiotic resistance should be done to see if this can be an alternative to antibiotics. Legal compliance including FDA should be completed before approving the therapy for public use. Extreme cautiousness and a most conservative approach should be adopted to ensure safety of the patients, and not rush with introduction of the phage therapy. Where applicable, a combination of both antibiotics and phage therapy may be applied, if that can produce better results.
I agree with Sona that caution should be taken with the application of phage therapy, and that more clinical trials should be performed to make sure that phages are safe. Although phage therapy has been frequently used in Georgia, Russia, and other countries over many decades and the use of phages have been applied to other fields such as for sanitization purposes in food production, the FDA has made a wise decision by not rushing applying phage therapy. Since phages are so specific, each different type of lysate should go through this process to ensure that the phages will not cause any harmful side effects. Phage therapy should be treated like any other new medicine. Before the treatment becomes an option, it needs goes through the long process of being researched on animal models, tested through trial clinical studies, and then reviewed by FDA. I also agree that research looked into the effects of combination of using antibiotics with phage therapy. It can be hypothesized that using both can be more beneficial than taking one over the other and that using both could be the ultimate solution to eradicating highly antibiotic resistant bacteria, but more research, specifically clinical trials with controls, should be performed to support this.