13 ms·

Biomedical companies bleed 500k horseshoe crabs a year

188 points by kharms 9y ago

goldenkey 9y ago
F'ed up if you ask me. Imagine that being done to you by an alien species.
- isomorph 9y ago
  I have to agree with you. Funny you should say "alien" - I watched "Under The Skin" recently, and then read excerpts from the book. Without spoiling it, the fate of human (males) in the book is far, far worse than in the film. (Search "vodsel processing" if you want to find out more). Finally made me become vegetarian.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Danihan 9y ago
    >When one of their victims writes "mercy" in the dirt in front of their pursuers, Isserley pretends to not speak English, hoping to keep hidden the extent of their language capabilities. LOL, how is that comparable at all... The closest thing would be chimps or dolphins and we don't eat either.
    - isomorph 9y ago
      It's directly comparable, because all the aliens apart from Isserley believe that the humans have no language. Just like we believe that pigs, cows etc. have no language. But they do communicate with each other, don't they? So... it's directly comparable. Only Isserley speaks English because she's been trained to do so. So it's directly comparable.
      - Danihan 9y ago
        We actively search for animal languages, and some do have a bit. I suspect that the concept of "mercy" would not be too far away from something some animals could muster up. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/prairie-dogs-language-decoded-by-scientists-1.1322230 http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/prairie-dogs-language-deco... I'm still not going vegetarian though.
- dmix 9y ago
  How is this anywhere close to the same as Alien species using humans? We differentiate treatment by intelligence of species for a good reason. We allow courts to deal with the subtleties of what is considered cruel and unusual punishment for humans as well from this rational perspective, allowing certain degrees depending on context. I'm against whales and dolphins being kept in small area confinement. But I could hardly care about a crab being bled. The only concern is on the survivability of the species and the effect on the greater ecosystem. This is very rational and I don't see anything morally wrong with it. Nor do the vast majority of other scientists. Many of whom know much more about the species than I do. The end result is we have a unique way to test for bacteria in a variety of applications that at most save lives, or at a minimum vastly improve the quality. > Their distinctive blue blood is used to detect dangerous Gram-negative bacteria such as E. coli in injectable drugs such as insulin, implantable medical devices such as knee replacements, and hospital instruments such as scalpels and IVs.
  - goldenkey 9y ago
    At least kill the f'kin things if you are gonna drain them of their blood. Seems like its just a poor excuse to say 'we didnt kill them..they are just fine! *drops crab back into water with half of its blood supply' Based on what I read, these crabs are basically given a death sentence. I'd rather them be killed and harvested than bloodsucked tortured and thrown back into a predator ecosystem where they are too delirious and pretty much get butchered by whatever's out there.
    - dmix 9y ago
      That's a fair concern. This is why studying it is important. The scientists made some assumptions that the blood would regenerate and they would likely be fine. So agreed it's good they did this and they should find a way to do it more humanely, if possible. > The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which sets global standards for species extinction, created a horseshoe crab subcommittee in 2012 to monitor the issue. The group decided last year that the American horseshoe crab is "vulnerable" to extinction—a higher level of danger compared to the last Red List assessment in 1996. An artificial replacement might be the only long term solution. Or mass breeding, if it is indeed so expensive. > And then there's the pure damn necessity. While several companies have come up with synthetic alternatives for detecting the presence of endotoxins in vaccines, medicine, and medical instruments, LAL is still the only test that has received FDA approval.
- soylentcola 9y ago
  Those photos of the crabs being lined up and bled reminded me of something out of The Matrix.
  - goldenkey 9y ago
    It's very sick and deranged. I am surprised people here are defending it. We can admit that the medical boon is considered worth it to much of society but why can't we also admit this is extremely fucked up? I suppose people don't like to vilify the society in which they dwell even if it is with truth.
oftenwrong 9y ago
>While several companies have come up with synthetic alternatives for detecting the presence of endotoxins in vaccines, medicine, and medical instruments, LAL is still the only test that has received FDA approval. I wish they would have elaborated on this. Are the alternatives known to be inferior at this time, or are they promising, but stuck in the long, complicated approval process?
- hammock 9y ago
  The common sense answer is that an alternative which was inferior would never be developed to the point of submission for FDA approval, as it would not be viable to take to market.
  - logicallee 9y ago
    But the article says the crab blood costs $14,000 per quart - if something works "well enough" and can be made synthetically, certainly it could be used in some cases due to the cost alone. For example, consider if there is a simple case where the test is not administered at all today in some cases, due to the cost. (Use your imagination.) In that case "good enough" to quickly administer for a quick read, might well be a very low threshold indeed! Who says "good enough to administer" must be "the best level in existence"?
    - digitalzombie 9y ago
      > "well enough" This is the medical field. There is no well enough. Even modeling for cancer detection we do 95% and medical device they do 99% confidence interval IIRC. And with model, we choose sensitivity over specificity. We rather accidentally diagnosed them with cancer over accidentally say they don't have cancer when they do. Also FDA might have a bar what well enough is, and it could high enough that other companies cannot pass it.
      - logicallee 9y ago
        What makes you think I thought "good enough" means 55% or 60% efficient, or whatever you object to? Good enough might mean 99% of the time. You said it yourself! >Even modeling for cancer detection we do 95% and medical device they do 99% confidence interval IIRC So, in these applications, 95% and 99% respectively is the meaning of good enough. So to put these in crab terms: maybe the crabs do it at 99.99% (3.89 sigma) and the synthetic they want to push through is only 99%, only 2.5 sigma. So I am saying 99% can be good enough in some contexts - just as you've said. Especially if it costs thousands to do it a la crab. It doesn't have to be better than the crabs' blood to be good enough.
beaconstudios 9y ago
could LAL not be created using recombinant DNA? We already produce insulin this way, and I can only assume that LAL is a protein. I'm guessing you couldn't use e. coli as the host though, given the protein's purpose.
drzaiusapelord 9y ago
