Tim Friede put his ‘ass on the line’ to help stop snakebite deaths – whose numbers appear to be rising amid the climate crisis

As we overheat and degrade our planet, more people are set to come into contact, sometimes fatally, with venomous snakes. One man hopes to provide an unusual solution to this, after subjecting himself to 200 intentional snakebites to his body.

For nearly 20 years, Tim Friede, 58, allowed some of the most lethal snakes in the world to bite him so he could build up an immunity that could one day be developed into a universal antivenom.

This extraordinary and painful quest, undertaken by a window cleaner with no formal scientific training in the basement of his Wisconsin home, nearly killed Friede, almost cost him his leg and his fingers and at one point put him into a coma.

Friede’s sacrifices are now poised to help deliver a new, broad antivenom that may avert some of the 138,000 deaths and 400,000 disfigurements and disabilities currently caused each year by snakebites worldwide, most of them poorer people in developing countries across Asia and Africa. In total, as many as 5.5 million people globally are bitten by snakes a year.

  • raccoonwilliam777@lemmy.zip
    1·
    8 hours ago

    I don’t think that’s how our body works. Exposure to venoms just ruined our tissue and instead it make the next exposure became more and more dangerous. Cmiiw

  • TryingSomethingNew@sopuli.xyz
    8·
    17 hours ago

    I remember an earlier article where the guy had been exposing himself to the snake bites for quite a while, and wound up talking with an antivenom guy who saw the potential… but that article definitely made it seem like the dude was doing it so he wouldn’t die from snakebites and really got into it, not that he was trying to come up with something for science.

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    101·
    18 hours ago

    Why let snakes bite him rather than extracting venom and injecting known quantities at lower (and safer) levels? That sounds like a remarkably stupid way to do this.

    • village604@adultswim.fanEnglish
      2·
      13 hours ago

      If it’s the same guy I watched a video about, that’s how he started. But he was doing it to build up a resistance so he didn’t die when bit, not to harvest antivenin.

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        11·
        13 hours ago

        That’s almost even more stupid. Does he know how quickly they reproduce venom? Does he know what dose he’ll receive? It might even be too little.

        This guy sounds well meaning, but stupid.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
    21·
    18 hours ago

    I used to be into snake Youtube, but I had to stop because most of those bozos are putting themselves in stupid danger and borderline abuse the animals by handling them and causing them stress for content. One of the guys that I watched obviously cribbed his ascetic from Steve Irwin to the point that he followed his hero to an early grave after being bit.

    This bozo is a content creator and his desire to help science or snake-bite victims is a thin veneer to justify taking risks that even the Jackass dudes would think is crazy. All for clicks.

    By encouraging amateur herpetology with venomous animals this dude will probably cause more invenomation injuries than any contribution to medicine will save.