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  • STEVE LUDWIN: I'm going to show you the effects of the

  • hemotoxin in venom on blood, OK?

  • And you can already see pretty quickly, it's kind of

  • congealing.

  • It's quite gloopy.

  • And I'm beginning to wonder if that's such a good thing to be

  • happening in my body.

  • Sometimes I think, god, that can't be good.

  • I don't have a medical background.

  • I have no fucking idea what it's doing to my body.

  • If I did die due to snake venom or whatever, I'm sure

  • it'll be quite funny to a lot of people.

  • And they'll go, you see?

  • You see?

  • And even to myself, as I was floating out of my body and

  • looking down below, I'm sure I'd be laughing my ass off.

  • Like, you idiot.

  • You're not supposed to inject snake venom, you fool.

  • My name is Steve Ludwin, and I've been self-immunizing with

  • various snake venoms for well over 20 years now.

  • I'm kind of embarrassed.

  • I mean, I don't know have that medical background.

  • I don't even have a proper

  • American high school education.

  • There's been quite a few doctors and scientists that

  • have been horrified by my lack of having things that are

  • sterile and stuff like that.

  • We have our Lower Baja rattlesnake.

  • And bang.

  • You see that?

  • That's one unhappy rattle snake.

  • Relax.

  • I've always been in good health.

  • I haven't had something like the flu in

  • coming up on nine winters.

  • And as I've gotten older, people have started to

  • comment, oh wow, you don't seem like you're 46 years old.

  • I had some doctors do tests on my skin, and they were all

  • kind of a little bit baffled.

  • All right, buddy.

  • Up.

  • This girl doesn't really like it very much.

  • This is why I'm always nervous holding a viper because they

  • can spin their fangs around and actually go through their

  • lip to get your fingers.

  • This snake is not wanting to be milked.

  • Sometimes that happens.

  • I had quite an unusual sort of upbringing.

  • I'm the son of a Pan Am pilot.

  • I had a real "Catch Me If You Can" Leonardo

  • DiCaprio sort of lifestyle.

  • I had a credit card.

  • It just said Pan Am on it with my name, Steve Ludwin, and I

  • could get on any plane, as long as I was

  • wearing a tie, for free.

  • My father took me down to the Miami Serpetarium, when I was

  • about nine years old, and I got to meet this now famous

  • herpetologist called Bill Haast.

  • He was the first westerner to start injecting himself with

  • snake venom.

  • He started in 1948.

  • I was very young and impressionable.

  • I loved snakes.

  • From that moment on after meeting him, I was like wow,

  • you can become immune to snake venom?

  • This is crazy.

  • That's called vaccinology.

  • It's the oldest form of medicine apparently.

  • When I was about 17, I was like, I've got to get that

  • venom into me somehow.

  • This is called a Pope's tree viper, and I'm a little bit

  • wary of them.

  • But it's a beautiful snake.

  • Don't know if you can see those fangs.

  • Do you see that fang?

  • It's a hemotoxin and it's going to cause massive tissue

  • destruction.

  • People have died from these snakes, so you do not want

  • that on your finger.

  • I moved to London in 1987, and I started working in East End.

  • It was called The Vivarium.

  • And basically my job for 1 pound 60 an hour was to unpack

  • cobras and scorpions and tarantulas and reptiles for

  • zoos and laboratories.

  • See you later.

  • I started bringing the venomous snakes home.

  • My first time doing it was crazy.

  • I had never even milked a snake before, and I just kind

  • of had to figure it out on my own.

  • So what I would do is I would take a scalpel and scratch

  • like two little scratch marks into my arm.

  • I would take a little bit of the venom, and I would drop it

  • into the cut.

  • And you could feel it the first time.

  • It was like ah, that burns.

  • I quickly washed it off because I was scared.

  • I was like, what is this going to do?

  • It kind of swelled up and my heart started pounding, not

  • because of the venom, because it was like, oh my god, is

  • this going to stop?

  • Is it going to kill me?

  • I had no idea.

  • Since people have kind of heard what I've been doing and

  • stuff like that, I've seen a lot of people bitching.

  • They're worse than like "Star Trek" fans, to be honest with

  • you, reptile people sometimes.

  • I always thought when the internet came, I was like,

  • wow, you can communicate with other people that have the

  • same passion about these animals.

  • But it's not the case.

  • There's a lot of bitchiness and who has the biggest snake.

  • I don't keep big snakes.

  • Guys that keep big snakes are hiding a secret.

  • This is the last hemotoxic snake that goes into my

  • snakebite cocktail.

  • This is called an eyelash viper.

  • This is one of the scariest snakes that I own.

  • This the snake that bit me.

  • The worst pain that I've ever had in my life.

