Best Chance for Survival Is Trip to ER.

• Position: POISONOUS SNAKE BITES

For snakebite season, BTG Specialty Pharmaceuticals, a maker of critical care medicines, is calling on outdoor enthusiasts to throw away their venom extractor kits. BTG maintains that these kits have no beneficial effect on snakebites and instead may cause serious damage to the wound. If pausing to use an extractor prevents a snakebite victim from getting to a hospital as soon as possible, the result could be permanent tissue damage, disability, or even death.

After surveying nearly three dozen clinical publications, editorials, and guidelines from such organizations as the American Red Cross, BTG interviewed 15 leading toxicology, emergency, and wilderness medicine and poison center specialists. They all agree that venom extractors should not be used to treat snakebites.

"There is no argument against the science," says Sean Bush, a Wilderness Medicine fellow at the Yale University School of Medicine and a veteran emergency physician. "Because the extractors could cause an injury pattern, it goes against the physician's oath to do no harm. It does no good and may do harm."

"Carrying a venom extractor kit in snake country...