>Biomedical/pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to devote time and resources to qualify an alternative method as they are concerned that regulators will not accept the alternative method. However, the pharmacopeia publications include chapters that directly address what is needed to qualify an alternative method so that it will be acceptable by regulators. Classic chicken and egg problem here. These companies don't want to invest in the lengthy regulatory approval process because they aren't sure they'll pass so progress on these alternative methods gets stalled, thus ensuring they look sub-optimal on paper, so the perceived risk level is probably higher than it should be. Considering there are two alternatives here, one involving synthetically cloning DNA and the other simply using human blood, I can probably see why industry is slow to move off the crab blood process. The former is most likely much more expensive and patent encumbered, while the later involves harvesting humans instead of crabs. Human blood is needed for transfusions and has a high demand, so it makes sense to just use animal blood for endotoxin testing. [1]http://www.horseshoecrab.org/med/alternatives.html http://www.horseshoecrab.org/med/alternatives.html
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  could the blood not be taken from the dead? Blood is already drained in the embalming process. I'm guessing it'd need consent similar to organ donation though.
  - drzaiusapelord 9y ago
    Most people die quietly in hospice or at home, not in the ER, so there's a logistical problem here. Red blood cells start dying in minutes after host death, so you don't have a lot of time on your hands in common scenarios. Biologically, you want healthy blood full of red blood cells not blood low on red blood cells and full of white blood cells which can cause complications. The dead also can't answer questions about their illness history. There's a lot of legwork with blood that organs don't typically require.
    - LordKano 9y ago
      The Russians did some research into cadaveric blood transfusions. The blood is still usable for several hours after clinical death. I'm not sure about the suitability of using blood from old, sick and/or heavily medicated people.
matthewmarkus 9y ago
There is a great little startup in the EU working to biosynthesize LAL: http://sothicbio.science/ http://sothicbio.science/ It's a RebelBio (née IndieBio EU) company.
- wuschel 9y ago
  Hey, great to see you here. I left Sothic recently, let's get back in touch :^)
- ajryan 9y ago
  Will the synthetic enzyme be a direct substitute in the standard LAL enzyme chain? Or will it be an alternative reaction like Lonza's PyroGene?
catskull 9y ago
One thing not mentioned in the article is the impact horseshoe crab farming has had on the Red Knot. PBS made a really interesting documentary about it, I would highly recommend you check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGMLuEsvHAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGMLuEsvHAw
- DennisP 9y ago
  Is the impact positive or negative? It seems like farming the crabs would solve the problem.
cableshaft 9y ago
I'm not exactly sure why, but this makes me feel sadder than capturing and butchering meat in the modern not very humane way. Just seeing these crabs with a history stretching back into ancient times, strapped in and needles inserted into them looks so awful. I don't want to believe it's considered acceptable practice in the modern era to do such things, regardless of its medical benefits.
- goldenkey 9y ago
  I agree with you. Just as bad is what's known as Bile Bears. Humanity has a ways to go with treatment of sentient creatures. Intelligence or species is not the predicate with which we should dole out misery. Ability to feel pain is the only thing that matters. And far too many of the creatures we put through screaming existences are too close to our own hearts...conscious feelers. That's all we really are beneath it all. Do onto others as you desire onto yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_bear
  - rexicus 9y ago
    I don't think it's even close ethically to torturing a bear. You know people boil crabs alive all the time, right?
    - libeclipse 9y ago
      I don't think this is a particularly good point to make. You're saying that since X happened and since X is worse than Y, we shouldn't care about Y. There's been school shootings so single murders don't matter? There were so many more deaths in world war two than in world war one, so WWI doesn't matter? And this is ignoring the fact that your "worse" claim was based on your own personal ethics which is, at best, subjective.
      - chiliap2 9y ago
        People have a finite amount of time and energy. How do you choose what to prioritize if not by saying that some things are worse than others? They didn't say that some things don't matter, just that it doesn't come close ethically.
RichardHeart 9y ago
It may be small consolation, that in the mid term, only humans can prevent meteor strikes from re-extincting everything on this planet. 99 percent of every species that has ever existed is permanently extinct. That being said, I'd love to maintain or grow biodiversity, for it's where we will learn the most tricks to help ourselves in the mid term. Thus, if it helps humans a bit, in the long run, it could help all the life on this planet. Also, these guys are working on the problem https://rebelbio.co/sothic-bioscience-saving-human-lives-and-the-horseshoe-crab-with-artificial-blue-blood/ https://rebelbio.co/sothic-bioscience-saving-human-lives-and...
- nkrisc 9y ago
  But what does it matter? The only reason biodiversity is important is because it creates a better environment for all life on the planet, including us. There's no cosmic benefit to life existing on Earth, or at all. If humans weren't around to stop a meteor from wiping all life off the planet what would it matter?
  - RichardHeart 9y ago
    Human consciousness is the most rare and important "thing" in the universe. We also invented "mattering." Thus, all things that matter, do so, because we're here. Nihilism is not only unproductive, it feels bad too. Upgrade to utilitarianism with a strong personal/local bias. Or, if you're a nice guy, utilitarianism in general.
    - ravenstine 9y ago
      Just because it feels bad to you(doesn't feel bad to me), that doesn't have any effect on the validity of that perspective. Of course human consciousness is important to humans, as you pointed out. Did we invent "mattering"? I guess that depends on if you can actually invent an idea, and if there is intelligent life elsewhere. Utilitarianism might be more useful at the societal level, but that still doesn't have any bearing on whether or not an individual position of nihilism is wrong. It might be a good idea that people have views that are incorrect about the environment that result in more biodiversity(though I would guess that biodiversity has diminishing returns), yet not attributing a mystical value to nature can prevent us from wasting our time and resources because our judgment is clouded. There's nothing unproductive about that.
mikepurvis 9y ago
The idea that this isn't "fishing" because they're tossed back afterward is really beyond me. Seems about equivalent to chopping the fin off a shark and then dumping what remains into the water to bleed out and die. With proper regulation, it seems possible this could be done somewhat humanely— particularly if the draw from any one crab was strictly limited, and their time out of water was also very limited. Eg, if the facilities were right on board the boat, so it would out and back in all within in the span of a few hours.
- tree_of_item 9y ago