  • And I've had lots of accidents with venom.

  • But it felt like you had put your hand down on a marble

  • table and someone took a sledgehammer and smashed it

  • onto your pinky.

  • But the funny thing is that that pain never subsided for

  • eight fucking hours.

  • And I had some scientists in the States saying get yourself

  • to the hospital.

  • This is not a good snake to be bitten by.

  • But I kind of waited it out.

  • I had confidence that I was going to be OK.

  • But it's a really aggressive snake, and it's

  • really tricky to milk.

  • There you go.

  • Whoa, there's lots of venom coming out there.

  • Thank you.

  • So those are our hemotoxins.

  • I posted a really beautiful snake that I have on YouTube.

  • It's called a macrops pit viper.

  • Just because I'm handling this snake,

  • it's called free handling.

  • There's death threats and people have just gone crazy.

  • I could poke it in my eye a million times and

  • it would not bite.

  • "These snakes can and will kill you.

  • Everybody take a good long look.

  • The moron attached to that arm is the reason why you have

  • trouble keeping your reptiles legally." I'm not a moron

  • attached to this arm.

  • Oh, yes I am.

  • "To think we lock up pedophiles and murderers when

  • sickos like this are free to roam our streets.

  • What's wrong with the world these days?" Now, I think

  • that's somebody being sarcastic.

  • OK, here is a good one.

  • "You, to put it kindly, are an ignorant fucktard.

  • I sincerely hope you get bit hard.

  • And I strongly dissuade anyone watching this video from

  • repeating the actions of this small-penised individual.

  • Stupid dick hammer." Now, that's good.

  • That's good.

  • This next snake is the Naja kaouthia which is responsible

  • for a lot of deaths every year.

  • In the time that I've been working with this snake, I've

  • had some injections where I was a little bit cocky with it

  • and got the dilution sort of wrong.

  • They were like volcanoes.

  • I had three of them.

  • I had two on this leg and one down here.

  • And they were growing and growing and burning.

  • And for days, I was like, oh god, I

  • could feel this pressure.

  • I touched it and goo shot out five foot

  • across onto the carpet.

  • And I was just like, oh my god.

  • Oh fuck.

  • I'm fucked here.

  • And I got this massive needle for

  • injecting horses or something.

  • I put on some ACDC and it just gave me the strength just to--

  • against all your will, just push this down and you could

  • feel it going down into something.

  • Do I have the nucleus yet?

  • I'm pulling on this.

  • No, I don't think I've got the nucleus.

  • I think I've gone through it.

  • Pull it back out, hit the nucleus, and it was just like

  • pwaaachh, just pulling back on the most disgusting stuff that

  • you'd ever want to see.

  • And I was like, oh, I'm just going to squeeze it.

  • And I squeezed this, but it actually made a sound.

  • It was like peuh.

  • I looked down in there and there was a

  • fucking hole in my leg.

  • I could see inside my leg where all the tissue had sort

  • of rotted away.

  • And I noticed flies coming to it immediately.

  • And it stunk.

  • It was like death.

  • It was rotting.

  • I never want that happening again.

  • You hear it?

  • This is not the hemotoxic snake.

  • This is something that's got the neurotoxin, the Naja

  • kaouthia, which is the monocled cobra.

  • Simple.

  • And let go.

  • Since I've kind of discovered the possibilities with the

  • neurotoxins in this cobra venom, I've been using it in

  • sporting activities recently and kind of testing it.

  • It's Kind of added a little bit of extra speed into my

  • normal abilities.

  • I've been doing tests on my skateboard from my house into

  • the West End.

  • I see how fast I can get in there.

  • I just use the roads, and I think the cobra

  • venom helps with that.

  • It's just sort of like, I go in between cars, I go in

  • between buses, I go in the middle of the road.

  • I just cane it.

  • I feel like I've got so much energy and speed.

  • When I'm skating, I've learned to actually start

  • moving like a snake.

  • And I found myself just kind of using that S-shape--

  • carving and carving, and it actually starts giving you a

  • little bit of power.

  • -William Haast, director of the Serpetarium, has had much

  • experience in handling cobras.

  • But he still treats them with the greatest respect.

  • Gather 'round, folks, but not too close.

  • STEVE LUDWIN: Bill Haast really is my Beatles and

  • Rolling Stones and Beach Boys all wrapped in one.

  • He died last year.

  • He was just like two weeks shy of 101.

  • He'd say that he hasn't been sick a day in his life, and it

  • made me start thinking, OK, wow, there's something here.

  • He was really my parameter of sort of

  • going, is this dangerous?

  • It's working for this guy.

  • He was treating people with polio, people with MS. He had

  • like 4,000 patients.

  • He had people that couldn't even walk.

