Prompt

As a scientist, describe the main experiment you would like to see performed before phage therapy is approved for human use. What are the risks involved with using phage therapy?

Many experiments has been performed in the past through other animals to see the effectiveness of phage therapy. In The Forgotten Cure,  Kuchment presented two examples of testing that was done to combat salmonella and e. coli. In 2002, Perdue headquarters began testing phages on salmonella. Salmonella began a huge problem that was found in uncooked chicken meat. They took the eggs, baby chicken, and adult chickens and treated them with phages. With the eggs, they injected bacteriophages and sprayed phages on the baby/adult chickens. As a result so far, they found that phage therapy was more effective compared to other methods for reducing salmonella in chickens.  GangaGen also tested out phages to see how well it would help e. coli in the cow’s stomachs. Their findings showed that the phages helped kill the bacteria and the viruses were flushed out of the cow’s intestines. According to The Forgotten Cure, the only FDA approved medical use of phage therapy were for patients with AIDS.

If phage therapy were to come back within later this year or in the future, I believe it would be better for human trails to start with other diseases other than AIDS. Other diseases, such as meningococcal meningitis, can be treated with vaccines, but the vaccines doesn’t work for all types of meningococcal disease, just a few. Although AIDS is a serious health concern, but phage therapy can help diseases that are rare or more serious compared to AIDS. Meningococcal disease affects the brain and spinal cord, which is arguably one of the most important parts for humans to live. Once FDA approves phage therapy for all diseases on humans, I would expect to see experiments first done through other animals that have a certain type of disease, and test out different forms of treatment (oral, injections, sprays). The treatments can be given at a certain time interval and results can be recorded until the animals are free from the disease. How long the treatment takes can be recorded and compared with other types of treatments. Once plenty of experiment done through other animals, human trails can start.

There are lots of risks that can happen during a human trail. There is a chance that even though the trails done by other species worked out well doesn’t necessarily mean that it would work for humans. For example, thalidomide is a drug that was used to help pregnant women relieve nausea. Through testing on rats, it showed no negative effects on the pregnant rat. FDA approved it to use on humans, but sadly, the babies born had physical defects such as missing limbs. FDA took back the approval and stated no pregnant women should take thalidomide. Since there are evidence that not all testing on animals would mean the same result for humans, but there has been a few experiments of phage therapy done on humans mentioned in The Forgotten Cure, when the dysentery patients were treated with phages and showed improvement in health.