  > The idea that this isn't "fishing" because they're tossed back afterward is really beyond me. Seems about equivalent to chopping the fin off a shark and then dumping what remains into the water to bleed out and die. I guess I'm missing something, how is this in any way comparable to that? They're not cutting off a piece of the crab, just drawing some blood and putting them back. Why would they bleed out and die? Do humans bleed out and die after drawing blood?
  - notyourwork 9y ago
    I agree but I also don't think its fair to assume this doesn't damage them. Humans and crabs are not the same so I don't think unless you are a subject matter expert you should be drawing conclusions like this.
    - cr0sh 9y ago
      According to an article I read last night (might be the same article as this one) - they are trying to figure out if this is the case; in short, they believe there are effects (seems a reasonable thought!), but they don't know just yet what they are, or how severe they are. So they simulated this with a bunch of crabs - caught a bunch, let them sit out in the sun for a while, transported them, bled them, let them sit some more, then tossed them back in. Half of them they didn't bleed (control); before they tossed them in, they attached tracking devices to their backs, and are monitoring their movements. Now - they don't say what the data they got back is or means or which crabs they came from. But from the article, it's apparent that at least some of the crabs are still moving around and are alive. How many, what they are doing, if they are acting normal - none of that is mentioned. It will be interesting in what they eventually find. I don't think it's reasonable to say there isn't any effect from the practices they describe - it certainly seems like there could be issues based on the conditions and amount of blood drawn (and the fact that they aren't breathing while out of water - for what sounds like several days minimum!). What I hope they find is that things aren't as bad as feared, but that some minor changes can be made to make the creatures less stressed. Hopefully we'll find out very soon...
dbg31415 9y ago
> There are currently no quotas on how many crabs one can bleed because biomedical laboratories drain only a third of the crab's blood, then put them back into the water, alive. But no one really knows what happens to the crabs once they're slipped back into the sea. Do they survive? Are they ever the same? Seems like it'd be easy enough to figure out if they are surviving or not, and seems like we could make adjustments to how much blood is drained based on the weight of the crab if we are killing them (or drain more blood so we kill fewer of them). How hard is it to glue an RFID tag on each one and dump them into a football field sized enclosure with a net wall around it? Or maybe we release them into a nutrient rich tank full of their favorite food before we release them back into the wild? The equivalent of giving them a juice box after a blood draw? Now... as for cruelty... yup, it's pretty barbaric sounding. I don't know how to weight this against human suffering they are helping to avert. I'm certain that if we were smaller than them, they just eat us and not think twice about it. Nice we have evolved to the point where we care about other types of life, isn't it? No clue how to measure human vs crab life, but I have to think that human life is a bit more valuable -- at least to other humans. Presumably this blood draining procedure has gone through a medical ethics review?
- jmcgough 9y ago
  > Presumably this blood draining procedure has gone through a medical ethics review? There's no IRB because it's not funded research, just harvesting resources from animals. When it comes to farming, there are no federal laws governing treatment of farmed animals, and most states exempt farmed animals from anti-cruelty laws. I doubt this would actually be categorized as farming, so there's likely no regulations around it.
Asooka 9y ago
Can horseshoe crabs actually feel pain? I thought their nervious systems were too simple for that, ergo there's practically no ethical concerns with doing whatever you want to them, as long as it doesn't lead to genocide.
- sndean 9y ago
  Not sure about the question of pain, but most IACUCs (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees) at universities and elsewhere don't care what you do to invertebrates. It's an odd line to draw, but that's apparently the line: whether or not there's a spine.
- tim333 9y ago
  Probably they can. Pain detection evolved so organisms can avoid damaging their bodies. There's no reason to think that doesn't apply to crabs.
  - prodikl 9y ago
    i think this is the most logical answer. i would imagine pain appeared very early in a common ancestor as its effect on survival is absolutely immense
- ecdavis 9y ago
  Humans can't feel pain if anaesthetized.
- woodruffw 9y ago
  Pain might be one consideration for an ethical argument against the status quo, but there are plenty of others: * Environmental - Are we diminishing the horseshoe crab population in a way that'll adversely affect the environment? * Sustainability - Will our current methods be able to supply indefinitely increasing demand for horseshoe crab blood? * Practicality - Are we using a natural resource as a way to avoid a more responsible or practical engineered solution (compare: whale oil)? I don't claim a satisfactory answer to any of these (I just don't know enough about horseshoe crabs), but a "yes" for any of them represents a plausible ethical concern.
agumonkey 9y ago
- Christian Schafmeister spyroligomer effort (a dsl to design protein tools to craft proteins IIUC) - Woods, Rondelez, Schabanel dna tiles computing (turing complete molecular computing) We're not far from being able to leave nature alone .. let's help these guys.
tree_of_item 9y ago
Lots of people are saying this is absolutely awful but I really don't get it. > There are currently no quotas on how many crabs one can bleed because biomedical laboratories drain only a third of the crab's blood, then put them back into the water, alive. If it's just a needle insertion, why is this such a big deal? The crabs shouldn't be bleeding after, and I don't see why they would be very damaged. It's saving human lives. I don't think it's ridiculous to say that human lives are worth more than some momentary discomfort for crabs.
- serf 9y ago
  >momentary discomfort for crabs. I agree that the benefit for humans is there, but it's often times a bit more than than just 'momentary discomfort' for the crab[0] [0]: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10236244.2011.642505 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10236244.2011.642...
  - saganus 9y ago
    Just for the tl;dr: "Overall mortalities of bled horseshoe crabs were 17.8% (male = 18.75%; female = 17.2%), while mortalities of unbled crabs were 3.5%." So it appears it indeed affects the crabs.
- drewbug01 9y ago
  > If it's just a needle insertion, why is this such a big deal? The article talks about how there's a bit of evidence to suggest that it may be a big deal, but that we really don't understand these animals so we're not really sure.
- justinator 9y ago
  > I don't think it's ridiculous to say that human lives are worth more than some momentary discomfort for crabs. Well: says the human.
  - camelNotation 9y ago
    Well, yes. Whose side are you on, anyway?
SloughFeg 9y ago
Has anyone who is raising ethical concerns of this been around a horseshoe crab? They are essentially large insects. Killing a cockroach because it was in your house is objectively worse. It was just bugging you. This is saving human lives.
