US EditionMan who let snakes bite him 200 times spurs new antivenom hope
- Between 2000 and 2018, Tim Friede, a former truck mechanic from Wisconsin, was bitten by snakes over 200 times in his effort to develop immunity to their venom.
- Friede’s self-experimentation began after attending a class on milking snake venom and escalated to enduring deadly bites, motivated by mithridatism to build total immunity.
- In 2017, immunologist Jacob Glanville sought Friede’s blood to study its antibodies, which led to a Cell journal study showing they protect against multiple snake venoms.
- The new antivenom combines two antibodies from Friede’s blood with the drug varespladib, and researchers aim to develop a universal treatment covering many of the 600 venomous snake species.
- Friede stopped self-injecting venom in 2018 due to liability concerns but expressed pride in contributing to medical history and hopes to resume bites to aid research.
67 Articles
67 Articles
Tim Freide started this experiment in 2001, when he actually had other intentions. And he realized, then, that it could help develop a more effective antivenin. His blood is now studied, but people from...
ABC FOX Montana
Man who let snakes bite him 200 times spurs new antivenom hope
Tim Friede was feeling particularly down on the day after the September 11 attacks, so he went to his basement and let two of the world's deadliest snakes bite him.
When American Tim Freed felt frustrated, he took refuge in his basement, where he was bitten by two of the world's most dangerous snakes. It took four days before he woke up from a coma. "I know what it's like to die from a snakebite," Freed, 57, said in a video call from his home in the small town of Two Rivers, Wisconsin. What happened to Tim would have left him with a lifelong disgust and fear of snakes. However, Tim Freed deliberately let ve…
Tim Friede was depressed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: this is the reason that led him to go down to the basement of his home, where he allowed himself to be bitten by two of the most dangerous snakes in the world. Four days later, he came out of a coma, reports AFP, quoted by Agerpres.
Tim Friede, from the U.S.A., was left mussed by two snakes coming into his house's pool and left the coma four days later, informs AFP.
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