I thought I’d pass this along to you, my intrepid readers. Joseph Albietz wrote an article today for Science-Based Medicine about how to actually handle a snake bite in North America. There were a few things I found in there that actually surprised me, and it’s worth reading.

One thing that was mentioned that totally doesn’t relate but made me think was a common mistake made by homeopaths in their quest to justify like cures like. Snake venom is used as an example. We milk snakes and we use their venom to create the antivenin that prevents us from dying. Well, I’ve always accepted that as writ because I had no knowledge of the process, but I found this interesting:

Antivenin (Crotalidae) Polyvalent (ACP) was the first antivenin introduced in 1954, and was produced by exposing horses to low doses of venom to induce antibodies against its component molecules.  IgG antibodies, including those now directed against the venom, were then purified from the horse’s blood and this was injected into humans bitten by Crotalinae species.  The antibodies then bind to the various proteins and enzymes in the venom, rendering them inert.  The use of this antivenin reduced the mortality rate from 5-25% down to 0.5%.

Wait a minute, that’s not the same thing as like cures like at all! That’s more in line with how vaccines work; introduce the chemical into a host, wait for it to develop antibodies, and then use them antibodies to make medicine to fight the chemical. This is not one of those “HAH! THIS DISPROVES HOMEOPATHY!” statements, but it gives me yet another pin to pop into the balloons of woo. Besides, homeopathy disproves itself. I even came up with yet another strong take-down of it’s magic powers in yesterday’s post about side effects.

At any rate, all foaming at the mouth about alt-med blather aside, this is a great article and should definitely be read by anyone who is going camping or climbing.

Jim