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submitted 1 month ago by Sal@mander.xyz to c/herpetology@mander.xyz

There are a few people out there self-dosing with snake venom. The posted article is based on a study on the blood of one of these guys, Tim Friede, who has developed very effective antivenom in his blood after 20 years of self-dosing with a diverse array of snake venoms.

Vice did a few documentaries on Steve Ludwin, who is also self-immunizing. In one of these he answers questions about how he began and his motivation for doing what he does. In addition to producing anti-bodies he also believes that snake venoms have medicinal and anti-ageing properties - but these beliefs do not appear to be supported by any animal-based data as far as I can tell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcbqB0pFRPA

Self-dosing with snake venom is not something I would recommend. Generally a bad idea. But it is interesting to see the results and to learn about what motivates someone to do something like this.

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[-] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 points 3 weeks ago

"I didn't want to die. I didn't want to lose a finger. I didn't want to miss work," he told the BBC.

(emphasis mine)
What a thing to think when you're banging on death's door.

Mr Friede's motivation was to develop better therapies for the rest of the world, explaining: "It just became a lifestyle and I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing as hard as I could push - for the people who are 8,000 miles away from me who die from snakebite".

[...]

"I'm doing something good for humanity and that was very important to me. I'm proud of it. It's pretty cool."

Dude figured out a way to give to all of humanity by conducting a pet experiment. Just the kind of news I needed to start the day.

Thanks for sharing this!

this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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