Humanity has been working diligently on creating a powerful death machine, and not to brag, but our progress has been through the roof. The only problem is, we’re building a death machine that will lead to our own demise, and most of us don’t even realize it.

These death machines are called superbugs. Superbugs are bacteria that have mutated in order to protect themselves from particular antibiotics, leaving our number one treatments considerably useless. This mutation of bacteria is exacerbated by the overuse of antibiotics. So, although it happens naturally over time, exposing more antibiotics into the world is allowing them more opportunities to develop resistance at extreme rates. Unfortunately, this rate is incomparable to the rate at which pharmaceutical companies can possibly create new antibiotics.

It is estimated that drug-resistant illnesses could cause 10 million deaths every year by 2050 and damage to the economy equivalent to the global financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Officials claim the number one reason for the lack of effort in the direction of phage therapy is that antibiotics are more readily available, cheaper and still work for the time being. What they fail to acknowledge is that this period of time where antibiotics are so accessible and powerful is coming to a close. It isn’t a disputed fact that antibiotic resistance is one of the largest threats to our world today. According to WHO, we are simply running out of antibiotics that are able to withstand the superbugs we have created, largely accelerated due to the overuse and misuse of these antibiotics. 

Do we have a solution? Yes, we do. 

Bacteriophages. Bacteria-killing machines. These viruses aren’t like others, because while we usually think of viruses as the bringers of illness, these are different. They were designed by nature to specifically kill bacterial cells by using them as hosts to replicate, then destroying them, and they’re incredibly effective in their work. Not only are they able to kill normal bacteria, but they can even fight against the mutated ones, like the superbugs. Since phages are viruses, while the bacteria are mutating to protect themselves against antibiotics and potentially phages, phages are also constantly mutating, to retain their own effectiveness against bacteria. In addition, there are different types of bacteriophages that target different types of bacteria. For this reason those that target harmful bacteria would be harmless to our beneficial bacteria.

So, what is our plan? The very first step in getting bacteriophage therapy approved in Canada is through creating awareness with the public. Not only is antibiotic resistance not a very well known issue, despite its severity, but phage therapy is even less known. Since Big Pharma is avoiding bacteriophages for their own monetary interest, there is a low chance most people will hear about this solution. So, spreading awareness and educating the public on the matter is the key, in order to demand more research on this solution, and eventually use phage therapy to save lives.