Thanks to everyone who helped modify HB 2414. Let us now finish HB 1309. Again, everybody write you local Senator and House member to raise awareness that this is big issue that is actually being address by the establishment of captive venomous collections.

"Perhaps unknowing to Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, his sponsorship of HB 1309 has far reaching racial prejudices embedded in it that contribute up to 125,000 deaths per year according to the World Health Organization, particularly in Africa and other less developed nations that rely on medical supplies that can not be supplied by local medical infrastructure. Rep. Hilderbran has also been informed that HB 1309 compromises the medical training and the treatment of our troops whenever they are engaged in missions beyond our borders but has not contacted this military officer, for over 34 years in the USAF, who has taught about venomous snake bite to technicians and physicians from all the US Military Services and foreign allied military services for 17 years at the School of Aerospace Medicine on Brooks City-Base in the San Antonio area to hear his concerns. While the U.S. has no direct obligation to address the health needs of other nations, likewise those nations have no motive to supply local antivenin to an envenomated troop because those medical supplies would likely be conserved for people who live in that region.

Efforts to criminalize private venomous snake husbandry for establishing viable captive populations in the U.S. is misguided as there is no funding at the state or federal level to sponsor such research or programs and there is certainly no effort on the part of these individuals to act irresponsible towards the local community. Funding of such research at universities is probably non existent as the insurance industry will largely not write policies for any facility that handles reptiles based on misinformation supplied by animal rights groups that do not take a supportive view towards research that benefits human health if it involves captive animals. And as with many diseases of the poorer parts of the world, snakebites have not been of great interest to large pharmaceutical companies as they view such treatments to be unprofitable. Over the past few years most of Africa has been in a crises mode as Behringwerke in Germany ceased antivenin manufacture, Aventis Pasteur in France greatly reduced production, and there is a threat to continued antivenin production by Africa's sole remaining producer, the African Health Laboratory Service in Johannesburg.

Private funding has been the only means to establish viable populations in the U.S. for medical research and now that is being threatening by the irresponsible “Not-In-My-Backyard” syndrome that is oblivious to the consequences of such a narrow isolationist viewpoint. Hilderbran cannot produce any evidence that there is an actual problem with regard to the establishment of any non-domestic species in Texas or of any know encounter by a third party from an escaped venomous snake in Texas. Is Hilderbran’s reputational benefit that he can be part to 125,000 Africans, Indians, Asians, and Latin Americans dieing each year due to eliminating captive populations of venomous that would be available for medical research? In addition, how can the public tolerate Hilderbran’s arrogance to place his personal bias above the very real health risks he will subject our troops to while serving overseas? Can the voters in the Kerrville area allow someone who takes an such an isolationist viewpoint as to undermine medical research, dismiss the concerns of a military officer on troop safety overseas, and claim ignorance to world health issues remain in office? (How many times have you been told that ignorance of the law is no excuse for violating it?"