Engineered phages help teenager with antibiotic-resistant infection

Re:Engineered phages help teenager with antibiotic-resistant... by jlg23 on Friday May 10, 2019 @05:05AM (#19876226)

We might have read the same articles "years ago", because I too remember to have read about that in pseudo-scientific publications (could have been about the Eliava Institute[1], that rings a bell with me). As probably did the mother of the patient who "suggested" phage therapy.

Instead of blaming doctors (see below), we should praise the internet for allowing even these niche-topics to reach the masses.

Wikipedia gives a nice summary of the political aspects of why lots of doctors educated in the west never learned about it[2].

According to the same article, it became accessible to the average practitioner in the west only 4 years ago:

In June 2015 the European Medicines Agency hosted a one-day workshop [...] and in July 2015 the National Institutes of Health (USA) hosted a two-day workshop [...]

And that just means that the tickle-down of knowledge within the medical community started at that point.

Given that patients and their relatives are notorious for consulting google first and only then their doctors[3][4], I personally applaud the doctors for being so open minded to dig into the alternative treatment.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy#History [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliava_Institute [3] Like the sales person turned manager who skimmed Wikipedia for programming related topics and then gives you detailed, nonsensical advice and questions your expertise when you roll your eyes, frantically searching for a nice way of saying "STFU, my BS-dector maxed out" ..... [4] https://twitter.com/DrPascalMeier/status/699202717030490112

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Re:Engineered phages help teenager with antibiotic-resistant... by perilunar on Friday May 10, 2019 @09:49AM (#19877651)

If this was just a case of a random patient and their GP, I'd agree with you. But this was a double lung transplant, at the Great Ormond Street Hospital, one of the world's best children's hospitals.

After 9 months of decline: "It was at this point that the patient’s mother brought up the idea of phage therapy. Spencer didn’t know much about it, but there was a hospital microbiologist, Dr. James Soothill, who’d worked on the viruses and agreed to help."

So they had a microbiologist on staff who knew about phage therapy. They had a patient with a life threatening antibiotic resistant infection. It took them 9 months to connect the two, and it only happened because the patient's mother suggested it?

Sorry, but that is just completely messed up.

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