- prodikl 9y ago
  yeah this is how we start starship troopers
  - SloughFeg 9y ago
    Would you like to know more?
- LordKano 9y ago
  Cockroaches are not discriminate in where they walk. One could easily contaminate your food with feces. Kill them just in case.
- _yosefk 9y ago
  I think the main concern is that they might go extinct. (Regarding the cockroach - don't Americans have the right to shoot human tresspassers? The crab on the other hand is plucked out of water which is its own home. This is not to say I'm against the practice - I'm not, unless the crab might go extinct.)
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > don't Americans have the right to shoot human tresspassers? That's a complicated question, but quite often "no" for mere trespass; the actual laws vary by state.
    - 77pt77 9y ago
      What about "stand your ground" and "castle" doctrines?
wollstonecraft 9y ago
The relevant limulus proteins can be expressed in vitro. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302069/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302069/
- jfarlow 9y ago
  It looks like (very much like insulin production in vitro) the proteins involved here are highly modified after translation. Some proteins are usable right after they are produced by the ribosome, some require extensive modification to be useful. It looks like Factor-C [1] needs substantial posttranslational by machinery that is not present to the organisms commonly used for industrial protein production. So not only do you have to produce the protein synthetically, but you also have to produce the modification machinery synthetically. An additional challenge is that the readout is at the bottom of a signal-amplified cascade [2]. And that cascade magnifies any error you have at the top (which is where that finicky Factor-C lives). Older synthetic assays read-out straight from activation of that first signal from Factor-C. This paper tries to recreate a portion of the cascade before reading out a result. But that now means you not only need to produce the Factor-C, the machinery to ensure Factor-C is properly produced, but you also need at least a few of the downstream components as well. So now you have a multi-component synthetic system - with all the grinding through the search-space and tuning that comes from having to optimize a multi-component biological system in vitro. That's a pretty complicated problem. The paper just came out less then two months ago, and concludes, "The present study supports the future production of recombinant reagents that do not require the use of natural resources". We're on the right track, but it seems this is actually a tricky problem. [1] (Factor-C protein) http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/P28175 http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/P28175 [2] (Coagulation Cascade) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302069/figure/fig1-1753425916681074/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302069/figure/...
sandworm101 9y ago
By mimicing industry the study is working uphill. The more direct approach would be to bleed and study a captive population. Bleed some already captive aquarium crabs. Then you can see exactly what happens when you return them to thier home tanks. That should answer some fundimental mortality and movement questions in days, if not hours. (Good luck finding a legit aquarium willing to let its animals participate.) They also focus too much on the bleeding. What matters is how many die from both the bleeding and the handling. The "control group" should be wild and uncaught animals.
- Fomite 9y ago
  One of the problems with your approach is that many industry groups have used "Well, this study doesn't exactly mimic field conditions, so it's not valid..." in the past.
  - sandworm101 9y ago
    That assumes that we are looking to answer the entire question. I'd babystep towards that by first answering some basics. I want to know how much blood you can take and how long before the animal fully recovers. That can be better done in an aquarium setting with animals who are well-observed before and after. If draining a quart out of each captive animal kills 30%, that is a huge red flag without the hassle of radio tagging. I remember reading an interesting article about bleeding squirrels to study their relationship with snakes (through blood one can tell if they have every been bitten by a venomous snake). Squirrels don't have much blood. So the scientists determined that they needed a caged recovery period with free food/water, and a shot of antibiotics, before being returned. Maybe too these crabs.
spraak 9y ago
Take take take, don't give back. The earth isn't concerned with our human antics - it just responds in kind. We are bringing our own demise
AcerbicZero 9y ago
I found a few interesting facts during the first 10 minutes or so of googling this: 1. Bled crabs die at higher than reported rates (Closer to 20%-25% than the reported ~10%-15%) 2. Bled crabs are back at full blood capacity in a week, and usually fully functional within 2-3 months. 3. This crab blood is seriously important to modern medicine (duh?, but hey its nice to have confirmation) 4. Population numbers are all guesses, and I couldn't find a number which I'd be willing to bet on. Low number was ~600k (mature crabs) high number was several million. 5. Losing blood and being thrown back into the ocean is an order of magnitude better than being chopped up and used as bait. 6. A huge number of these crabs get chopped up and used as bait. They're valued at ~$2 each, as bait :( 7. These crabs lay upwards of 50k eggs per season, per female. A specific bird, the Red Knot, which doesn't seem to doesn't have magic medicinally valuable blood shows up and treats the eggs like an all you can eat buffet. 8. The Red Knot population has been on the rebound, thanks to conservation efforts revolving around the horseshoe crab, and the expanded food supply that offers. Enough other people have gone over the various moral issues with this, and I don't think I'd be able to add much there. To me, the whole situation seems trivial to solve, via enhanced conservation efforts, and heavily reduced bait harvesting. Probably wouldn't hurt to make a few Red Knot omelettes too. Bleed + Release > Bait harvest/baby crab genocide via bird.
anon_lastname 9y ago
Could not give less of a fuck about a horseshoe crab. Walk into any red lobster witb 20 bucks and get one served to you.
ReedJessen 9y ago
Interesting article. Never heard any of this before. I am ever so slightly skeptical. I wouldn't be surprised if this while article was a fabrication created as some social experiment to test was people will believe. "We bleed 1/3 of the blood out of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of horseshoe crabs then put them back in the wild... and you have never heard about it or seen it happen." This article just sets off my radar is a particular "April Fool's!" kind of way. Can't put my finger on it.
- phoenixstrike 9y ago
  Just wanted to say I have heard of this going back a few years. Skepticism is good but I didn't think there was anything overt in the article that raised red flags. Let's please not brush this off. There are tons of niche markets and industries and practices that you don't hear about. Anyone who has worked at a large company knows just how many hidden markets there are for all sorts of random shit. You just have to pay attention.
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188 points by kharms 9y ago

