Statistics on Loxosceles reclusa bite deaths

[Rigor Mortis]

Hey everyone. Recently I had a conversation with an arachnophobic coworker who insisted that L. reclusa is a highly deadly spider. I dig a shallow Google dive and found multiple articles claiming that there were no reported deaths from a recluse bite in the United States. I figured case closed, until I looked into it more. I keep finding conflicting information that either claims that no one dies from a recluse bite, or that a small handful of people have died but it's very rare. I looked at some previous threads here on the boards about it but most of them are over 10 years old and a lot of the sources in them have broken links to papers I can't read anymore. I want to provide some actual information to my coworker (I know I'm wasting my time with her lol but I can't help myself.)

TLDR: Do we have actual evidence of L. relcusa being deadly or can I tell my coworker to shove it?

 

[The Snark]

Problem #1: From a morbidity report: "The bite of a brown recluse spider bite is a clinical diagnosis. A diagnosis of a spider bite can be made definitively only if the patient has a lesion that is consistent with a spider bite, or the spider was seen biting the patient, and the spider is caught and identified by an entomologist."
Thus, most deaths that have been reported are only 'suspected' Loxoscelism.
Problem #2, it is impossible to detect the actual venom presence through laboratory analysis.
Problem #3: Deaths are very rare due to the fact that the venom is not considered directly life threatening. That is, the venom does not directly compromise any major organ of the body.

Brown Recluse Spider Toxicity - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

Loxoscelism: Cutaneous and Hematologic Manifestations - PMC

Brown recluse spider (BRS) envenomation can lead to significant morbidity through severe local reaction and systemic illness including acute hemolytic anemia, rhabdomyolysis, disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC), and even death. We aim to ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Nineteen documented cases of Loxosceles reclusa envenomation - PubMed

Brown recluse spider bites frequently induce necrotic, slowly healing lesions. Maximum lesion severity is a predictor of time to complete healing.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov