Posted on 05/15/2009 1:26:12 AM PDT by neverdem
The Arizona bark scorpion may be small, but its sting delivers a neurotoxin that can kill or render critically ill a young child. A study in the May 14 New England Journal of Medicine finds that an antivenom drug commonly used in Mexico for such stings neutralizes the toxin, eliminates symptoms and reduces the need for sedation in children who have been stung.
More than 200 children in Arizona and a handful in New Mexico become critically ill from Arizona bark scorpion stings each year, but there is no U.S.–approved remedy for the stings. Children are rushed to intensive care units and sedated to prevent wild thrashing and choking, says pediatrician Leslie Boyer of the University of Arizona in Tucson. The victims are closely monitored until the neurotoxin’s effects fade, which takes 16 hours on average but can take several days. Some children require a mechanical ventilator to breathe.
Adults typically face painful but much milder symptoms from the sting of this scorpion, Centruroides sculpturatus.
During 2004 and 2005, Boyer and her colleagues randomly assigned 15 children showing up at Tucson hospitals with scorpion poisoning to receive either the Mexican antivenom and sedation as needed or a placebo infusion along with sedation. Both groups also received other care, such as breathing assistance if necessary. Doctors treating the patients didn’t know who was given antivenom and who wasn’t.
Eight of eight children receiving the antivenom showed no signs of scorpion venom in their blood after only one hour and recovered within four hours. Only one in seven children who received the placebo recovered in four hours, and that child was the oldest and heaviest of the group at 42 kilograms. The children not getting the antivenom also needed 65 times as much sedative drug as the others on average, Boyer says...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
It's a FReebie. Check the right sidebar at Science News for suggested reading.
I scanned the NEJM article quickly. The treatment appears to be equine IgG, i.e. horse immunoglobulin G antibodies.
AWESOME!!!!
How about breeding nontoxic scorpions?
It’ll be interesting to see the research results once we factor in the months long wait for treatment that will come with the new 0bamacare program...
I can practically hear the music from the "Psycho Shower Scene" now...
GD Bark Scorpions!
Them little black bastards aint nothing though. Ive been hit by one of those and it does hurt like hell for a couple days. Other than that it aint much. Never been nailed by one of those Bark Scorpions though.
I have been lucky...never stung...but my wife....one stung her on the neck....she thought she was gonna die....I caught that little Texas bastard....
The room we find them most has a dark brick floor, so they'd be impossible to see otherwise.
They do get big in Texas dont they!?
LOL.
Anyway, I was told by several people down there (AZ) that the pulp from a prickly pear will take the pain away. How a person gets the spines off them nasty things to make a poltice is beyond me though.
You’re right. Before human antibody purification was perfected and recombinant DNA technology emerged, lots of antitoxins and antivenins were produced in horses. Humans who were allergic presented a tricky clinical problem.
You have a patient with a potentially fatal illness like a snakebite and in order to save them, you had to risk inducing another potentially fatal problem like anaphylaxis or serum sickness.
That may work...just be prepared for a possible allergic reaction.
I simply take an antihistamine before I do any tree or brush removal. In Texas the scorpion likes dead wood/leaves, and bark.... They hide from their prey....I guess we humans can be their prey too....
Also, when getting out of bed at night, wear house shoes because these buggers are active at night. make sure to shake out your shoes....just in case.
You have scorpions in your HOUSE???
Maybe I’ll shut up about the Iowa winters.
Scorpion bites are overrated - Ive been bit several times, my son a couple of times and it ranks less than a bee sting.
You can burn them off.
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