  • And with the right doses and the right ingredients of his

  • medicines that contained various snake venoms, people--

  • I've seen footage of it--

  • they're playing basketball.

  • But the FDA heard about what he was doing and they shut him

  • down, even though he was having such success with it.

  • But the other thing that Bill Haast did,

  • which is totally amazing--

  • it's miraculous.

  • It almost sounds like a messiah.

  • Because he was immune to these snake venoms, he's given his

  • blood to snakebite victims that are dying,

  • and then they survive.

  • I've milked all the snakes.

  • And I've got hemotoxins in one glass.

  • This is the one that kind of had the cocktails.

  • So I'm drawing that venom up into this syringe.

  • So here's what I was saying earlier.

  • There's no such thing as a poisonous snake.

  • It is not poison.

  • You see that venom coming out there?

  • See it on my finger?

  • You can do this.

  • Completely safely.

  • If you don't freeze it, it's just like food.

  • It's a protein, it breaks down.

  • So I have months and months worth of various venoms.

  • This is the hemotoxin.

  • I'm going to put six.

  • What I have here is water for injections.

  • I will start on the actual raw venom, and then what we'll do

  • is we'll use that injection.

  • The first time I tried using the snake

  • venom was pretty scary.

  • There was no internet back then.

  • But it felt really natural.

  • It felt like it was instinct.

  • This is not diluted.

  • This is the pure venom.

  • So now, we're going to do an injection

  • with the diluted hemotoxin.

  • The benefits to the hemotoxins, I'm not too sure.

  • I feel like I need another 20 years to do it.

  • I had some doctors test my DNA telomeres and when I was 42, I

  • scored as a 28-year-old.

  • Perhaps there are some anti-aging

  • properties to snake venom.

  • It could all end tomorrow as well.

  • I'm not saying I'm invincible.

  • This is the shot glass that has the cobra venom, the

  • neurotoxin.

  • Get it all out.

  • I'm going with two drops of this.

  • This actual cobra that we're using is more venomous than a

  • king cobra.

  • One drop of cobra venom can kill 20 to 30 grown men.

  • Yeow.

  • Yeah, I mean it just feels--

  • yeow.

  • Feels like a bee sting to start off with.

  • That cobra venom does have a bit of pain to it.

  • It's like "Man Versus Food," spicy chicken challenge.

  • Oh, you motherfucker.

  • I'm 46 now.

  • I'll have to see how many years I can go on continuing

  • doing this.

  • But you do think that it is quite taxing on the body.

  • It is possible in two years time, my kidneys fail and I

  • die due to the venom of all those years, of all those

  • toxins, all the swelling, all the decomposing

  • flesh and the bruising.

  • It all has to filter through your kidneys and your liver.

  • And it's really bad stuff to be going through there.

  • Yeow, OK.

  • That was a little bit more than five mil.

  • People want to know what it feels like.

  • It feels like injecting Tabasco sauce and

  • rubbing it in a cut.

  • It just burns.

  • I will take another syringe here, and just basically bring

  • that raw venom down with the needle, which I quite

  • like to work that.

  • Diluting is something that's been quite new to me over like

  • the last four years that I've learned how

  • to do and work properly.

  • I was a bit nervous today when I was milking the snakes.

  • But when I do these injections, I don't think

  • anything of that.

  • Once I know that the dilutions are right, it's as normal as

  • anything for me now.

  • I always kind of note the time just in case if I ever did

  • have any problems where I did need to visit the hospital

  • again, I would know.

  • The one time I did have a serious overdose, I injected

  • three raw venoms a couple years ago.

  • And I only wanted to put down a little bit in.

  • And as I was pressing it, just ooop--

  • the whole thing went in.

  • Within 45 minutes, my hand was like a baseball mitt.

  • The venom was swimming in my body.

  • I had some friends come over because

  • they knew I was fucked.

  • They were saying, go to the hospital, go to the hospital.

  • And I just didn't want to.

  • And the next morning, I kept on waking up and it wasn't

  • going down.

  • So I got begged to go to the hospital.

  • They saw my arm and they said, what happened?

  • And I said snakebite.

  • Three doctors came out and they said, well,

  • what snake bit you?

  • And I had to just say, well, I didn't get bit.

  • There's three snakes.

  • I purposely injected it into my arm.

  • They didn't know what to say, and the next thing I know, I

  • was being taken into another room.

  • And one of the female doctors just came in and was just

  • yelling at me and just saying, you idiot.

  • You can't do this.

  • And they were telling me you're going to die, and

  • you're going to lose your arm.

  • I was in intensive care for three days.

  • But I was kind of calm throughout the whole thing.

  • I don't want to ever repeat it.

