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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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