Last month, I wrote here on MattChat about the use of llama blood to help fight coronavirus:
https://matthonnold.blogspot.com/2020/05/llama-blood.html
Now today, I came across this:
The Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine Runs on Horseshoe Crab Blood
Humans owe a debt to the strange-looking, ancient horseshoe crab. Its blue blood is used in medicine to ensure that anything that gets injected or implanted into the human body is free of potentially life-threatening bacterial contamination. A special compound in the crab’s blood quickly clots in the presence of endotoxins, microbial byproducts that can be harmful, supplying a perfect natural test for purity. In the race to find a COVID-19 vaccine, horseshoe crab blood is very important.
In 2018, the blood harvest drained a third of the vital fluids from nearly 500,000 crabs in the U.S., according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. After scores of steel needles suck their blood, each helmet-shaped crawler gets released back to where it was caught—but thousands of them die in the process.
(https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/race-coronavirus-vaccine-runs-horseshoe-crab-blood-180975048/)
What an incredible relationship between humans and crabs. Amazing how all this is knit-together.
Grace & Peace & Love to you all -
Matt
p.s. More on this:
Wildlife groups pressure Big Pharma to curb crab blood addiction
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-pharmaceuticals-cr/wildlife-groups-pressure-big-pharma-to-curb-crab-blood-addiction-idUSKBN2382SG