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Snake Man's Venom Habit Holds Hope for New Antidote

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday November 11 2017, @06:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-try-thisssss-at-home dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

For nearly 30 years, London-based reptile enthusiast and musician Steve Ludwin has been injecting snake venom—a practice that has almost killed him.

It may now help save thousands of lives, as researchers search for a new antidote based on his body's response to the toxic fluids.

"It sounds very crazy what I am doing but it turns out that it potentially has lots of health benefits," Ludwin, the tattooed 51-year-old told AFP in the living room of his home in the British capital.

Ludwin demonstrated his decades-old habit by firmly holding the head of a green Pope's tree viper—Trimeresurus popeiorum—and extracting a few drops of its venom.

Minutes later, he has injected the fluid into his arm using a syringe.

The scientists hope to produce cheaper anti-venom from the antibodies in his blood.

[Please note that this is very dangerous and Mr. Ludwin has almost died a number of times. Don't try this at home! - Ed]

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Saturday November 11 2017, @06:45PM (4 children)

    by JNCF (4317) on Saturday November 11 2017, @06:45PM (#595683) Journal

    From your link:

    As a result of handling these snakes, Haast had been bitten 172 times by mid-2008,[4] all of which but the last few were validated by the Guinness Book of World Records "for surviving the most deadly snake bites", a distinction Haast disliked as he did not think being bitten was a goal to be attained or admired.[5]

    Doesn't sound like he did this, "this" being the purposeful self-injection of snake venom. I see the anecdotal relevancy to health, though.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Whoever on Saturday November 11 2017, @10:18PM (1 child)

    by Whoever (4524) on Saturday November 11 2017, @10:18PM (#595745) Journal

    for surviving the most deadly snake bites"

    How can he have the record for this? Or anyone? No one has survived a "deadly snake bite", because, if you survive the bite, it wasn't deadly.

    Perhaps "bites by deadly snakes"?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:04PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:04PM (#595929)
      Guess you haven't been seriously bitten by a poisonous snake?

      Because if you did you'd probably consider it a deadly snake bite even if you survived... ;)

      It might not have been a lethal snake bite but it would have been quite deadly.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by redneckmother on Sunday November 12 2017, @04:53PM (1 child)

    by redneckmother (3597) on Sunday November 12 2017, @04:53PM (#595925)

    Haast did purposefully self-inject venom:

    http://www.billhaast.com/serpentarium/immunization_snakebites.html [billhaast.com]

    --
    Mas cerveza por favor.

    • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday November 13 2017, @01:36AM

      by JNCF (4317) on Monday November 13 2017, @01:36AM (#596034) Journal

      Included in that amazing tally of handlings were the three king cobras brought out each sunday, one after each venom collection demonstration as an extra added attraction or that he normally kept for venom production even after the public part of his work ended.

      I wonder if extracting venom before these (and other) bites meant he received a significantly lower dose of poison than if he had been bitten by the same snake prior to extraction. I don't know shit about snakes, for all I know they could save enough venom that they were ready to give an equally lethal dose with their second bite.