Reinventing the wheel

Written in response to a report in EuroSciCon News about phage trials by Dr. David Harper and his team in London, against Pseudomonas aeruginosa .

REINVENTING THE WHEEL.

At last, the UK medical profession are using their brains, and phages, by
allowing Nature to fight Nature.

What have the Big Pharma companies been doing about phages these
past 50 years? If they had been less financially concerned about their
inability to patent a virus (phages) and slightly more concerned about
saving lives, maybe we wouldn't be in this antibiotic-resistant mess.
There is, it seems, more profit now to be made from 'life-style' drugs,
than from very expensive-to-produce antibiotics. I wonder why.....

The next biggest hurdle to the acceptance of phages will be the MHRA,
that quango wholly funded by the licences it sells to Big Pharma. It
insists, rightly so, that a new medicine/chemical be first rigourously
tested (albeit on an relatively small number of people) before it is
released for final testing on our populations. This however does not
mean the drug is safe, as various scandals over the years have
belatedly shown. Still, they could always continue to raise revenues by
prosecuting herbalists and alternative practitioners.

The reason for insisting on lengthy and expensive trials is to gather
evidence that not too many people have died during these trial, or are
expected to after release and distribution through doctors' practices.
Before anyone throws up their hands in horror at the very thought that
drug companies might overlook a few deaths during trials, even though
they use specially chosen human guinea pigs who are expected to
show the most favourable reaction to the drug, i.e. at least stay alive,
recent and earlier evidence of skewed and selective trials reportings
should not be forgotten.

Maybe this is one reason for Dr. Harper's emphasis on the safety of
phages, to distance them from the growing public unease about side
effects and a growing realisation that hundreds of UK citizens die
annually due to prescription medicines, yet without much official
investigation. Can anyone tell me how many drug company directors
have been prosecuted following drug-ralated deaths? Trials reports that
are 'economical with the truth' are quietly forgotten by governments
funded with license fees and VAT revenues. Paradoxically, that phages
have successfully and safely been used in Eastern Europe for the last
50 years, without any reported ill effects seems to count for very little
with our drugs regulators and NHS mandarins. This must surely be the
longest ever drugs trial in history, discounting herbal remedies! When one
also considers recent (2007) Polish research showing phages to be
90% cheaper than antibiotics in treating MRSA, one wonders if the NHS
ever reads any scientific papers not commissioned by themselves.

It is interesting to note that doctors can, and do regularly, prescribe
unlicensed drugs, with the patient's consent. The WHO, of which the UK
is a signatory, states that doctors "..when all conventional methods have
failed, must make alternative treatments known to the patient...". Why
then this baffling reluctance to use phages? Simply hiding behind
'more trials are needed' is not good enough, or is it that the onus would
rest with the doctor and not with the drug company, or a fear of peer
ridicule?

At least Dr. Harper and his team are putting their money where their
mouths are, and by emphasising yet again that phages are actually safe,
are paying more than just lip service to the 1st Hippocratic oath which
our regulators and Big Pharma appear to have lost sight of; "First, do no
harm".

To everyone working with phages, I say "Keep up the good work!" To
the NHS I say, "Open your minds".

Mike Jozefiak

MRSA

Phages

Winston Churchill Fellow's report on phage therapy.