From:  Manuel Gonzalez <manuelgonzalezp@y...>
Date:  Mon May 5, 2003  10:43 am
Subject:  Re: [phage] Digest Number 59 - Ryan

As a scientiest anyone from any country could obtain a
phaghe strain from any bacteria, just go to:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/
search there for phague and the bacteria, ejem phaghe
and E. coli.
You could retrive some abstract papers and some of
them have email address where you can ask for samples
of phagues, or write the address.
Almost all scientiest are able to give anyone a
sample.

From:  "phdkso" <briedel@m...>
Date:  Fri Sep 27, 2002  7:52 pm
Subject:  With Phage Therapy Superbugs are Superbugs No More

Hi Phage Persons:

After the Sept. 20 CBS 48-hrs program on Phage Therapy I have updated
my Internet Study Guide on Phage Therapy/Medicine:

Superbugs Can be Conquered!

Phage Therapy/Medicine - a Virtual Guide to Information on the
Internet.

Are North Americans/Canadians allowed to suffer and die from
antibiotic-resistant superbug infections unnecessarily?

While the mere mention of multiple antibiotic-resistant superbugs may
strike humans with fear, for the right bacteriophage they represent
opportunity to fulfil their lifecycle, destiny or raison d'être and
their presence excite the reproductive machinery of the phage into
action. In stealth, moon lander fashion phage soon has commandeered
the reproductive system of superbug and in a short time (30 minutes)
superbug bursts open releasing more than 200 copies of phage, each
looking for a superbug to conquer -- considering that superbug
multiplies by dividing in two, while phage produces about 200
offspring for every superbug killed, clearly with those odds superbug
is superbug no more and looks more like a victim -- all this is
simply to say, that what a cat is to a mouse, the right phage is to a
superbug.

While much is being written about the antibiotic-resistant, superbug
crisis and 2002 to 2007 has been dubbed the "Window of Superbug
Vulnerability" because new effective antibiotics will not likely be
available until then, Phage Therapy/Medicine is a technology being
used to treat patients in some countries. In view of the patient risk
due to antibiotic failure, it is obvious that any discussion of the
bacterial antibiotic resistance phenomenon which does not include
consideration of the mitigating role phage therapy/medicine can play,
is medically and scientifically incomplete and/or worse intentionally
or intellectually dishonest. It is clear that the antibiotic-
resistance superbug phenomenon is a human-created,
regulatory/scientific misadventure due solely to massive abuse of
antibiotics since their discovery. As early as 1945 it was obvious
that when natural pathogens are exposed to natural antibiotics they
will undergo natural selection and acquire resistance - or as can be
seen in `Rankin on Thursday: Where communism succeeded ....'

( http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9910/S00096.htm ): "An elementary
application of Evolution 101 tells us that bacteria evolve. In an
antibiotic-rich environment, selective pressure favors those
bacteria strains that are resistant to antibiotics. It's virtually a
tautology." However, had we continued to use phage therapy together
with antibiotics there might not be the antibiotic-resistant superbug
crises today since the two antibacterial methodologies act in
completely different modes. Rankin also states that: "The wonder is
that we have got away with abusing antibiotic therapy for so long."

My latest definition of Phage Therapy/Medicine is that it is a
natural, old-new-again (medical ) technology with a 100 year
documented scientific history, that was used world-wide before the
1940's, and has a 70 year history of continuous use in the former
USSR. There are commercial products on the market in Georgia, Poland
and Russia which are used to treat patients on a daily basis.

The issue of knowingly withholding these commercial products from
patients suffering from antibiotic-resistant, superbug infections
needs to be viewed from legal, ethical and moral standpoints.
Clearly, from scientific, ethical, moral, if not legal, points of
view knowing that phage therapy products are commercially available
will not satisfy the state-of-the-art argument as defense that
everything that could be done for patients was done when negative
treatment outcomes occur. While some patients, like Canadian Alfred
Gertler, from countries where phage therapy is not available can
travel to countries such as Georgia to get phage medicine treatment
for infections not responding to antibiotics

(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/19/48hours/main522596.shtml ),
doctors, relatives and non-mobile patients from such countries face
an additional dilemma because commercially available phage therapy
products may be legally available for import on a case by case basis
upon request to the appropriate regulatory agency under special
access programs provided for under pharmaceutical product regulatory
legislation - but can the bureaucratic processes be accomplished in
time when a superbug infection rages?