goldenkey 9y ago

F'ed up if you ask me. Imagine that being done to you by an alien species.

isomorph 9y ago
I have to agree with you. Funny you should say "alien" - I watched "Under The Skin" recently, and then read excerpts from the book. Without spoiling it, the fate of human (males) in the book is far, far worse than in the film. (Search "vodsel processing" if you want to find out more). Finally made me become vegetarian.
- deleted 9y ago
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- Danihan 9y ago
  >When one of their victims writes "mercy" in the dirt in front of their pursuers, Isserley pretends to not speak English, hoping to keep hidden the extent of their language capabilities. LOL, how is that comparable at all... The closest thing would be chimps or dolphins and we don't eat either.
  - isomorph 9y ago
    It's directly comparable, because all the aliens apart from Isserley believe that the humans have no language. Just like we believe that pigs, cows etc. have no language. But they do communicate with each other, don't they? So... it's directly comparable. Only Isserley speaks English because she's been trained to do so. So it's directly comparable.
    - Danihan 9y ago
      We actively search for animal languages, and some do have a bit. I suspect that the concept of "mercy" would not be too far away from something some animals could muster up. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/prairie-dogs-language-decoded-by-scientists-1.1322230 http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/prairie-dogs-language-deco... I'm still not going vegetarian though.
dmix 9y ago
How is this anywhere close to the same as Alien species using humans? We differentiate treatment by intelligence of species for a good reason. We allow courts to deal with the subtleties of what is considered cruel and unusual punishment for humans as well from this rational perspective, allowing certain degrees depending on context. I'm against whales and dolphins being kept in small area confinement. But I could hardly care about a crab being bled. The only concern is on the survivability of the species and the effect on the greater ecosystem. This is very rational and I don't see anything morally wrong with it. Nor do the vast majority of other scientists. Many of whom know much more about the species than I do. The end result is we have a unique way to test for bacteria in a variety of applications that at most save lives, or at a minimum vastly improve the quality. > Their distinctive blue blood is used to detect dangerous Gram-negative bacteria such as E. coli in injectable drugs such as insulin, implantable medical devices such as knee replacements, and hospital instruments such as scalpels and IVs.
- goldenkey 9y ago
  At least kill the f'kin things if you are gonna drain them of their blood. Seems like its just a poor excuse to say 'we didnt kill them..they are just fine! *drops crab back into water with half of its blood supply' Based on what I read, these crabs are basically given a death sentence. I'd rather them be killed and harvested than bloodsucked tortured and thrown back into a predator ecosystem where they are too delirious and pretty much get butchered by whatever's out there.
  - dmix 9y ago
    That's a fair concern. This is why studying it is important. The scientists made some assumptions that the blood would regenerate and they would likely be fine. So agreed it's good they did this and they should find a way to do it more humanely, if possible. > The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which sets global standards for species extinction, created a horseshoe crab subcommittee in 2012 to monitor the issue. The group decided last year that the American horseshoe crab is "vulnerable" to extinction—a higher level of danger compared to the last Red List assessment in 1996. An artificial replacement might be the only long term solution. Or mass breeding, if it is indeed so expensive. > And then there's the pure damn necessity. While several companies have come up with synthetic alternatives for detecting the presence of endotoxins in vaccines, medicine, and medical instruments, LAL is still the only test that has received FDA approval.
soylentcola 9y ago
Those photos of the crabs being lined up and bled reminded me of something out of The Matrix.
- goldenkey 9y ago
  It's very sick and deranged. I am surprised people here are defending it. We can admit that the medical boon is considered worth it to much of society but why can't we also admit this is extremely fucked up? I suppose people don't like to vilify the society in which they dwell even if it is with truth.

oftenwrong 9y ago

>While several companies have come up with synthetic alternatives for detecting the presence of endotoxins in vaccines, medicine, and medical instruments, LAL is still the only test that has received FDA approval. I wish they would have elaborated on this. Are the alternatives known to be inferior at this time, or are they promising, but stuck in the long, complicated approval process?

hammock 9y ago
The common sense answer is that an alternative which was inferior would never be developed to the point of submission for FDA approval, as it would not be viable to take to market.
- logicallee 9y ago
  But the article says the crab blood costs $14,000 per quart - if something works "well enough" and can be made synthetically, certainly it could be used in some cases due to the cost alone. For example, consider if there is a simple case where the test is not administered at all today in some cases, due to the cost. (Use your imagination.) In that case "good enough" to quickly administer for a quick read, might well be a very low threshold indeed! Who says "good enough to administer" must be "the best level in existence"?
  - digitalzombie 9y ago
    > "well enough" This is the medical field. There is no well enough. Even modeling for cancer detection we do 95% and medical device they do 99% confidence interval IIRC. And with model, we choose sensitivity over specificity. We rather accidentally diagnosed them with cancer over accidentally say they don't have cancer when they do. Also FDA might have a bar what well enough is, and it could high enough that other companies cannot pass it.
    - logicallee 9y ago
      What makes you think I thought "good enough" means 55% or 60% efficient, or whatever you object to? Good enough might mean 99% of the time. You said it yourself! >Even modeling for cancer detection we do 95% and medical device they do 99% confidence interval IIRC So, in these applications, 95% and 99% respectively is the meaning of good enough. So to put these in crab terms: maybe the crabs do it at 99.99% (3.89 sigma) and the synthetic they want to push through is only 99%, only 2.5 sigma. So I am saying 99% can be good enough in some contexts - just as you've said. Especially if it costs thousands to do it a la crab. It doesn't have to be better than the crabs' blood to be good enough.

beaconstudios 9y ago

could LAL not be created using recombinant DNA? We already produce insulin this way, and I can only assume that LAL is a protein. I'm guessing you couldn't use e. coli as the host though, given the protein's purpose.

