The Medical Industry Was Built on Crab Blood
Our medical industry is completely reliant on an animal that has existed for the past 445 million years – horseshoe crabs. Horseshoe crabs have a special type of blood with certain properties that can reveal if injectable medicine has stray harmful bacteria. This process ensures that the vaccines that are distributed to the public don't lead to infections.
How is horseshoe crab blood different from our own blood? First horseshoe crab blood is blue as it contains iron rather than copper. However, this is not what the medical industry is interested in. They’re interested in a specific protein that this blood holds. This protein, Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), is the basis for the testing.. When horseshoe crabs are injured and bacteria creeps into the wounds, LAL starts to coagulate around the problem trapping the bacteria in this gel-like substance. In other words, when this crab blood comes in contact with bacteria, it begins to clot. Scientists utilize this process to make sure that vaccines don't have any stray bacteria. Without this, blue blood vaccines would lead to bacterial infections making them do more harm than good.
Before pharmaceutical companies can use this blood they have to first collect it. This process is surprisingly simple. First, these companies will send out people to collect the crabs by hand during their spawning season. Then after the collection, they will bring these crabs back to factories specifically designed to help drain their blood. These factories will inject a “straw” into the membrane surrounding the crab's heart leading to a big glass bottle. This straw will drain about a quarter of the blood inside the crab's body. Then after the whole process is over they will throw the crab back into the ocean. Unfortunately, this process has a 10 to 30% mortality rate. But it's important to note that this doesn't necessarily come from the bloodletting of the crab but rather from improper handling of the creatures during the release process.
The medical industry is built on blood, the blood of horseshoe crabs. If it wasn't for these creatures, every time you take a flu shot you'd be taking a gamble on whether you are going to die from a bacterial infection, but with these crabs you know you won't. In fact, you'd be taking a risk whenever you take any injectable medicine, that includes insulin. These crabs help eliminate the risk that comes with taking injectables. All in all, we should be thinking of our crab friends because without them we might not have been able to get through COVID-19.
By Elijah Zabala