In response to my message about Arizona efforts toward
an "antidote" to bee stings, several bee-liners have
written about meat tenderizer or scraping out stingers.
Such suggestions miss the point if we consider what
could happen when the Africanized bees become
widespread in the southern United States.  From 1975
(introduction) to 1988 (acclimation), about 350 people
were killed by these bees in Venezuela.  A typical in-
cident involves getting stung 50-200 times in a few
minutes.  These people are NOT going to be looking for
meat tenderizer.  If sufficient antibodies could be
produced to provide injections that would immunize
people--cops, firefighters, EMS crews, utility workers,
etc.--most likely to come into "contact" with Afri-
canized bees, that would save many lives.  Such injec-
tions might even help people who have already been
stung.  Interestingly, this kind of immunotherapy has
been available routinely for snakebites for decades,
despite the fact that snakes kill very few people in
the USA every year, while hymenoptera stings kill
dozens.
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