Most rich countries have already shifted to synthetic alternatives
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskParts of modern medicine have been unusually reliant on the horseshoe crab. Its blood is the only known natural source of limulus amebocyte lysate , an extract that detects endotoxin, a nasty and sometimes fatal bacterium. Drug firms use it to ensure the safety of medicines and implanted devices, including antibiotics, anti-cancer drugs, heart stents, insulin and vaccines.
As pharmaceutical companies ramped up production of the covid-19 jab, demand for the blue liquid soared. In 2020 nearly 650,000 crabs were bled in America, 36% more than in 2018. Bleeding is not without harm to the crabs. Conservationists estimate that between 5% and 30% of them die on release. Biologists at the University of New Hampshire have found that, once bled, females become lethargic and have trouble following the tides to egg-laying areas. According to the Wetlands Institute, a non-profit group, the number of horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay, where the Atlantic variety spawns, has declined by 90% over the past 15 years.
In 2016 the International Union for Conservation of Nature listed them as “vulnerable” to extinction. It blamed overharvesting for use as food, bait and biomedical testing, as well as habitat loss. This also hurts other species. The red knot, a bird that migrates from South America to the Arctic tundra, is endangered largely because of the decline in horseshoe-crab eggs in Delaware Bay, a stopover.rises, America’s biomedical industry will face a crunch.
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