Yesterday I posted about the danger of bees this time of the year, and this ended up leading my mind down a rabbit trail of sorts. As I read about the sting of a bee, the word venom was used in describing the fluid that the bee injects into the person. Now when I hear the word venom I think of snakes, not bees or ants. This then opened the door for the question of which is more dangerous, the bee or the snake? Certainly, we all have a healthy fear of venomous snakes, but could it actually be possible that the sting of a bee can be more dangerous?
Of course, the answer is a definite maybe! That big word maybe is there because the determining factor in this equation is the presence of an allergy and anaphylaxis. While snake venom affects everyone, not everyone has an allergy to bee stings. But as I compared the seriousness of the sting on someone allergic vs. a rattlesnake bite, I found two startling facts. The first of these is the timeframe. If both are left untreated, the typical time of death for the rattler is 6-48 hours, while the bee sting causing anaphylaxis can be deadly in 10-30 minutes. At their worst, a rattlesnake bite can be deadly in an hour if the venom is injected into the circulatory system, and the bee can kill in as little as 2 minutes.
Secondly, as we go back to that big word maybe, the presence of the allergy is the biggest determining factor, but what if we remove that factor? Do more people die from bee stings in the US than snake bites? The answer to that is YES! According to the CDC, although 7-8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes annually, only 5 lose their lives to the bite. With bee stings, there are roughly 200,000 emergency room visits with an average of 72 people dying each year.
Although it’s true that most people don’t have a serious bee allergy, if you are one of those people who are severely allergic, you are actually safer with a rattlesnake by your feet than you are with a bee flying around your head. This is primarily because of the time factor. The snake bite offers the average person a whole lot more time to get help, while anaphylaxis is Systemic, Severe, and Sudden. This is why epinephrine needs to be carried at all times if you know that you have an allergy! Then, broadly speaking to the nation as a whole, there are 30 times more people going to the emergency room because of bee stings than there are because of snake bites. And then finally, on average each year, there are more than 14 people dying from those bee stings for everyone person who loses their life to a snake bite. So, to answer the question, “Is a bee sting more dangerous than a snake bite,” my answer is, “To some yes, to all no, but in the end, yes again to the nation as a whole!”
Finally, now that we have answered that question, let’s broaden this back out. Since the cause of death from the bee sting is an allergy/anaphylaxis, “How do bee sting deaths compare to other allergy deaths?” Well, it looks like venomous insect stings make up 32% of allergy related deaths with those 72 annual fatalities we mentioned earlier. Food related allergy deaths actually lead to more hospitalizations but add up to less than 8% of the overall allergy deaths with 18 fatalities last year. So, that million-dollar question is, “What allergy is the most deadly?” Here’s a clue, it accounts for 60% of allergy deaths and totaled 135 souls lost last year. Here’s another clue. While food allergies are most common in children and young adults, this allergy is most common in older adults. If you guessed an allergy to the toxic political and media climate out there, you are mistaken. The number 1 leading cause of allergy related deaths in the US is MEDICATIONS. Now as you go throughout your day, remember that 45 times more people die from allergies than snake bites. Perhaps that fear of snakes should be transferred into a healthy awareness of allergens in our daily lives! Be safe out there!
We are blessed.
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