Beware of the bite from rattlesnake pills

Beware of the bite from rattlesnake pills


In the old days, traveling hucksters would peddle potions known as snake oil from the backs of wagons to gullible people looking for remedies for a host of afflictions. Today, modern-day miracle-workers are slinging rattlesnake pills — consisting of dried, ground-up rattlesnake meat — to a new generation of customers. Experts say the pills not only are as medically useless as the snake oil, but also they can be downright dangerous.

A child in Kansas recently became seriously ill after ingesting capsules of rattlesnake meat from Mexico that were contaminated by a potentially lethal strain of salmonella bacteria, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The child survived.

Rattlesnake pills are a folk remedy that are often sold as a treatment for everything from acne and impotence to cancer and HIV. Far from being a cure-all, the pills have no medicinal value, the CDC says.

Anecdotal evidence linking rattlesnake pills to salmonella poisoning has been reported for years, but researchers said this is the first time they’ve been able to use DNA molecular testing to prove definitively that the bacteria found in the dried meat was the cause of the blood poisoning. The strain of salmonella they identified is commonly found in snakes and lizards.

The researchers said the pills are often given to people whose immune systems already are compromised. The Kansas child had systemic lupus, for instance. The CDC said those most at risk for infection from the rattlesnake meat are people receiving chemotherapy or who have HIV, pregnant women, children under age 5 and older adults.

The best way to avoid being sickened by rattlesnake pills is simple: Don’t take any.

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