Black Intellectuals and Black Society

Increasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics is one of the biggest threats facing public health today. However, a potential solution has emerged from an unexpected source. Phage therapy uses viruses called bacteriophages, or “bacteria eaters,” to treat bacterial infections. What concerns – both biological and social – arise from using viruses in this way? What does phage therapy reveal about the links between humans and microbes? In Our Viral Future, Charlotte Braves analyzes the development and implications of this therapy, offering new ways of understanding our interconnectedness with the microbial world. Considering patients seeking treatment for chronic infections, the development of new regulatory frameworks, laboratory research and clinical trials highlights the complexity and diversity of the relationships between humans, phages and bacteria. Braves places phage therapy in the context of the widespread use of antibiotics under industrial capitalism, which has employed these treatments to enable environmentally destructive forms of production and consumption on a large scale. The author argues that the connections between human and microbial communities challenge the usual categories through which science and medicine understand the world, raising new ethical and political questions. An interdisciplinary and nuanced book, Our Viral Future presents a thought-provoking challenge: instead of continuing to assert our ability to control and master microbes, we must learn to live with them.