Steve Ludwin is almost 50 years old, but he’s still injecting himself with snake venom on a regular basis.
He began this practice when he was about 20 years old, ten years after he first began to develop a great interest in snakes. When Ludwin was ten, his dad took him to the Miami Serpentarium Laboratories where Ludwin met Bill Haast, a famous snake venom researcher and tourist attraction owner.
Haast made a lasting impression on Ludwin, and so the interest began. Haast himself injected himself with venom – for self-immunization purposes – and Ludwin decided that he would follow in Haast’s footsteps.
Over the past 30 years, Ludwin has slowly but surely formed a collection of poisonous, venomous snakes. He collected venom from these snakes and then injects the venom into his own veins. Sometimes, he does this daily. Other times, he only does so every few months.
Ludwin, like Haast, does this to build up immunity to snake bites.
He has, however, been told many times by many doctors that his habit is dangerous, “reckless,” and “could endanger his life.”
It’s only now, 30 years after he began, that Ludwin is starting to see the truth behind these warnings. After suffering from two snake bites in this year alone – and accidentally injecting himself with three times the venom than he originally intended – Ludwin is beginning to back off.
"The pain is like someone has taken a sledgehammer, smashed it on your hand and then holds a flame underneath," he said of his bad experiences. "It's evolution telling you to stay away from these things."
Although Ludwin is slowing down on his venom injections, he knows he’s not going to be stopping any time soon. In 2013, he was approached by researchers at the University of Copenhagen who wanted to collect his blood and bone marrow to harvest the antibodies he’d created over the years in response to the venom injections.
One of the researchers, Brian Lohse said, "Steve is a production facility. He has been like the horse, producing antibodies against all these different venoms," said Lohse, who is leading the research. He's the key to everything.
“Without Steve's DNA, it wouldn't be possible to do what we want to do."
Ludwin now travels to Copenhagen four times each year to work with these researchers, hoping that his own naivete will be useful in helping scientists develop stronger, more accessible anti-venoms for more people around the world.
