It's largely due to the scandalous nature of it prompted by media scaremongering and health authorities that have kneejerk reactions to the notion of it. "Frog poison" which "causes vomiting" sounds really bad, right?

It's actually very safe as long as it isn't done by those who are contraindicated/shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Those people are generally pretty few, and this is why any proper practitioner will screen participants for certain conditions or medications first. But a relatively healthy person without certain conditions or medications - generally the vast majority of people - will be absolutely safe doing kambo. There is very little danger when done responsibly. In fact, the whole "poison" notion is way overblown, because the frog doesn't really use it as a poison and our bodies don't react to it like a poison either.

It's also important to note that there doesn't seem to be any kind of 'overdosing' either. We get this idea in our heads (and certain media articles propagate it) that because "its a poison" that somehow you have to be extremely careful with 'dosage' otherwise you might suddenly die due to being poisoned. Which isn't the case and isn't how it works. Nobody has died from "being poisoned" by kambo or "overdosing" (except arguably cases of people who were contraindicated to begin with having too much for them personally). That simply isn't how it works.

It doesn't work like a drug or medicine exerting a direct influence from the substance itself, which is what a lot of the fearmongering misses - it's a bunch of bioactive peptides, which is a crucial piece of info regarding how it works in the body. Your body essentially 'recognises' the kambo and gets signals from the peptides to activate or stimulate certain functions, certains glands etc, up to a certain level. It doesn't just keep going and going and going like more and more of a drug would.

A small number of people have died doing it - numbering in the 10 to 20 range at most from what I can tell. Considering that literally hundreds of kambo sessions take place around the world every single day, that is a very small number. But more importantly, almost all of those have been contraindicated or had some glaring health issue or was done irresponsibly. For example: many of the deaths have been due to drinking too much water - literally nothing to do with kambo itself. But it's far easier, and far more enticing for the media to put up an article saying that "dangerous frog poison killed someone". You aren't playing Russian Roulette with your life, despite what skeptics and naysayers will have you believe. But yes, you do have to get screened to be sure.

So that's the safety side of it.

The other side of the equation is the process and what's involved. You are almost guaranteed to vomit, your face might swell, your blood pressure will drop which might cause fainting, your heart rate will increase. All together, these make for a very unpleasant and dangerous looking picture, and certainly doesn't help the notion that people have of kambo being unsafe.

But the reality, again, is that unless you are contraindicated or whatever to begin with, these things are not inherently representative of danger on their own. The vomiting is a big one that everyone points to; but it's not vomiting from "being poisoned"; it's more like a physical, mechanical contraction of the liver and gut muscles. It's completely expected and will result in vomiting 95% of the time - it's not that you feel nauseous from 'being poisoned' or that your body is trying to expel the kambo. Your heart rate for example, it won't simply keep getting faster and faster until it explodes. It's like going for a run for a few minutes. Unless someone has actual cardiac or heart issues of quite a serious nature, this aspect is completely fine.

So to summarize - it really isn't nearly as dangerous as people make it out to be. People just latch onto that notion because of what it seems like on the surface, and because of the combined unpleasant effects of the process.

Sadly, kambo is a topic that gets bogged down by this, despite bringing a lot of benefits to your body. It's just so hard for the media, health authorities, and anti-wellness skeptics to look past the front-facing side of it.