A newly approved antivenin should save people bitten by rattlesnakes in the
US. “We hope that it works faster and with fewer side effects,” says Arthur
Rushton of Protherics, the British company that developed the treatment.
Rattlesnakes bite thousands of Americans each year. The existing antivenin,
derived from horses, often leads to a fever called serum sickness. The new
treatment contains purified sheep antibodies against venom from the four major
US rattlers, and so is free of the protein impurities thought to cause serum
sickness (91av, 3 February 1996, p 18).
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