HORSESHOE CRABS IN THE NEWS July 2020
Horseshoe Crab Facts
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Horseshoe Crabs Matter to you, me, and the EARTHHorseshoe are Medical Heros to humans!
Horseshoe crabs have special blood. Over millions of years the species has evolved to have "Blue Blood". To quote The Ocean Concervancy.org (see button on right for link) "Hang on tight, because we’re going for a wild science ride. Firstly, horseshoe crabs don’t have white blood cells like we do to help fight off infection. Instead, they have what’s called amebocytes, which are feisty little cells that attack pathogens (the bad guys in the cellular world, which cause disease) by trapping them in what’s basically a wall of goo. This keeps the disease from spreading throughout the [animal]. Why is this important for modern-day medicine, [and us humans]? In the late 1950s, a physician at Johns Hopkins discovered that you can use the amoebocytes found in horseshoe crab blood to test the safety of [liquid medicines] vaccines and other drugs." So basically parts of the horseshoe crab's blood (the amebocytes) are added to a sample of the vaccine or drug, and if the liquid medicine turns cloudy this means that the horseshoe crab's blood reacted as a defense mechanism to something in the liquid, showing us that it is contaminated and not safe as human medicine. A sample of every liquid medicine created by medical companies is required by law to be tested with horseshoe crab blood to ensure that it is safe. Sooooo, if you have ever had a shot, you have been protected by the wonderful horseshoe crab. If it weren’t for horseshoe crabs and this discovery, who knows how many people may have been harmed from drugs doctors otherwise would have thought were ready for administration! |
Arguing from evidence in the NEWS!!!
Use of experimental Ebola drug raises red flags among medical experts
Los Angeles Times August 5, 2014 With the current outbreak of the infectious disease, Ebola, in Africa there is much debate surrounding response and medical treatment. Click on the right to read a recent newspaper article on the topic. |
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