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Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

latimes.com

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Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#51

Post by cf1241290841 »

dx034 wrote: post #48
cf1241290841 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mountain rescue also has the impossibility to land. Here some HD footage from national geographic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk9QKRM_8Jo Notice the cut audio track. Giving these people the legal ability to give pain meds cant happen early enough. Mont Blanc helicopter rescue services also make some great documentaries every few years. The situation is even worse for a lot of snake bite victims, as you cant get l…

They can't give pain meds in the US? I believe in most of Europe, there's always a doctor on board of rescue helicopters, so they routinely administer drugs on board or on site of the accident.

You need that doctor and put him on the ground. That is often not the case in Europe or the US if the terrain is considered unsafe.

The scene for the national geographic clip starts at 7:30.

The situation is even more drastic for cave rescues, there its not unusual to take days for a doctor to arrive.

Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#52

Post by zmgsabst »

FL410 wrote: post #16
dabiged wrote: post #15

> he was administered 28 vials of antivenom intravenously at a cost of $3,400 per vial. As someone who lives in Australia, who grew up with aggressive and deadly snakes, what the actual hell? Nobody is out of pocket in Australia following a snake bite and we have many more species and all of the geographic remoteness of the South Western US. Is this just another case of a side effect of the state of the USA healthcar…

As embarrassing as that sentence is, it is highly unlikely he left with a $95,000 bill, nor is it likely his insurance company actually paid anywhere near that for the vials. The prices that end up on healthcare bills may as well be in another currency, since they tend to be used as placeholders subject to all kinds of contractual math down the road. None of which is to say that our healthcare system ISN'T a mess, it…

Also, ER services are obligated to save your life even if you can’t pay. (Government picks up the tab.)

The problems have more to do with long-term things, eg cancer or kidney disease.

Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#53

Post by giantg2 »

fullspectrumdev wrote: post #32
giantg2 wrote: post #19

I've always wondered if we could have venom vaccines using repeated micro doses.

There’s been some interesting self experimentation in that direction. Unclear if the startup Tim Friede was involved with actually has gone anywhere yet, but he was basically dosing himself with a plethora of snake venoms to build immunity. See: https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-...

I thought I heard somewhere that a blood transfusion from someone who was bitten acted as antivenom even. Not sure if that's true or where I even heard it. Very interesting if it is true.

Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#54

Post by trailbits »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #50

Statistically this seems much less of a big deal for the US than for elsewhere. Total number of fatal snakebites per year, worldwide: 138,000 (article points this out). Total number of those in the US: 5. (Not 5%; 5 people.) If you can get to any decent hospital within a few hours after a bite, you'll probably live. If you're one of the unlucky 5 who cannot, then yes this pill might be a good idea.

If this pill can stop or slow the damage from the highly toxic protein that is present in snake venoms, then I can see it being useful everywhere, including the US. You are only considering fatalities, but approximately 400,000 snakebites each year cause permanent deformities or amputation. Even more people are out of commission for months while healing. Having your tissue chemically digested by snake venom is no fun.

Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#55

Post by pmayrgundter »

scottyah wrote: post #4
rurp wrote: post #2

It's unclear to me how much damage the pill prevents versus simply delaying it. I didn't see any clear statements on that in the article and there are a few quotes like, "intended to at least buy victims enough time to get to the hospital." If victims still need anti-venom to prevent serious injury then the drug is much less exciting. As the article points out anti-venom treatments are expensive, unreliable, and hard…

I didn't see any claims of it being a cure, but I think it still has the ability to be "world changing" for all those who are in need, much the same as a tourniquet doesn't fix loss of limb but can easily save a life when time is the deciding factor. I found more information about the active ingredient (cited in the article) on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varespladib

Went digging a bit. It's a "small molecule" (C21-H20-N2-O5) and commercialy available at $10/mg[1]. Presumably this would come down quite a bit if it were widely stocked.

The studies say they are looking at doses of 10mg/kg[2]. Similar dosing to a pain pill.

On a first read, looks like a partial solution as it only delays onset of venom pathology for a day, tho not sure I'm interpreting that correctly.

Otoh, it looks like the pills can continue to be taken for many days.. so perhaps there's promise for the venom to be slowly metabolized somehow that isn't inhibited. Might also bring down the cost of antivenom if it's now feasible to funnel patients into central treatment over greater distances, so stocks could be better used.

[1]https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/155815#section=Che...

[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9695340/

https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04996264

Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#56

Post by aaron695 »

rurp wrote: post #2

It's unclear to me how much damage the pill prevents versus simply delaying it. I didn't see any clear statements on that in the article and there are a few quotes like, "intended to at least buy victims enough time to get to the hospital." If victims still need anti-venom to prevent serious injury then the drug is much less exciting. As the article points out anti-venom treatments are expensive, unreliable, and hard…

[dead]

Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#57

Post by dendrite9 »

throwup238 wrote: post #12
chasil wrote: post #9

Why don't we do with (problem) snakes what we do with the mosquito, specifically releasing either a) irradiated males who are sterile that produce offspring that do not hatch, or b) males with an installed gene drive that can only sire males for all future generations? Either case results in a population crash. I don't know if gene drives have been used against wild populations as yet (although there is great interes…

Mosquitos inhabit an ecological niche that is much safer to eradicate than snakes. Mosquitos' predators have many other sources of food so they're not critical to any species and they're not predators that keep prey populations in check. They're just a deadly nuisance to humans without access to plentiful modern medicine. Snakes on the other hand as mid-level predators are likely keystone species [1] and killing them…

But mosquitos pollinate plants so eliminating them would not be a harmless act. They are clearly far more deadly than snakes though. The number of deaths per year they are responsible for always impresses me.

Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#58

Post by 1letterunixname »

hansvm wrote: post #40
echelon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> honey locust thorn > pierce the bottom of the boot, my foot, and the top of the boot Oh dear god. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_locust#/media/File:Honey... > These thorns are thought to have evolved to protect the trees from browsing Pleistocene megafauna Did your foot heal alright?

Yep, no problem. I was still a teenager, so basically every injury I sustained then is just a tiny scar now, along with a mental note of activities to avoid.

Haha. Yep, except I still have divot scars in my knees from skateboarding - protective gear + concrete. I do have some newer scars on my left hand and scalp from e-scooter + absurd urban Texas traffic "design" including random, worn, unpainted chunks of concrete in random places in the middle of the street because clearly only cars should use streets.

Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#59

Post by swores »

dendrite9 wrote: post #57
throwup238 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mosquitos inhabit an ecological niche that is much safer to eradicate than snakes. Mosquitos' predators have many other sources of food so they're not critical to any species and they're not predators that keep prey populations in check. They're just a deadly nuisance to humans without access to plentiful modern medicine. Snakes on the other hand as mid-level predators are likely keystone species [1] and killing them…

But mosquitos pollinate plants so eliminating them would not be a harmless act. They are clearly far more deadly than snakes though. The number of deaths per year they are responsible for always impresses me.

Do they pollinate any plant types that only rely on mosquitos, or would mosquitos going away just allow other insects/moths/etc to grow in population size thanks to more available pollen?

Re: Can a pill prevent deaths from venomous snakebites?

#60

Post by [deleted] »

dabiged wrote: post #15

> he was administered 28 vials of antivenom intravenously at a cost of $3,400 per vial. As someone who lives in Australia, who grew up with aggressive and deadly snakes, what the actual hell? Nobody is out of pocket in Australia following a snake bite and we have many more species and all of the geographic remoteness of the South Western US. Is this just another case of a side effect of the state of the USA healthcar…

[deleted]
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