drzaiusapelord 9y ago

>Biomedical/pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to devote time and resources to qualify an alternative method as they are concerned that regulators will not accept the alternative method. However, the pharmacopeia publications include chapters that directly address what is needed to qualify an alternative method so that it will be acceptable by regulators. Classic chicken and egg problem here. These companies don't want to invest in the lengthy regulatory approval process because they aren't sure they'll pass so progress on these alternative methods gets stalled, thus ensuring they look sub-optimal on paper, so the perceived risk level is probably higher than it should be. Considering there are two alternatives here, one involving synthetically cloning DNA and the other simply using human blood, I can probably see why industry is slow to move off the crab blood process. The former is most likely much more expensive and patent encumbered, while the later involves harvesting humans instead of crabs. Human blood is needed for transfusions and has a high demand, so it makes sense to just use animal blood for endotoxin testing. [1]http://www.horseshoecrab.org/med/alternatives.html http://www.horseshoecrab.org/med/alternatives.html

beaconstudios 9y ago
could the blood not be taken from the dead? Blood is already drained in the embalming process. I'm guessing it'd need consent similar to organ donation though.
- drzaiusapelord 9y ago
  Most people die quietly in hospice or at home, not in the ER, so there's a logistical problem here. Red blood cells start dying in minutes after host death, so you don't have a lot of time on your hands in common scenarios. Biologically, you want healthy blood full of red blood cells not blood low on red blood cells and full of white blood cells which can cause complications. The dead also can't answer questions about their illness history. There's a lot of legwork with blood that organs don't typically require.
  - LordKano 9y ago
    The Russians did some research into cadaveric blood transfusions. The blood is still usable for several hours after clinical death. I'm not sure about the suitability of using blood from old, sick and/or heavily medicated people.

matthewmarkus 9y ago

There is a great little startup in the EU working to biosynthesize LAL: http://sothicbio.science/ http://sothicbio.science/ It's a RebelBio (née IndieBio EU) company.

wuschel 9y ago
Hey, great to see you here. I left Sothic recently, let's get back in touch :^)
ajryan 9y ago
Will the synthetic enzyme be a direct substitute in the standard LAL enzyme chain? Or will it be an alternative reaction like Lonza's PyroGene?

catskull 9y ago

One thing not mentioned in the article is the impact horseshoe crab farming has had on the Red Knot. PBS made a really interesting documentary about it, I would highly recommend you check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGMLuEsvHAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGMLuEsvHAw

DennisP 9y ago
Is the impact positive or negative? It seems like farming the crabs would solve the problem.

cableshaft 9y ago

I'm not exactly sure why, but this makes me feel sadder than capturing and butchering meat in the modern not very humane way. Just seeing these crabs with a history stretching back into ancient times, strapped in and needles inserted into them looks so awful. I don't want to believe it's considered acceptable practice in the modern era to do such things, regardless of its medical benefits.

goldenkey 9y ago
I agree with you. Just as bad is what's known as Bile Bears. Humanity has a ways to go with treatment of sentient creatures. Intelligence or species is not the predicate with which we should dole out misery. Ability to feel pain is the only thing that matters. And far too many of the creatures we put through screaming existences are too close to our own hearts...conscious feelers. That's all we really are beneath it all. Do onto others as you desire onto yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_bear
- rexicus 9y ago
  I don't think it's even close ethically to torturing a bear. You know people boil crabs alive all the time, right?
  - libeclipse 9y ago
    I don't think this is a particularly good point to make. You're saying that since X happened and since X is worse than Y, we shouldn't care about Y. There's been school shootings so single murders don't matter? There were so many more deaths in world war two than in world war one, so WWI doesn't matter? And this is ignoring the fact that your "worse" claim was based on your own personal ethics which is, at best, subjective.
    - chiliap2 9y ago
      People have a finite amount of time and energy. How do you choose what to prioritize if not by saying that some things are worse than others? They didn't say that some things don't matter, just that it doesn't come close ethically.

RichardHeart 9y ago

It may be small consolation, that in the mid term, only humans can prevent meteor strikes from re-extincting everything on this planet. 99 percent of every species that has ever existed is permanently extinct. That being said, I'd love to maintain or grow biodiversity, for it's where we will learn the most tricks to help ourselves in the mid term. Thus, if it helps humans a bit, in the long run, it could help all the life on this planet. Also, these guys are working on the problem https://rebelbio.co/sothic-bioscience-saving-human-lives-and-the-horseshoe-crab-with-artificial-blue-blood/ https://rebelbio.co/sothic-bioscience-saving-human-lives-and...

nkrisc 9y ago
But what does it matter? The only reason biodiversity is important is because it creates a better environment for all life on the planet, including us. There's no cosmic benefit to life existing on Earth, or at all. If humans weren't around to stop a meteor from wiping all life off the planet what would it matter?
- RichardHeart 9y ago
  Human consciousness is the most rare and important "thing" in the universe. We also invented "mattering." Thus, all things that matter, do so, because we're here. Nihilism is not only unproductive, it feels bad too. Upgrade to utilitarianism with a strong personal/local bias. Or, if you're a nice guy, utilitarianism in general.
  - ravenstine 9y ago
    Just because it feels bad to you(doesn't feel bad to me), that doesn't have any effect on the validity of that perspective. Of course human consciousness is important to humans, as you pointed out. Did we invent "mattering"? I guess that depends on if you can actually invent an idea, and if there is intelligent life elsewhere. Utilitarianism might be more useful at the societal level, but that still doesn't have any bearing on whether or not an individual position of nihilism is wrong. It might be a good idea that people have views that are incorrect about the environment that result in more biodiversity(though I would guess that biodiversity has diminishing returns), yet not attributing a mystical value to nature can prevent us from wasting our time and resources because our judgment is clouded. There's nothing unproductive about that.

mikepurvis 9y ago

The idea that this isn't "fishing" because they're tossed back afterward is really beyond me. Seems about equivalent to chopping the fin off a shark and then dumping what remains into the water to bleed out and die. With proper regulation, it seems possible this could be done somewhat humanely— particularly if the draw from any one crab was strictly limited, and their time out of water was also very limited. Eg, if the facilities were right on board the boat, so it would out and back in all within in the span of a few hours.