When considering regulatory approval for these products we are not
talking about the approval of a new, promising molecule with unproven
pharmaceutical potential; but rather we are talking about the re-
approval and re-introduction of products/technology which were
previously used and which are today quite well understood from a
scientific point of view ( http://www.phages.org/PhageInfo.html ).

If one is bugged by superbugs and clicks http://www.phagetherapy.com
the following statement welcomes visitors - "One of the most exiting
developments in combating disease is Phage Therapy. Join us in the
exploration of this fast breaking field." If one does a search with
http://www.google.com with the search string Phage Therapy one will
be rewarded with roughly 10,700 hits. From 95% reductions of
Salmonella strains in poultry to a potential cure for Vibrio
vulnificus infection from eating raw oysters, to a treatment for
anthrax ( see for example of phage enzyme therapy -
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020822070131.htm ), and
the eradication of E. coli O157:H7, phage therapy seems to provide an
answer.

Bactericidal, heat-labile, filterable principles in rivers in India
were discovered in the 1890's and it was subsequently confirmed that
many rivers with fecal pollution contained similar bactericidal
agents. Tanner, in his classic text book, Food Microbiology (1944),
examines this phenomenon in some detail; however, it was d'Herelle, a
Canadian working in Paris, in 1917 who demonstrated that the bacteria-
lytic activity was due to viruses which were very specific for
bacteria - he named them bacteriophages - "bacteria eaters" and also
advocated the use of phage for the treatment of bacterial infections.
Until 1940 Phage Therapy was widely practiced and researched, often
with contradictory results, mainly because the biology of
bacteriophages was poorly understood. With the introduction of
antibiotics phage therapy was essentially abandoned in the West until
the 1980's when antibiotic-resistant, superbug infections caused some
Western scientists to reexamine the potential of phage to cure human,
animal and plant infections, as well as their potential for reducing
or eliminating contamination from foods, ranging from vegetables to
meats.

Meanwhile, d'Herelle helped establish the Elivia Institute of
Bacteriophage, Microbiology, and Virology in Tbilisi, Georgia which
opened in 1923. This institute became the main supplier of a broad
range of phage therapy products throughout the former Soviet Union.

In 1997 Dr. Elizabeth Kutter from Evergreen State College, in
Olympia, Washington examined the state of phage therapy mainly in the
former Soviet Union/Georgia in her comprehensive review entitled ,
Phage Therapy: Bacteriophages as Antibiotics - (
http://www.evergreen.edu/phage ).

At present, in addition to established organizations in Georgia,
Russia and Poland which are reportedly marketing therapeutic and
prophylactic phage products against bacteria including Staphylococci,
Streptococci, E. coli, Pseudomonas, Proteus, Salmonella, Shigella,
Serratia, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Campylobacter, Yersinia and
Brucella, there are an estimated ten companies located in the USA
(Intralytix, Inc - http://www.intralytix.com ), Canada, India
(GangaGen - www.gangagen.com ), Germany - (
http://www.bacteriophage.net English language), and Israel (Phage
Biotech Ltd - http://www.phage-biotech.com ) {see note below} racing
to provide a number of phage therapy products for a range of medical,
animal husbandry, food processing and environmental applications. It
is anticipated that the first phage-based product(s) for treatment of
meat and poultry will receive FDA approval in 2003; an "experimental
use permit" from EPA has been granted for use of phage in the
environment on non-food contact surfaces.

This paper is designed to provide the reader with enough Internet
sites to study the subject and get an appreciation of the history of
phage therapy and provide an overview of industrial and academic
research, their broad range of applications, as well as an overview
of the regulatory situation. Phage Therapy/Medicine is a currently
active biotechnology research area and we are likely to hear much
more about this totally natural, sustainable, funeral-delaying
technology in the near future! Meanwhile, dear reader, may all your
tomorrows be free from personal encounters with antibiotic-resistant
superbugs and if not, may you have timely access to the appropriate
bacteriophage to aid in your speedy recovery - at least after reading
this document you will never be able to claim that you did not know
that phage medicine is being used to treat antibiotic-resistant
superbug infections!

NOTE: These websites are examples only - not a comprehensive list!
This document is a draft which may change without notice - it may be
reproduced and distributed in any form or by any means with or
without giving credit to the author - September 26, 2002.

Prepared by G.W. (Bill) Riedel, PhD, MCIC