Comment by scythe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scythe | Hacker News Reader

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Sounds overblown. Carbapenems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbapenem) are beta-lactam antibiotics that are resistant to all [previously] known beta-lactamases. This seems to be a newer beta-lactamase, but that certainly wouldn't confer resistance to non-beta-lactam antibiotics like chloramphenicol.

It's a matter of serious concern like any other new antibiotic-resistant bug, but it's by no means "resistant to all known antibiotics". In fact, MRSA was already resistant to carbapenems, having lost all D-alanine residues in it's cell wall. Phage therapy is also an option for bacterial infections that are resistant to all available antibiotics, though it's not very popular in the West (it's mostly used in Russia).

It seems the West should pay more attention to phage therapy. Here's where I first learned about it:

"The Soviet method for attacking infection"

http://www.slate.com/id/2142626/

I too have heard a bacteriophage treatment in the same terms in the past. It's basically using viruses that prey on bacteria, as a treatment for bacterial infection. It was fairly widely used in the soviet bloc in lieu of antibiotics, so (presumably) has a reasonable amount of clinical use behind it. It it, as far as I know, very effective - and doesn't have the same issues with bacterial resistance as antibiotics, because the bacteria and viruses evolve in parallel; essentially it's the same arms race, but instead of us doing all the expensive development work on antibiotics for the anti-bacterial side, we let evolution do it for us by using naturally occurring viruses instead.

So - my question is, does anyone know why bacteriophage treatment isn't more widespread?

The article in the comment you replied on has a solid theory: it's hard to patent bacteriophages in their natural state, and tailoring bacteriophages to a specific person presents difficulties with the FDA. Therefore, obtaining profit through these methods is difficult.

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