Anti-Venom shortage

[The Snark]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ithout-borders-warns_55ef326ae4b03784e276c941

 

[Chris LXXIX]

That's what i call good news!

 

[Malhavoc's]

That's what i call good news!

perhaps I missed something in my skim of the article, how is a shortage good news?

 

[Jones0911]

perhaps I missed something in my skim of the article, how is a shortage good news?

Sarcasm could've been his/intended goal

 

[Chris LXXIX]

perhaps I missed something in my skim of the article, how is a shortage good news?

I have care (and i love) of my, somewhat mild, misanthrope side.

 

[Scorpling]

This article makes me wonder if an inoculation campaign is completely out of the question. Freeze dried venoms are cheaper than antivenins, and would be easy to manufacture even in poorer parts of Africa. They could be injected at ascending dosages until the patient has an immunity to the snake venom. It wouldn't be too hard to inoculate most of the people who would come in contact with the snakes this way, and with government funding and charities it could be accomplished at relatively little cost to the people within the snakes range. I feel like that should be as available as allergy shots to the people that encounter snakes often, but of course I have no education on the subject so take everything I say with a liberal dash of salt.

 

[Cavedweller]

My understanding is that exposure to low levels of dried venom actually makes a person more likely to develop an allergy to the venom and go into anaphylactic shock if bitten. I think there was a thread a while back about how that's a big problem for people who keep hot snakes, since they're exposed to tiny amounts of dried venom while doing maintenance.

 

[Najakeeper]

Self immunization is a very imperfect art and yes, allergies are a big concern. Also, you cannot immunize entire populations against multiple species of snakes.

 

[The Snark]

Self immunization is a very imperfect art and yes, allergies are a big concern. Also, you cannot immunize entire populations against multiple species of snakes.

There is some info, research done towards that end. Quite depressing. The amount of research, lab work, and field operations would, I quote a biology think tank, "Drain the entire OPEC block dry of finances within a few weeks". IE pie in the sky perfect world scenario.