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Taking Bacteriophage Therapy Seriously: A Moral Argument

The excessive and improper use of antibiotics has led to an increasing incidence of bacterial resistance. In Europe the yearly number of infections caused by multidrug resistant bacteria is more than 400.000, each year resulting in 25.000 attributable deaths. Few new antibiotics are in the pipeline...

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Autores principales: Verbeken, Gilbert, Huys, Isabelle, Pirnay, Jean-Paul, Jennes, Serge, Chanishvili, Nina, Scheres, Jacques, Górski, Andrzej, De Vos, Daniel, Ceulemans, Carl
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4020481/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24868534
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/621316
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author Verbeken, Gilbert
Huys, Isabelle
Pirnay, Jean-Paul
Jennes, Serge
Chanishvili, Nina
Scheres, Jacques
Górski, Andrzej
De Vos, Daniel
Ceulemans, Carl
author_facet Verbeken, Gilbert
Huys, Isabelle
Pirnay, Jean-Paul
Jennes, Serge
Chanishvili, Nina
Scheres, Jacques
Górski, Andrzej
De Vos, Daniel
Ceulemans, Carl
author_sort Verbeken, Gilbert
collection PubMed
description The excessive and improper use of antibiotics has led to an increasing incidence of bacterial resistance. In Europe the yearly number of infections caused by multidrug resistant bacteria is more than 400.000, each year resulting in 25.000 attributable deaths. Few new antibiotics are in the pipeline of the pharmaceutical industry. Early in the 20th century, bacteriophages were described as entities that can control bacterial populations. Although bacteriophage therapy was developed and practiced in Europe and the former Soviet republics, the use of bacteriophages in clinical setting was neglected in Western Europe since the introduction of traditional antibiotics. Given the worldwide antibiotic crisis there is now a growing interest in making bacteriophage therapy available for use in modern western medicine. Despite the growing interest, access to bacteriophage therapy remains highly problematic. In this paper, we argue that the current state of affairs is morally unacceptable and that all stakeholders (pharmaceutical industry, competent authorities, lawmakers, regulators, and politicians) have the moral duty and the shared responsibility towards making bacteriophage therapy urgently available for all patients in need.
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spelling pubmed-40204812014-05-27 Taking Bacteriophage Therapy Seriously: A Moral Argument Verbeken, Gilbert Huys, Isabelle Pirnay, Jean-Paul Jennes, Serge Chanishvili, Nina Scheres, Jacques Górski, Andrzej De Vos, Daniel Ceulemans, Carl Biomed Res Int Research Article The excessive and improper use of antibiotics has led to an increasing incidence of bacterial resistance. In Europe the yearly number of infections caused by multidrug resistant bacteria is more than 400.000, each year resulting in 25.000 attributable deaths. Few new antibiotics are in the pipeline of the pharmaceutical industry. Early in the 20th century, bacteriophages were described as entities that can control bacterial populations. Although bacteriophage therapy was developed and practiced in Europe and the former Soviet republics, the use of bacteriophages in clinical setting was neglected in Western Europe since the introduction of traditional antibiotics. Given the worldwide antibiotic crisis there is now a growing interest in making bacteriophage therapy available for use in modern western medicine. Despite the growing interest, access to bacteriophage therapy remains highly problematic. In this paper, we argue that the current state of affairs is morally unacceptable and that all stakeholders (pharmaceutical industry, competent authorities, lawmakers, regulators, and politicians) have the moral duty and the shared responsibility towards making bacteriophage therapy urgently available for all patients in need. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2014 2014-04-29 /pmc/articles/PMC4020481/ /pubmed/24868534 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/621316 Text en Copyright © 2014 Gilbert Verbeken et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Verbeken, Gilbert
Huys, Isabelle
Pirnay, Jean-Paul
Jennes, Serge
Chanishvili, Nina
Scheres, Jacques
Górski, Andrzej
De Vos, Daniel
Ceulemans, Carl
Taking Bacteriophage Therapy Seriously: A Moral Argument
title Taking Bacteriophage Therapy Seriously: A Moral Argument
title_full Taking Bacteriophage Therapy Seriously: A Moral Argument
title_fullStr Taking Bacteriophage Therapy Seriously: A Moral Argument
title_full_unstemmed Taking Bacteriophage Therapy Seriously: A Moral Argument
title_short Taking Bacteriophage Therapy Seriously: A Moral Argument
title_sort taking bacteriophage therapy seriously: a moral argument
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4020481/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24868534
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/621316
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