At 5:25 pm on October 7th, Jason DeKeuster, the President, called the meeting to order at the Pool and Yacht Club Jason thanked the volunteers helping at the meeting, John Chandler was the greeter, Heidi Fisher for her introduction of guests and Happy Dollars, Shelly Rucks for the Inspirational Minute and Four Way Test, she spoke about travel and home are both meaningful, our amazing IT tech team of Rob Thomas and Andrew Vincelli, and the scribe Linda Mulhern. Jason noted Rotarians with October birthdays and cupcakes were available to celebrate the occasion.
A new member of the club was announced. His name is Saint Riewstahl. He has worked at the NIH while Dr Fauci was the director and worked with the resources available to help with communication and computer programming.
Karin Ciano, introduced our speaker, Chloe Vasquez. Chloe spoke about the health crisis of snake bites. She graduated with a BA in economics and political science from Macalester. You may ask how she came to her fellowship on snake bites? Her mother was bitten by a pit viper in Costa Rico and thankfully a tour guide realized what had happened and got the medical care needed to provide antivenom for her. We saw pictures of how quickly the venom created havoc for her mother with swelling and even opening the leg wide open to help with the healing. She has made a documentary about the health system in Costa Rica since the health professionals are aware of what is needed and have the antivenom available to help people heal from the consequences of a snake bite in their country. Chloe noted that 140,000 people die each year from snake bites and 400,000 have permanent disability. Snakes will always be around people in Central and South America as well as Africa, so we cannot get rid of them, but we need to encourage education for the public as to what is needed to prevent death or disability if someone is bitten. Many people in Africa realize that if they are bitten, they would rather stay with family and prepare to die with their family present.
Chloe spoke about the needs to be done to prevent death.
- Health Care access – Most people are hours away from medical care, no antivenom is available and clinics are understaffed.
- Antivenom access – It is very expensive, and governments are not purchasing (it is made from horse blood that has been exposed to snake venom)
- Untrained personnel – Most medical staff do not know how to diagnose or give a patient the antivenom
- Investments are not being made and are neglected.
The antivenom companies are a small group of producers, so family members are asked to purchase the antivenom at a pharmacy for a loved one, unfortunately what is often stocked is incorrect for the snakes in the area and they may find cobra antivenom from India rather than black mamba antivenom for Africa.
Chloe suggested the following for people in areas with poisonous snakes.
- Education is important – What to do if bitten, both the public in general and doctors
- Health care access – Which includes providing an ambulance, training of medical workers, use of snake bite apps and providing novel therapeutics
- Antivenom access – Funding schemes for stocking antivenoms for Africa in particular, but also use anti poison centers to help families provide the correct care
- Funding and the Attention that is needed – Using collaboration and lobbying and even use of art to show the injustices of areas with poisonous snakes and the lack of medical care or antivenom.
Hopefully, people can use their expertise to help enlighten people of the snake bite problem with advocacy, partnerships and the use of world organizations such as Rotary.
Chloe also wanted to point out that there is a lot of misinformation here in the United States about snake bites. She said if you are bitten, immediately take off jewelry or tight-fitting clothing due to swelling, do not cut open the injury and suck out the venom, DO NOT use a tourniquet which increases venom in a smaller area and once the tourniquet is released, can create venom shock to the remainder of the body. Also know the snake, so the correct antivenom can be provided via an IV. Antivenom for the variety of snake that bit an individual must be used, it is not interchangeable! She said that due to the cost of antivenom, it can easily cost around $300,000 to recover from a snake bite here in the United States.
Jason presented her with a certificate for her presentation with a donation to the YMCA program for youth homelessness.
Maisia Her stopped by the meeting to thank the club after winning the Second Century Scholarship this summer. She is going to St Catherine’s University and has an interest in occupational/physical therapy. She was a little emotional about the award and we look forward to hearing about her successes in the future!
There were several Happy Dollars from Ken Crabb, Doug and Pat Hartford and Dana Bruce (she is looking for volunteers for the Holiday Party at the meeting on 10/21)
Upcoming meetings include a Zoom call from Mary Helman, a Rotary director, on 10/14. Dr Russell Luepker will talk about Sudden Cardiac Death and on 10/28 Jeff Thorne from Our Lady of Peace will speak.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:15 pm.
Linda Mulhern, scribe.