tree_of_item 9y ago
> The idea that this isn't "fishing" because they're tossed back afterward is really beyond me. Seems about equivalent to chopping the fin off a shark and then dumping what remains into the water to bleed out and die. I guess I'm missing something, how is this in any way comparable to that? They're not cutting off a piece of the crab, just drawing some blood and putting them back. Why would they bleed out and die? Do humans bleed out and die after drawing blood?
- notyourwork 9y ago
  I agree but I also don't think its fair to assume this doesn't damage them. Humans and crabs are not the same so I don't think unless you are a subject matter expert you should be drawing conclusions like this.
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    According to an article I read last night (might be the same article as this one) - they are trying to figure out if this is the case; in short, they believe there are effects (seems a reasonable thought!), but they don't know just yet what they are, or how severe they are. So they simulated this with a bunch of crabs - caught a bunch, let them sit out in the sun for a while, transported them, bled them, let them sit some more, then tossed them back in. Half of them they didn't bleed (control); before they tossed them in, they attached tracking devices to their backs, and are monitoring their movements. Now - they don't say what the data they got back is or means or which crabs they came from. But from the article, it's apparent that at least some of the crabs are still moving around and are alive. How many, what they are doing, if they are acting normal - none of that is mentioned. It will be interesting in what they eventually find. I don't think it's reasonable to say there isn't any effect from the practices they describe - it certainly seems like there could be issues based on the conditions and amount of blood drawn (and the fact that they aren't breathing while out of water - for what sounds like several days minimum!). What I hope they find is that things aren't as bad as feared, but that some minor changes can be made to make the creatures less stressed. Hopefully we'll find out very soon...

dbg31415 9y ago

> There are currently no quotas on how many crabs one can bleed because biomedical laboratories drain only a third of the crab's blood, then put them back into the water, alive. But no one really knows what happens to the crabs once they're slipped back into the sea. Do they survive? Are they ever the same? Seems like it'd be easy enough to figure out if they are surviving or not, and seems like we could make adjustments to how much blood is drained based on the weight of the crab if we are killing them (or drain more blood so we kill fewer of them). How hard is it to glue an RFID tag on each one and dump them into a football field sized enclosure with a net wall around it? Or maybe we release them into a nutrient rich tank full of their favorite food before we release them back into the wild? The equivalent of giving them a juice box after a blood draw? Now... as for cruelty... yup, it's pretty barbaric sounding. I don't know how to weight this against human suffering they are helping to avert. I'm certain that if we were smaller than them, they just eat us and not think twice about it. Nice we have evolved to the point where we care about other types of life, isn't it? No clue how to measure human vs crab life, but I have to think that human life is a bit more valuable -- at least to other humans. Presumably this blood draining procedure has gone through a medical ethics review?

jmcgough 9y ago
> Presumably this blood draining procedure has gone through a medical ethics review? There's no IRB because it's not funded research, just harvesting resources from animals. When it comes to farming, there are no federal laws governing treatment of farmed animals, and most states exempt farmed animals from anti-cruelty laws. I doubt this would actually be categorized as farming, so there's likely no regulations around it.

Asooka 9y ago

Can horseshoe crabs actually feel pain? I thought their nervious systems were too simple for that, ergo there's practically no ethical concerns with doing whatever you want to them, as long as it doesn't lead to genocide.

sndean 9y ago
Not sure about the question of pain, but most IACUCs (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees) at universities and elsewhere don't care what you do to invertebrates. It's an odd line to draw, but that's apparently the line: whether or not there's a spine.
tim333 9y ago
Probably they can. Pain detection evolved so organisms can avoid damaging their bodies. There's no reason to think that doesn't apply to crabs.
- prodikl 9y ago
  i think this is the most logical answer. i would imagine pain appeared very early in a common ancestor as its effect on survival is absolutely immense
ecdavis 9y ago
Humans can't feel pain if anaesthetized.
woodruffw 9y ago
Pain might be one consideration for an ethical argument against the status quo, but there are plenty of others: * Environmental - Are we diminishing the horseshoe crab population in a way that'll adversely affect the environment? * Sustainability - Will our current methods be able to supply indefinitely increasing demand for horseshoe crab blood? * Practicality - Are we using a natural resource as a way to avoid a more responsible or practical engineered solution (compare: whale oil)? I don't claim a satisfactory answer to any of these (I just don't know enough about horseshoe crabs), but a "yes" for any of them represents a plausible ethical concern.

agumonkey 9y ago

- Christian Schafmeister spyroligomer effort (a dsl to design protein tools to craft proteins IIUC) - Woods, Rondelez, Schabanel dna tiles computing (turing complete molecular computing) We're not far from being able to leave nature alone .. let's help these guys.

tree_of_item 9y ago

Lots of people are saying this is absolutely awful but I really don't get it. > There are currently no quotas on how many crabs one can bleed because biomedical laboratories drain only a third of the crab's blood, then put them back into the water, alive. If it's just a needle insertion, why is this such a big deal? The crabs shouldn't be bleeding after, and I don't see why they would be very damaged. It's saving human lives. I don't think it's ridiculous to say that human lives are worth more than some momentary discomfort for crabs.

serf 9y ago
>momentary discomfort for crabs. I agree that the benefit for humans is there, but it's often times a bit more than than just 'momentary discomfort' for the crab[0] [0]: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10236244.2011.642505 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10236244.2011.642...
- saganus 9y ago
  Just for the tl;dr: "Overall mortalities of bled horseshoe crabs were 17.8% (male = 18.75%; female = 17.2%), while mortalities of unbled crabs were 3.5%." So it appears it indeed affects the crabs.
drewbug01 9y ago
> If it's just a needle insertion, why is this such a big deal? The article talks about how there's a bit of evidence to suggest that it may be a big deal, but that we really don't understand these animals so we're not really sure.
justinator 9y ago
> I don't think it's ridiculous to say that human lives are worth more than some momentary discomfort for crabs. Well: says the human.
- camelNotation 9y ago
  Well, yes. Whose side are you on, anyway?

