About That Snake Venom

My Experiences in Thailand

A few mornings ago I was walking on the dirt trail in front of our bungalow. It had rained the night before but the morning sun was shining brightly, evaporating the mud puddles on the road. I saw what I thought was a large earthworm writhing on the trail, apparently trying to get out of the hot sun and into the dewey grass. I usually pick up earthworms and help them in this situation. So I bent down to pick the little guy up, at which point I discovered that this was not an earthworm. Here's a picture of it.

Uh, that's not an earthworm. I was able to confirm from several people that this was a baby red necked keelback. They are venomous, but not aggressive. This one did not really scare me, both because it was so tiny (about 4 or 5 inches long) and was clearly injured (note the kink in its back). Plus it was so cute! So I went into snake rescue mode and put the little guy in a colander bowl.

Thailand is not somewhere you want to live if you are not comfortable dealing with all manner of creepy crawlies. If you choose to live in a backwoods area that is doubly or triply the case. I’ve had to learn a lot about snakes over the years here I tend to leave them alone. Around our house I see a lot of bright green Indochinese whip snakes (venomous but not dangerous) and Indochinese racers (a constrictor snake, not dangerous to humans, but capable of killing say a puppy or a kitten). And then there was the time my husband got bitten by a pit viper, which I wrote about here:

Mommy There's a Snake

It was the only guest blog that I wrote for the Thaiger. I proposed a few other things also in the naturalist space like about harvesting cashew nuts or cooking with jackfruit but I never heard back. My comments on theThaiger were very critical of the Covid “vaccines” or conjabs, as I call them. You could not have an “antivax” person writing for a mainstream publication, even if my story ideas were far away from that space. So I think I got blacklisted.

What is not mentioned in my Thaiger story is the aftermath argument with my husband regarding him getting bitten by a venomous snake and refusing to go to the hospital. He was sure it was a dry bite. He was correct, it turned out. I found an article analyzing snake bites in Phang Nga that noted that a viper can't envenomate with only one fang in, as it was in my husband's case. Obviously he didn't die or suffer any ill effects, but does anyone want to run Vegas odds on how likely a guy who refuses medical care after a poisonous snake bite is to be getting a conjab?

So yeah snake venom and anti-venim is a subject that has really come up here. I have a handy list of local hospitals and the anti-venim types they carry. Here's another picture of a snake, found in my daughter's bedroom and killed by my husband. This was a little guy about 18 inches long.

The hood puts this baby in the cobra class, and the double crescent on the hood indicates a Monocled Cobra. That is the most deadly snake in Thailand. But by the grace of God we live.

I saw the interview with Dr. Bryan Ardis where he discussed snake anti-venim and monoclonal antibody treatment for Covid-19. I was following the logic there. When he went into snake venom and Covid-19, he lost me a bit. To me though it sounded like high IQ musings more than some rock solid theory he had. I saw a lot of holes in it, mostly regarding the difference between ingesting and injecting something. But these biolab folks probably were playing with all kinds of stuff including snake venom so could some sequences have gotten pasted in there? Quite possibly. I moved on with my day without giving it further thought.

Unfortunately for good Dr. Ardis, he got twisted into a straw man argument against anti conjab people. They are all crazy conspiracy theorists who think Covid-19 is snake venom! You have to be careful not to speculate too much.

A new one is coming up regarding Tiffany Dover. I have been following this story since day one. She is a nurse in Alabama who fainted on camera right after receiving a conjab in December of 2020. Many speculated that she had actually died and the press went into damage control, with the hospital holding an event with a facemask obscured Dover in the background. She had just fainted because she was nervous being on camera! Nothing to see here!

I have seen nothing that in my mind verifies that this nurse is either dead or alive. The ancestry death registry could have been done by a mourning relative who wanted the truth out there or it could have been done by a troll hoping to fuel conspiracy theories. She might have wanted to withdraw from the spotlight or she might be six feet under. Don't get too wedded to things without solid evidence. They can bury you with it.

I read about red necked keelbacks as we kept the little snake in the colander. Then our duck tried to eat it, but my husband was able to save it. These snakes are not aggressive, but have a very high venom level, and there is no anti-venim for them. Most cases of injury occur because somebody kept the snake as a pet and allowed it to bite them. I mean the little guy was really cute. Do NOT HANDLE THIS SNAKE!

Here's another picture of the little guy.

By the point where my husband started playing with it, I realized snake rescue wasn't a good idea for us. Either the snake would get eaten by the duck, or it would escape and be hanging around the house, or my husband would end up in the ICU. So we released it by the river not too far from our bungalow. I pray for continued good karma from all creatures great and small. In my personal experience humans have been far more dangerous and deadly.