Where do we get snake antivenom?

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0:00Scientists haven’t yet been able to produce snake venom antibodies in a lab, so, instead,

0:04they rely on the immune systems of real live creatures to do it for them.

0:08First, they find – and milk! – a venomous snake. Then, they inject that venom into an animal –

0:13preferably something big, like a horse. But, because they don’t want to kill the horse, they

0:17dose it with the venom little by little, and wait for it to naturally produce antibodies. Finally,

0:21after collecting some of the horse’s blood and spinning it out, voila: antivenom. You can check

0:26out this video to see the whole process in action, but the point is that making even a single vial of

0:30antivenom is a really slow, expensive process – and snakebite victims often need several vials in

0:35order to recover. Researchers are experimenting with ways to produce snake venom antibodies more

0:40quickly and cheaply, and they’re even working on a universal antivenom. But for now, decreasing the

0:45death toll of venomous snakes is going to require us to collectively agree that people shouldn’t

0:48have to risk death just because they were born in a place with more snakes and less money. And

0:53if we can do that, snakebite deaths could become a thing of the past. Or should we say, hissssstory.

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