Phage therapy: How Canadian doctor used century-old medicine to save dying husband from 'super bug'

In 2016, Stephanie Strathdee helplessly watched for nine months as her husband lay dying in a San Diego hospital, as a "super bug" attacked his body. When doctors revealed all hope of recovery was lost, the trained epidemiologist went digging for answers.

Remarkably she came across phage therapy - a century-old medicine discovered by a French-Canadian doctor - which had all but been forgotten.

#PhageTherapy #Health #GlobalNews #HealthNews

[yourdedcat-qrln]

The most beautiful woman ever. Heart of gold to stay by his side fight and believe in him and herself.

[briancf]

Congratulations, please share this information cross country, to our doctors, to everywhere who's need help.

[theslimeylimey]

What a great story and happy ending. We can learn a lot from how problems were solved in the past and the old timers who often knew more than we think we know. An old solution to a new problem becomes a new solution again.

[ruudhop]

The most knowledge of phages are in Georgië (near Russia). An university is specialised in phages about 50 years. You can order those phages by mail after you sent your bacteria sample.
This knowledge is not available by many doctors cause it is not a simple pharmaceutical product.
But bacteria are getting resistant against antibiotics, phages always do their work and it is very cheap treatment.

[ManjuSubin]

Their story should be made into short movie and should go viral....

[igoodkid]

Wife, you’re a hero. He’s so lucky to have you. You look 20 years younger than your husband. Great story.

[lauset]

Phage therapy have been studied in Russia for many years. Antibiotic treatment domination resulted in phage therapy obscurity. Western pharmaceutical companies make TONS of money from antibiotics which support the research. But there is a dead end. We seem to be reaching it. Profit is the end game for these companies. There are plenty of examples of this motive much to the detriment of the general population.

[Canadian_Eh_I]

This woman is awesome! What an incredible and life affirming story

[wernerboden]

This therapy has existed for many years.
Perfected, mostly in east europe, with incredible results.
imo, it is beeing suppressed by pharmacies.
They don't want a a cheap cure.

[Maria-dbyb]

I mean, this story had a happy ending and Im very glad about it, but..
How the hell can she be an epidemiologist and never have heard of phage therapy?
I’m currently taking an introductory virology class (I’m in a biotech program), and as soon as my professor mentioned bacteriophages and how they only attack bacteria, my first thought was “umm, so why aren’t we using this to treat hardy infections?” And now Im doing a review article on recent studies in phage therapy . Btw, the Russians have been using this for decades.

[poohbear]

Phage should be people’s choice. We should have the right to choose what treatments we want to use!!

[sageryan]

Years ago there was an article about this I don’t recall the terminology of ‘p h a g e s’ however I believe this was the time of Glasnost as it involved studies and experiments taking place within Russia/Soviet Union and with promising success. I specifically remember the studies involving “sewage” which prompted the memory, as it sounded revolting. However, according to the article potential beneficial properties were gleaned from their studies of such and treating what was considered non treatable disease. At the time it definitely sounded middle ages to us. Yet, positive results were being seen.
Hoping for your success with this project.

[ivan-]

It is said that for bacteria to be resistant to phages, they must lose almost all of their antibiotic resistance. The problem isnt with superbugs but overdose of antibiotics. Even with phages, bacteria will soon be resistant. This is a problem mainly because of food suppliers that supply live animals such as shrimp will add antibiotics into the water to keep them alive instead of changing the water.

[dc]

You are an amazing woman! Thank you for posting this video!

[queennefertiti]

Wow! What an amazing story, you give a lot of us hope!

[saicharanj]

It is simply superb madam. Please also try to education doctors in India also. Thank you.

[derrickspooger]

This is not a recent reuse of old tech. The soviets used this tech for decades as they did not have access to Western anti-biotics. There was a clinic in the Georgia Republic, that extracted phages from human waste. If you had a patient in need of an anti-biotic you just rang the clinic and they would get the appropriate phage sent to you.
The west did not know much about this because the literature was in Russian, published in Soviet Russia and circulated to Russian doctors. Besides, could any good thing come out of Soviet Russia?
And now, who is going to tell you about it when bigpharma commands the heights in Western medicine?
I am just glad there is new research and use of phages. It is long overdue.

[ontoitaussie]

What is old is new again. To go forward we need to go back...

[charliecharlton]

So what is the name of this antibiotic-resistant strain?

[zoranskoda]

In Soviet Union of 1960s phage solutions were a part of standard pharmacy toolkit, used even for very benign infections. They are not used in modern Russia.