Snakes

[SdoubleA]

Watched a special on Nat Geo today that talked about Sri Lanka losing over a thousand people a year to snake bites while it's almost non-existent in the US.
Its improving as they are starting to build their antivenom supplies. $30 per dose.
In the US, it's terribly expensive, and all of it comes from a place in Great Britain. Another company came in and tried to compete, but got sued and is not in business anymore.

Every so often, a news story will circulate about a snakebite victim getting another shock: a hospital bill charging them tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. But while antivenom isn’t exactly cheap and easy to make, the price tag that comes along with these life-saving doses has raised eyebrows among even the researchers who make the stuff.
Getting bitten by a snake isn’t that uncommon – according to the Centers for Disease Control, about 7,000 to 8,000 people are treated for snakebite every year in the United States alone. Doctors Without Borders also reports that as many as 100,000 people around the world die from snakebite every year. But even Leslie Boyer, founding director of the University of Arizona’s VIPER Institute, was shocked that hospitals can pay up to $2,300 for a single vial of antivenom, Christopher Ingraham writes for The Washington Post.

The process of making antivenom is complicated. In order to make some of the most common rattlesnake antivenin, sheep have to be injected with the snake’s venom and then have their antibodies harvested by doctors. But after reading another of Ingraham’s articles from earlier this summer that analyzed the high cost of antivenom treatment, Boyer realized she didn’t know why the antivenin made in her own labs was so prohibitively expensive.


“Physicians are counseled to steer clear of involvement in the pricing of the drugs we study, for good reason: financial conflict of interest by care providers imperils our ability to provide objective patient care,” Boyer wrote in an article that will be published in an upcoming issue of The American Journal of Medicine. “We were crestfallen to discover...that the chosen wholesale price for this otherwise excellent drug was set too high to be cost effective, even in the treatment of critically ill children...Somehow, a US drug whose sister product retailed in Mexico at $100 was resulting in bills to Arizona patients of between $7,900 and $39,652 per vial.”

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-single-vial-antivenom-can-cost-14000-180956564/




Paul and I carried 10 vials in our kit way back when. Today's vials are not as potent as back then, and is why so many vials have to be administered depending on the bite. The high cost today is robbery.

You have quite an assortment of critters at your place. Get rid of the yellow tales and keep the rest

 

[CHenry]

Saw him this morning again going down the hill to get the Sunday news paper.

Thats a kool snake if it goes and gets you the morning paper!

 

[n423]

My wife would wreck her SUV to run over one on the road.
She points out the spots where she did exactly that on the way to town.
One of these days when I throw my body across one, she is going to get a twofer if it's been a bad day.

Wife ran over one a few weeks ago. Bout 6 ft long. Said she couldn't avoid it, I dunno. Then she backed over it several time to make sure it was dead. lol

 

[D. Hargrove]

Wife ran over one a few weeks ago. Bout 6 ft long. Said she couldn't avoid it, I dunno. Then she backed over it several time to make sure it was dead. lol

Have a 4 1/2 mile access road to our place from the nearest major road. It is littered with snake carcasses that wives have run and rerun over. Looks kinda like the Highway to Hell in Iraq!!

 

[MacFromOK]

If you guys live near a small-town hospital, you might want to check if they even keep anti-venom.

A friend was bitten by a copperhead and went to the local hospital. They told him the anti-venom is too specific to particular snake-bites to stock them all, and there's no way to know for sure what kind of snake has bitten the victim anyway.

They kept him overnight for observation (he said the only effects he felt was some dizziness).

And they charged him $1200.

Yee-ha.

 

[CHenry]

If you guys live near a small-town hospital, you might want to check if they even keep anti-venom.

My uncle was running a plow up near Pawhuska and apparently ran over a copperhead. Back at the house when done, he was cleaning mud or dirt clods out of the plow and didnt see the half snake and ran his finger across a fang. Snake was cut in half and almost dead so he wasnt bit but it broke the skin. His hand swelled up up like the hulk and he went to Pawhuska hospitol where they medi flighted him to tulsa. His forearm was swollen up to his elbow before they got him some antivenom. (he took the half snake with him for ID) They told him copperheads usually deliver a dry bite the FIRST time, just to scare you off. A second bite is always a wet bite and if its a baby CH, your likely to die because they cant control venom dose when biting. They got some AV and charges him $3000 per dose.

 

[NikatKimber]

Have a 4 1/2 mile access road to our place from the nearest major road. It is littered with snake carcasses that wives have run and rerun over. Looks kinda like the Highway to Hell in Iraq!!

How many wives?

 

[deerwhacker444]

How many wives?

Now he's just bragging.

 

[D. Hargrove]

How many wives?

OMG just one!!! Neighbors a section down has 1 as well though. Good catch.

 

[NikatKimber]

OMG just one!!! Neighbors a section down has 1 as well though. Good catch.

LOL!!!!