SloughFeg 9y ago

Has anyone who is raising ethical concerns of this been around a horseshoe crab? They are essentially large insects. Killing a cockroach because it was in your house is objectively worse. It was just bugging you. This is saving human lives.

prodikl 9y ago
yeah this is how we start starship troopers
- SloughFeg 9y ago
  Would you like to know more?
LordKano 9y ago
Cockroaches are not discriminate in where they walk. One could easily contaminate your food with feces. Kill them just in case.
_yosefk 9y ago
I think the main concern is that they might go extinct. (Regarding the cockroach - don't Americans have the right to shoot human tresspassers? The crab on the other hand is plucked out of water which is its own home. This is not to say I'm against the practice - I'm not, unless the crab might go extinct.)
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > don't Americans have the right to shoot human tresspassers? That's a complicated question, but quite often "no" for mere trespass; the actual laws vary by state.
  - 77pt77 9y ago
    What about "stand your ground" and "castle" doctrines?

wollstonecraft 9y ago

The relevant limulus proteins can be expressed in vitro. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302069/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302069/

jfarlow 9y ago
It looks like (very much like insulin production in vitro) the proteins involved here are highly modified after translation. Some proteins are usable right after they are produced by the ribosome, some require extensive modification to be useful. It looks like Factor-C [1] needs substantial posttranslational by machinery that is not present to the organisms commonly used for industrial protein production. So not only do you have to produce the protein synthetically, but you also have to produce the modification machinery synthetically. An additional challenge is that the readout is at the bottom of a signal-amplified cascade [2]. And that cascade magnifies any error you have at the top (which is where that finicky Factor-C lives). Older synthetic assays read-out straight from activation of that first signal from Factor-C. This paper tries to recreate a portion of the cascade before reading out a result. But that now means you not only need to produce the Factor-C, the machinery to ensure Factor-C is properly produced, but you also need at least a few of the downstream components as well. So now you have a multi-component synthetic system - with all the grinding through the search-space and tuning that comes from having to optimize a multi-component biological system in vitro. That's a pretty complicated problem. The paper just came out less then two months ago, and concludes, "The present study supports the future production of recombinant reagents that do not require the use of natural resources". We're on the right track, but it seems this is actually a tricky problem. [1] (Factor-C protein) http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/P28175 http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/P28175 [2] (Coagulation Cascade) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302069/figure/fig1-1753425916681074/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302069/figure/...

sandworm101 9y ago

By mimicing industry the study is working uphill. The more direct approach would be to bleed and study a captive population. Bleed some already captive aquarium crabs. Then you can see exactly what happens when you return them to thier home tanks. That should answer some fundimental mortality and movement questions in days, if not hours. (Good luck finding a legit aquarium willing to let its animals participate.) They also focus too much on the bleeding. What matters is how many die from both the bleeding and the handling. The "control group" should be wild and uncaught animals.

Fomite 9y ago
One of the problems with your approach is that many industry groups have used "Well, this study doesn't exactly mimic field conditions, so it's not valid..." in the past.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  That assumes that we are looking to answer the entire question. I'd babystep towards that by first answering some basics. I want to know how much blood you can take and how long before the animal fully recovers. That can be better done in an aquarium setting with animals who are well-observed before and after. If draining a quart out of each captive animal kills 30%, that is a huge red flag without the hassle of radio tagging. I remember reading an interesting article about bleeding squirrels to study their relationship with snakes (through blood one can tell if they have every been bitten by a venomous snake). Squirrels don't have much blood. So the scientists determined that they needed a caged recovery period with free food/water, and a shot of antibiotics, before being returned. Maybe too these crabs.

spraak 9y ago

Take take take, don't give back. The earth isn't concerned with our human antics - it just responds in kind. We are bringing our own demise

AcerbicZero 9y ago

I found a few interesting facts during the first 10 minutes or so of googling this: 1. Bled crabs die at higher than reported rates (Closer to 20%-25% than the reported ~10%-15%) 2. Bled crabs are back at full blood capacity in a week, and usually fully functional within 2-3 months. 3. This crab blood is seriously important to modern medicine (duh?, but hey its nice to have confirmation) 4. Population numbers are all guesses, and I couldn't find a number which I'd be willing to bet on. Low number was ~600k (mature crabs) high number was several million. 5. Losing blood and being thrown back into the ocean is an order of magnitude better than being chopped up and used as bait. 6. A huge number of these crabs get chopped up and used as bait. They're valued at ~$2 each, as bait :( 7. These crabs lay upwards of 50k eggs per season, per female. A specific bird, the Red Knot, which doesn't seem to doesn't have magic medicinally valuable blood shows up and treats the eggs like an all you can eat buffet. 8. The Red Knot population has been on the rebound, thanks to conservation efforts revolving around the horseshoe crab, and the expanded food supply that offers. Enough other people have gone over the various moral issues with this, and I don't think I'd be able to add much there. To me, the whole situation seems trivial to solve, via enhanced conservation efforts, and heavily reduced bait harvesting. Probably wouldn't hurt to make a few Red Knot omelettes too. Bleed + Release > Bait harvest/baby crab genocide via bird.

anon_lastname 9y ago

Could not give less of a fuck about a horseshoe crab. Walk into any red lobster witb 20 bucks and get one served to you.

ReedJessen 9y ago

Interesting article. Never heard any of this before. I am ever so slightly skeptical. I wouldn't be surprised if this while article was a fabrication created as some social experiment to test was people will believe. "We bleed 1/3 of the blood out of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of horseshoe crabs then put them back in the wild... and you have never heard about it or seen it happen." This article just sets off my radar is a particular "April Fool's!" kind of way. Can't put my finger on it.

phoenixstrike 9y ago
Just wanted to say I have heard of this going back a few years. Skepticism is good but I didn't think there was anything overt in the article that raised red flags. Let's please not brush this off. There are tons of niche markets and industries and practices that you don't hear about. Anyone who has worked at a large company knows just how many hidden markets there are for all sorts of random shit. You just have to pay attention.
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