Bay Area woman orders hats on Amazon, receives black-market Cuban scorpion venom instead

A Bay Area woman said she ordered hats off Amazon only to receive contraband Cuban cancer drug derived from blue scorpion venom. A Bay Area woman said she ordered hats off Amazon only to receive contraband Cuban cancer drug derived from blue scorpion venom. Photo: Steve Williams Photo/Getty Images Photo: Steve Williams Photo/Getty Images Image 1 of / 33 Caption Close Bay Area woman orders hats on Amazon, receives black-market Cuban scorpion venom instead 1 / 33 Back to Gallery

A Bay Area woman said she purchased felt hats from Amazon only to receive a contraband Cuban cancer drug derived from blue scorpion venom.

Meagan Day, a staff writer at Jacobin Magazine based in the East Bay, recounted her ordeal in a Saturday tweet. Day said she ordered some felt hats traditionally worn in Russian-style saunas, called banyas, from an Amazon third-party seller named "Russian-Bear."

One month later she received a package, postmarked from the Ukraine and plastered with more than 20 stamps, that contained a vial of Vidatox, a homeopathic treatment made in Cuba from the venom of the endemic blue scorpion (Rhopalurus junceus).

"I just wanted to schvitz in style," Day wrote, "now I'm an illegal venom owner."

Cuba's state pharmaceutical company Labiofam manufactures Vidatox, which it claims is an effective homeopathic treatment for cancer. In a 2013 profile in the Miami New Times, Labiofam claimed it had tested Vidatox, a derivative of scorpion venom products like Escozine and Escozul, on more than 10,000 patients.

"But there is no public compilation of the methodology or results," the article notes.

According to New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, "There is no evidence for their use to prevent or treat cancer in humans."

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Vidatox has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and its sale is outlawed in the United States.

All of this begs the question: How did a vial of venom end up in a package intended for some cheeky bathing hats?

When asked for comment, an Amazon spokesperson said, "This looks like a mix-up by the seller." The spokesperson said the customer had been refunded and did not immediately respond to a series of follow-up questions.

The item Day ordered appears to have been removed from Amazon, though seller Russian-Bear still had multiple listings, including various Russian bathhouse accessories and, strangely, a $1,099 camouflaged tent and a $750 package of utility vehicle accessories.

A handful of Russian-Bear listings had reviews. "Surprisingly effective for such a thin cap," said one. "It's a perfect hat," said another.

Meanwhile, a quick Amazon search for "Vidatox" yielded a series of items from third-party sellers, ranging in price from $100 to $300. Many of the postings stemmed from Eastern Europe and said they would ship to the United States. When searching Vidatox on Google, a sponsored Amazon listing is the first result that pops up.

The New Times article said Vidatox is registered for sale in a "handful of countries," including China and Albania. The U.S., Canada nor any European state has cleared the treatment through their homeopathic standards process so "a small black market to move the product around the globe has emerged." The article estimates that more than 55,000 had imbibed the venom product over the last two decades.

In a follow-up tweet, Day said Amazon refunded her for the hats "without comment."

"Also: The scorpion venom is apparently very valuable so if you have any ideas about how to capitalize on that situation in a legal way lmk thanks," she joked.

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.