  • Since I had heard that the Americans and the Chinese got

  • busted injecting race horses with cobra venom and it was

  • making them outperform their abilities, I

  • immediately got excited.

  • And I thought boxing would be a great thing to kind of see--

  • is it possible that I could outperform my ability?

  • I was working it harder last year when I was on my own.

  • I actually felt like something was happening.

  • I was like holy shit, this stuff is working.

  • It's amazing.

  • You're discreet, but you can get away with it in London.

  • Bear Grylls.

  • I hate that guy.

  • In those films, he's like, oh, here's the snake.

  • And you can just bit its head off.

  • And he does.

  • He's killed snakes on TV.

  • That's my fucking family you're fucking around with.

  • Sorry, just kidding.

  • One thing I have noticed is that I'm not really feeling

  • the pain, so that could be the other thing that helped those

  • horses along.

  • Why not find out why it's doing these things.

  • If it's taking away pain, if it's giving you

  • confidence, or whatever.

  • Why not give it to your army?

  • Christopher Columbus didn't go looking for America to

  • discover America.

  • He was looking for the fountain of youth.

  • What does mankind want?

  • They want to live longer.

  • Everyone wants to live longer.

  • Apparently, there's something in snake venom that helps its

  • food to accept death.

  • I did feel that once.

  • As I was lying there, and I could feel the numbness in my

  • head and stuff, I had this complete feeling of, oh well,

  • I might die here, but I felt really happy to die.

  • My heart's pounding.

  • You're alive for a good 6 to 12 hours.

  • Like Starbucks has nothing on this.

  • Yeah, I must admit that it doesn't feel great.

  • It's kind of like Jell-O in there.

  • And god knows what it's doing in there.

  • I wish I understood what's happening beneath that skin.

  • The next day is always the same with the cobra venom.

  • It just feels like you're beaten up anyway.

  • And then I have a good sort of four days where I feel kind of

  • quite charged.

  • Come on, let's box.

  • Come on.

  • Come on.

  • There you go.

  • -So how many years have you been doing this?

  • STEVE LUDWIN: Over 20 years, probably like 22 years--

  • -So you've been quite lucky then, really.

  • Is there a risk that you take that venom and it

  • could just kill you?

  • STEVE LUDWIN: It is kind of a little bit playing with fire.

  • I've had maybe three incidents in my life where it was

  • borderline life threatening.

  • -What you're saying is it's similar to someone taking

  • heroin or cocaine and injecting it

  • and taking a gamble.

  • So you're gambling with your life every time you take it.

  • STEVE LUDWIN: I've gotten so used to it, I do it without

  • thinking about it.

  • And because I know the amounts and I know not to push it and

  • where not to push it and stuff, it seems

  • really safe to me.

  • This certainly isn't physically addictive or it

  • isn't pleasurable.

  • -So you believe you could stop tomorrow and stop taking it,

  • stop doing it?

  • STEVE LUDWIN: Yeah.

  • Yeah.

  • I'd like to do that very soon.

  • I've done it for so long.

  • I'd like to actually spend--

  • I'd like to take a year off.

  • -And you've done that, you managed that?

  • STEVE LUDWIN: No, I've never done it.

  • I've never not done it.

  • But I'd like to take like a year off.

  • -So you're not going to know if it's addictive until you

  • try it, are you?

  • -Is it possible you could be addicted to pain then, if you

  • know what I mean?

  • The way it hurts.

  • STEVE LUDWIN: I think if I was, I would have other things

  • in my life.

  • I'd be a boxer like you.

  • -Yeah, true, true, true.

  • STEVE LUDWIN: The day after going boxing, my arm just was

  • even more swollen than the day before.

  • But I felt like a truck had hit me.

  • I felt like I was being digested from the inside.

  • I was walking around like the Elephant Man for a day.

  • I can kind of remember it, but I was like in a dream state.

  • I felt like I had been injected with a thousand

  • energy drinks.

  • It just felt slightly wrong.

  • I would really like to work with a forward-thinking

  • company that is going to go, OK kid, we like your ideas.

  • Let's start researching this.

  • And around-the-clock and get it done.

  • I visited the University of Southern California a couple

  • years ago, and I met a professor Frank Markland, I

  • believe his name is.

  • He's been working with copperhead venom.

  • Copperhead venom is the North American pit viper that's

  • being used.

  • They've been studying the effects on breast cancer

  • cells, ovarian cancer.

  • It actually inhibits the growth of tumors and basically

  • kind of kills off cancer cells.

  • So there there's real excitement around that.

  • Yeah, the possibilities of a cancer cure someday with snake

  • venom, I'd put my money on it.

  • Banana?

  • Banana.

STEVE LUDWIN: I'm going to show you the effects of the

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