Animals in Labs Article from All-Creatures.org



Finally an Alternative to Stealing Horseshoe Crabs' Blue Blood

September 2024

The new ruling means that this is no longer required, potentially saving many thousands of horseshoe crabs from much misery and deaths.

horseshoe crabs' blue blood
Abducted, transported to a lab, cruelly stabbed and drained of 40% of their blood as their gills painfully dry out, and thrown back in critical condition on the beach - often to die. Image by Timothy Fadek as posted on IDA In Defense of Animals

Thanks to a long-time in the coming decision by the US Pharmacopeia (the primary non-governmental drug industry regulator) thousands of horseshoe crabs will no longer be repeatedly caught and their blood drained. US Pharmacopeia has approved the use of non-animal derived agents to test for toxins in certain medicines.

Every year, thousands of horseshoe crabs have been caught and much of their blood drained to provide chemicals used in drug safety testing. The new ruling means that this is no longer required, potentially saving many thousands of horseshoe crabs from much misery and deaths.

 

From PubMed: Saving the horseshoe crab: A synthetic alternative to horseshoe crab blood for endotoxin detection

 


Posted on All-Creatures.org: September 17, 2024
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