The next global health crisis is not on the horizon; it is here right now.
For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has driven the overuse of antibiotics in healthcare and agriculture, leading to the evolution of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the rise of unstoppable infections.
Looking at headlines and government statements, it is easy to believe we are entering yet another doomsday scenario.
Waving away this gloom, Tom Ireland’s 2023 book The Good Virus highlights that a proven solution has existed for over 100 years: phage therapy.
Bacteriophage
‘Phage’ is short for ‘bacteriophage’ which means ‘bacteria eater’. These near-ubiquitous viruses have evolved to specifically target and destroy bacterial cells.
Their medicinal use was first developed in the early 1900s by French-Canadian microbiologist Félix d’Hérelle.
However his work was snubbed by investors who decided it wasn’t profitable enough.
US and western pharmaceutical companies decided instead to promote antibiotics as a universal cure for all infections.
Even before the rise of AMR, this decision has caused personal suffering for untold millions worldwide. Antibiotics indiscriminately kill all bacteria, with the potential for lifelong damage and complications such as development of IBS.
Soviet Union
However that is not the entire story. The book illuminates the USSR’s embracing of d’Hérelle’s innovations.
For the Bolsheviks, tackling disease was an existential question. Lenin famously stated, “Either the lice will defeat socialism, or socialism will defeat the lice”.
Issues that were insurmountable in a capitalist society were not a problem for the young workers’ state.
The requirements for phage therapy – increased labour time, open sharing of research data, and large scale gathering of bacteria samples – all fit in neatly with a centrally planned economy.
Yet the development of phage therapy in the USSR was stunted by Stalin’s purges.
George Eliava, the founder of phage therapy in the USSR, personally aggravated the head of the secret police, Lavrentiy Beria. For this “crime”, Eliava was arrested and executed in 1937. His name and work were erased from records.
Capitalism
Ireland’s book highlights the recent resurgence of interest in phage therapy to combat AMR infections.
One notable case from 2018 highlighted in the book involved a British teenager whose life was saved by a virus harvested from a rotten eggplant!
The pressing question is, why is phage therapy only used in a handful of cases as a last resort? Why is funding for this field so limited?
Ireland skirts around the glaring answer: that private property presents an obstacle far greater than any Stalinist bureaucrat.
Whereas pharmaceutical companies favour drugs that can be mass-produced, phage therapy requires time-consuming, personalised treatment tailored to the specific infection a patient has. It also demands the sharing of data on bacterial evolution and effective phages for treatment.
Currently, pharmaceutical companies are profiting immensely from the status quo. They not only lack interest in funding phage therapy but are also incentivised to lobby against it.
To effectively combat the rise of AMR, it is clear we must tackle the largest parasite of all in healthcare – the capitalist class.
