Hearken's back to the "snake oil" salesmen of years past. The snake part is the significant aspect, imo. Q says symbolism with be their down fall.
When thinking of snakes and health care, the medical symbols come immediately to mind. The US symbol often associated with medicine has two snakes, but the more traditional one associated with the rod of Asclepius has only one. Wikipedia has a good discussion of this.
In my opinion, it is no accident that modern medical practice is so often associated with snakes. That pillar of "health care", infant vaccination, resembles nothing so much as the bite of a venomous snake.