Hi! My name is Blake Froberg. I'm a medical toxicologist and pediatrician that works here
in Indianapolis at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Today I'm going to talk to you about
a very interesting topic. I'm going to talk to you about murder hornets and, more specifically,
I'm going to answer the question, "What are your chances of getting stung here in Indiana by a
murder hornet?" As you're probably aware, murder hornets have been in the media a lot lately.
I can think of a few reasons for why this has happened. First of all, they've actually been
seen here in the United States. Granted only a few of them and only in the state of Washington, they
still have made it over into the United States. As well, the murder hornet is the largest known
hornet. Anytime you talk about the biggest or the largest or the most deadly, the strongest, that
grabs people's attention right away. Let's talk a little bit about the sting or the envenomation
from a giant Asian hornet. Really it's going to be very similar to the envenomation or sting
from really any other bee, hornet or wasp. So when the giant Asian hornet stings somebody,
you're going to get local skin swelling and destruction that's going to cause a lot of pain.
It's going to be sore in that area probably for a couple of days. The problem that you can get into,
there's really three scenarios where you can have more severe medical effects. One thing that can
happen, the hornet can sting you in a critical area so by some way a hornet gets in your mouth,
stings you in the back of the throat, causes swelling that can cause difficulty with breathing,
that would be a medical emergency. The most common way that somebody would get
in trouble with a giant Asian hornet envenomation, again really with any bee hornet or wasp sting,
would be if they had a severe allergic reaction also known as anaphylaxis. When this happens,
people can get kind of an itchy rash called hives or they can start to also have breathing problems
and even problems with their blood pressure and should of course seek medical help right away
if something like that would occur. The final way that somebody can get into trouble with a
giant Asian hornet sting would be if they get multiple stings. Now because this hornet's a
little bit bigger, because it's sting packs a little bit bigger of a punch than maybe some
other bees hornets and wasps, it takes about 10 of these stings to start to run into more severe
medical problems although it probably takes really 50 when you start to think about people that get
into trouble where they may even end up dying from the stings. So what can happen with that number of
stings is that the venom can then actually cause seizures, can start to cause the breakdown of the
muscle, something called rhabdomyolysis, and then you can also have kidney failure and then that can
eventually lead to death as well. Now to the big question, the reason you're watching this talk.
What are your chances of getting stung here in Indiana by the giant Asian hornet? Well, really
as a scientist I never like to say zero percent but essentially you have a zero percent risk of
getting stung by one of these creatures at the present time. Thank you for listening today.
I really appreciate your time. If you're interested in other things that the Indiana
Poison Center does you can go to our website at indianapoisoncenter.org. We also have links to our
Twitter account as well as our Facebook page and our Instagram account as well. Thank you and bye!