All articles tagged with #horseshoe crabs
Modern medicine relies heavily on horseshoe crab blood for endotoxin testing, but this practice threatens their populations and ecological roles. Alternatives like recombinant factor C are emerging, which could reduce the need for bleeding crabs, but regulatory and handling practices need improvement to ensure both human safety and species conservation.
Horseshoe crabs, ancient creatures that appear fossilized, are being bled for their milky blue blood, which is used to detect toxins in medicine. Half a million horseshoe crabs are caught and drained of a third of their blood each year. The crabs are yanked from the water, transported to bleeding facilities, and injected with a needle to extract their blood. The eggs of these prehistoric creatures, laid during spawning events, hold small green creatures that seem to delight in somersaulting against their eggshells. Horseshoe crabs play a crucial role in medical testing, protecting millions of people who receive flu shots, childhood immunizations, heart stents, or hip replacements.
The biomedical industry's demand for horseshoe crab blood, used to detect bacterial toxins in vaccines and medical devices, is growing in the US despite the availability of a synthetic alternative. Five companies along the East Coast bled over 700,000 crabs in 2021, with at least 80 million tests performed each year worldwide. The industry's expansion has led to limited coast-wide regulation and increased secrecy, with fishermen paid by bleeding companies handling crabs in ways that research has shown to cause harm or violate harvest laws without punishment. The process of approving the synthetic alternative in the US has stalled, even as the number of migratory shorebirds dependent on horseshoe crab eggs has plummeted.