A pill for heavy metal poisoning may also save snakebite victims
Doctors have long sought a “snakebite pill” that can deliver life-prolonging medicine when and where it’s most needed. Now experiments with an existing drug that treats heavy metal poisoning are stoking that dream. Given orally, the drug saved or extended the lives of mice injected with lethal doses of viper venom, researchers report May 6 in Science Translational Medicine. Snakebites kill tens of thousands of people every year, and leave many more with damaged limbs, in part due to difficulty getting quick, effective treatment (SN: 6/26/11). These bites often occur in remote locations, so many snakebite victims may have to travel hours or even days before reaching a medical facility equipped to provide lifesaving antivenom intravenously. Nicholas Casewell, a biomedical scientist at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in England, and his colleagues set out to find something portable and easy to administer that could counteract some of the most widespread and dangerous venom toxins: snake venom metalloproteases. Often a major component in blood-poisoning venoms, like those of many...