Liz Taylor's life saved by phages

The following rticle is taken, by kind permission, from Grace Filby's website
Amazingphage.info. It is a story bout how Liz Taylor's life was almost certainly saved by the timely application of phages. Read on.......

"Several reliable US medical sources had told me in 2007 that Elizabeth
Taylor was treated with phages for staphylococcus pneumonia during
the filming of 'Cleopatra'.

A British doctor (another Churchill Fellow) also volunteered the
information at dinner at the House of Commons, so it seemed the right
thing to check it out! Many thanks to a Californian physician for meeting
up again here in Reigate and researching some US newspaper archives.

It is today, a great pleasure to announce some details and documentary
evidence of this exciting life-saving story. It certainly sounds like a
dramatic turnaround. The best bit is saved for the end of this news item
.....

It was early spring, 1961, in London. It can still be very cold at that time
of year. I imagine that if the film crew were all stuck indoors in the studio
there was not much chance for fresh air and sunlight to keep the germs
away. Elizabeth Taylor and her husband, Eddie Fisher, were staying at
the Dorchester Hotel.

On Friday 3rd March, the 29-year old star fell ill with a severe attack of
staphylococcal pneumonia. The news immediately hit the international
press and the New York Times reported that she was put in an oxygen
tent at the hotel, and transferred to the London Clinic by ambulance with
her husband, two physicians and 3 nurses.

By the evening of Saturday 4th March, her breathing was so bad that
surgery was necessary - she had a tracheotomy and was put on an
electronic lung. The medical statement for the press was signed by Lord
Evans (Queen Elizabeth II's honorary physician) and two other
physicians: "Her condition remains grave." This latest news was again
reported in the New York Times. On the Sunday she was reported as
"not out of danger as yet".

Meanwhile, a woman in New Jersey wrote immediately by special
delivery airmail, to Liz Taylor's London physician: Dr Carl Heinz Goldman.
She wanted to let him know that she had previously been treated
successfully for severe staphylococcal pneumonia by her US physician,
Dr Salmon, a pediatric allergist, who had all the details of the treatment.
So her one letter and prompt action were sufficient to put the two key
people in contact.

On Monday 6th March, on its receipt, Dr Salmon was telephoned twice
by Eddie Fisher, and at noon, by Dr Goldman himself. He explained that it
was called SPL - Staphage Lysate - in other words - Staph(ylococcus)
(Bacterio)Phage Lysate. Phage had been produced in Europe and the US
for a number of years. SPL was produced under supervision of
Theodore Purnell, associate professor of education and science at
Pennsylvania Military College. Dr Salmon had been using it with patients,
mostly children, for 8 years, mostly when antibiotics were not effective
against staphylococcus.

Dr Goldman requested two variations of the drug plus a combination of
both. Dr Salmon's comment to the press was: "We could have ordered a
supply of the drug from the manufacturer but there wasn't time. We
saved precious time by using our own stock." It was arranged that 20
vials, each of one cubic centimetre, would be flown to London
immediately.

Eddie Fisher's agent, Milton Blackstone, flew with the SPL phage
medicine from Philadelphia International Airport to New York Idlewild
Airport then by jet to London on the Monday night.

While this was taking place on the Monday, Elizabeth Taylor was given a
blood transfusion for anaemia. Her strength ebbed. The medical opinion
was "We are very worried". That night there were two doctors in the
sick room, plus her husband and her parents.

On the morning of Tuesday 7th March, there was a bedside meeting of
the full medical team - 6 doctors. That evening, the staph phage was
given - either by injection or nasally by aerosol.

By the very next evening of Wednesday 8th March, one of the doctors
Dr Victor Hatner told reporters that the patient was "vastly improved"!
The official bulletin stated "Her condition is greatly improved and gives
less cause for anxiety".

The drama was over - thanks to the SPL phage - or was it?

A week later, a follow up article was published in the New York Times
about the need for cures for Staphylococcal infections such as Elizabeth
Taylor's. Strangely, it doesn't mention the SPL. Instead the writer states
that it was a synthetic drug, "Staphcillin" (methicillin) that had been
"finally created late 1960" at the Beecham Labs, Betchworth, Surrey, just
down the road here near Reigate, and it was this that saved her life.

Now we have an interesting situation. If Elizabeth Taylor did also receive
a course of this synthetic drug, then was the dramatic and immediate
turnaround in events over just one night - 7th March - the result of the
action of the SPL, or of the methicillin, or both?

The fact is that SPL had cured the anonymous American woman from
New Jersey, long before the new synthetic drug was created.

Another fact is that SPL was FDA-approved for human use until the
1990s - and remains in veterinary use for dogs!

Thirdly, phages are known for their rapid effects in successful
treatment, because they self-replicate until the offending germ is gone. In
contrast, treatment with synthetic drugs is usually over a course of
several days or weeks.

There is also the possibility that one or more of the news articles were
not entirely accurate.

So we are not entirely sure whether the synthetic drug or the SPL
phage, or both, were what saved Elizabeth Taylor but we can ponder
over it.

The event has become legendary, to such an extent that Robert Bud,
curator of the Science Museum, when writing about antibiotic resistance
in a 2005 Wellcome publication, stated: "Famously, the life of the actress
Elizabeth Taylor was rescued after she was treated for staphylococcal
pneumonia". Maybe it was just an assumption that it was methicillin?

Anyway, now we have verification that phage had a very significant
part to play at that time, along with all the men and women (and the
animals, and the ultra-microscopic) in the epic list of characters."

To follow up on Grace's excellent story, and to find out who the manufacturer was, visit Liz Taylor's pneumonia