|
1-2 of 2 messages
|
Page 1 of 1
|
|
Dwindling snake-venom antidote worries experts
|
Reply
|
|
by tigers9 on April 12, 2008
|
Mail this to a friend!
|
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/04/12/0412snakes.html
Dwindling snake-venom antidote worries experts
By STACEY SINGER
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 12, 2008
They're undeniably pretty, and so timid you could pick one up, if you dared.
Curious boys and small dogs often do. But once disturbed, the venomous coral snake snaps.
Post your comments on this story below
Coral snake bites
Poisonous snakes bite 15,000 pets each year. Only 1 percent of those bites are by coral snakes; the vast majority are by rattlesnakes.
Coral snakes inject a nerve toxin that can interfere with breathing. If the bite is severe enough, paralysis can result.
Coral snakes have a distinctive pattern of color: a red band next to a yellow band. Other, non-venomous snakes may have a similar pattern (such as the scarlet king snake), but you can tell the difference by following the adage: "Red on yellow, kill a fellow. Red on black venom lack."
SOURCE: PetPlace.com
More local news
Latest breaking news, photos and all of today's Post stories.
Share This Story
On Tuesday, a 15-year-old Vero Beach teen took a bite to the hand, and had to be hospitalized and pumped with seven vials of coral snake antivenin. He survived.
A Delray Beach dachshund succumbed to a bite in March. In April, a Jensen Beach Jack Russell died.
The spate of recent coral snake bites has emergency doctors sounding an alarm — not about the abundance of the colorful snakes, but about the dearth of antidote.
Florida's the coral-snake-bite capital of the United States, with about 45 of the nation's annual 60 bites. The bite of a coral snake packs a venom so toxic it's akin to a cobra's, but with treatment, it's survivable.
While there was a time when most every emergency room in South Florida kept the antidote on hand, those days have passed.
Drugmaker Wyeth quietly stopped making it three years ago, leaving the state's poison control system to parse out dwindling supplies.
It's not an ideal situation, said Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein, medical director for the Florida Poison Information Center in Miami. Coral snake bites are best treated before the onset of symptoms.
Bernstein keeps a spreadsheet with the location of every vial of antivenin in the region, and when a call comes in, he routes it by ambulance or air.
In the case of the Vero Beach teen, the nearest vials were in Melbourne, at Holmes Regional Medical Center. It took two hours and 15 minutes for their two vials to arrive at the boy's hospital, Indian River Medical Center.
But he needed more than two vials, said Glenn Tremml, medical director of emergency services at Indian River.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue's Venom Response unit marshaled 10 more and airlifted them to the boy, an operation that took two and a half hours.
Fortunately, the antidote arrived in time, and by Wednesday night, the teen had recovered enough to return home.
But Tremml worries about the future.
"What antivenin we have left on the shelf will expire in October of 2008," he said.
Coral snake venom is different than that of other poisonous snakes.
Rattlesnakes pre-digest their food, using their copious venom to disintegrate tissue around the bite. The same is true of cottonmouths. A commercially available drug blocks the tissue damage of both.
But coral snakes paralyze their prey, then digest them, said Alan Tennant, author of A Field Guide to Snakes of Florida.
"The reason it's so crucial to get antivenin for a coral snake bite is it's a neurotoxin," Tennant said. "You get eyelid drop, your head flops over and, the danger is, the diaphragm will stop breathing and you'll suffocate."
The antivenin is made by injecting horses with the venom, then harvesting their serum antibodies — a costly process, and one fraught with liability risks, because severe allergic reactions to the horse-based products are common. Still, the medicine's very effective, said Bernstein, who is also a University of Miami toxicologist.
So what happens when Florida's last vial of coral snake antivenin expires or runs out?
"Whatever is on the shelf is what there is," he said.
After that, Mexican and Costa Rican antivenin will be used, imported by a team of poison control specialists in Miami with special emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, he said.
"It works. We've used it," Bernstein said. "But no, I can't tell you it's well studied in humans. It's not an FDA approved drug."
Mary Long, a spokeswoman for the FDA, said the agency cannot force a company to make a product, nor can she comment on foreign-made drugs.
"What I can say is that product shortages are of great concern to the agency, as they can post public health risks," Long added.
Worst-case, if there is no antivenin available, a bite victim can be kept alive on a respirator until the crisis passes.
As long as there are coral snakes around, people are going to suffer bites, Tennant predicted. They're one of the most beautiful snakes a person can see, with glossy scales that gleam red, yellow and black. Usually, they stay hidden in leaf litter and mulch. But spring brings them out of their winter doldrums to find mates and lay eggs. Similarly colored king snakes are harmless, but they're nocturnal. A red, yellow and black snake seen during the day is most likely a coral snake.
"There's one main reason people get bit. They say, 'Look at this little snake he's real docile.' Then they pick it up and he's a snapping fool," Tennant said. "One quick bite is all it takes."
Bernstein said people should treat snake bites like a medical emergency. Call 911, and call the Florida Poison Information Center at (800) 222-1222.
"You want to get to the hospital as quickly as you can," he said.
|
| |
|
RE: Dwindling snake-venom antidote worries experts
|
Reply
|
|
by Cro on April 12, 2008
|
Mail this to a friend!
|
Z, yep, the supply of Wyeth Antivenin for Coral Snakes (Micrurus fulvius)is rapidly running out.
The Mexican made Biocon Coral Snake Antivenom works well, and is being used as an experimental drug in the U.S., as it does not have full FDA approval at this time.
Coral Snakes do not live very well in captivity, and have to be force fed a food mixture through a tube to keep them alive in venom labs. Also, they produce a very small amount of venom when they are milked.
This makes producing Coral Snake Antivenin a difficult process.
Hopefully, once the U.S. supply of Wyeth Antivenin expires, the Biocon Product will be approved by the FDA, and stocked in many of the hospitals throughout the S.E. United States where Coral Snakes are found.
Best Regards JohnZ
|
| |
|
Email Subscription
You are not subscribed to this topic.
Subscribe!
My Subscriptions
Subscriptions Help
Check our help page for help using
, or send questions, comments, or suggestions to the
Manager.
|
