Word: antitoxins
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Japanese chemists are also hard at work on a more practical chore: finding an antidote for tetrodotoxin poisoning. But success may not be applauded by risk-loving gourmets. When a bottle of antitoxin is standing in every restaurant, the dangerous fugu will have become just another fish; fugu roulette will have lost its excitement, and something unique will have vanished from Japanese culture...
Treatment is just as handicapped. Since five types of botulin bacteria produce different brands of poison, five kinds of antitoxin are needed. Only two are produced in the U.S., by a single company (Lederle Laboratories). "If I find a case of Type E botulism," Dr. Petty said, "I'll have to send to Denmark or Japan for the antitoxin...
...needs is an immediate booster. But if he has never had toxoid, or is unconscious and cannot answer questions, the doctor has a difficult choice. He can give toxoid, which takes a while to build up immunity and may work too slowly. Or he can give tetanus antitoxin, which confers brief but prompt immunity. Trouble is, the antitoxin, almost always prepared from the blood of horses, carries a heavy risk of serum sickness, which can be as deadly as tetanus...
Expensive Escape. Every year, said Dr. Christensen, about 500,000 Americans get a shot of horse-serum antitoxin. Some 25,000 get a bad reaction, and about 20 die. Tetanus experts see an escape from such dangers-at a price. Two West Coast companies, Cutter Laboratories and Hyland Laboratories, are extracting tetanus antibody from human volunteers in the form of immune globulin. But the price of one shot of human serum extract ranges from $7.50 to $11.50, whereas the horse serum costs less than $2.00. And even where price is no problem, an overriding handicap remains: human globulin is likely...
...meat can cause violent abdominal cramps, vomiting, diarrhea, liver damage, intense thirst, convulsions, delirium, and death in from five to ten days. Concerned, Paris officials dispatched special champignon sherlocks to inspect incoming truckloads of wild mushrooms at the central market, and the Pasteur Institute stepped up shipments of an antitoxin serum...