Blood of the horseshoe crab helps save humans (page 2)

bebu

I guess it's okay to put the life of unkosher creatures into your system!

bebu

Yes. A couple of interesting facts about lobsters: The blood is generally CLEAR in color, and they have more blood per mass of the animal than your typical land vertebrate...it becomes coagulated and turns white when you cook 'em. Betcha never hear from the WTS that ya need to thoroughly cleanse lobsters of the coagulated white stuff!!! According to the OT you shouldn't be eating them in the first place!!

Its blood lacks hemoglobin, the substance that a typical vertebrate's blood uses to transport oxygen. This is why it's not red in color. Instead it contains hemocyanin -- a material made of protein subunits complexed with copper ions (1). Hemoglobin, on the other hand, is based on iron. Both substances are known as a respiratory pigment, meaning it chemically binds to oxygen in areas of high oxygen concetration and releases it in areas of lower oxygen concentration (1), and thus is able to transport oxygen through the bloodstream.

Another interesting fact: A lobster's respiratory pigment hemocyanin is NOT contained in blood cells. It's free-flowing in the blood. Further, there are some invertebrates, like certain sea cucumbers and "blood clams" that use hemoglobin as its respiratory pigment. Its hemoglobin is free flowing in the blood as well, not being encased in red blood cells as is the case in vertebrates. Who says red blood cells necessarily are a primary component of blood? (It's all about the pigment, baby!) The only reason, BTW that hemoglobin has to be encased within in a cell membrane in vertebrates is due to the fact that the hemoglobin compound is so small that it would simply diffuse out of the bloodstream through the vessel walls if it weren't. Invertebrate hemoglobin, on the other hand, is much larger in size for one, and blood flow is through an open circulatory system, where it is not restricted to vessels.

Reference:

1. "Invertebrate Differences", by Ronald L Shimek, Ph.D., http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/rs/index.php

M.J.

Oysters. Oyster blood is colorless and so is not discernable by the human eye. So when you swallow one of those babies raw, you're gulping down the whole circulatory sytem. Is this not a problem?

TheListener

I think this is incredible.

Whether or not the animal is "a breather" the WT clearly says(thanks mj for the quote):

*** w73 4/1 p. 224 Questions From Readers ***
Fish that were suitable for food according to the terms of the Mosaic law did not contain a quantity of blood sufficient to be poured out and covered with dust. Evidently for this reason the Law set forth no precise statement about bleeding fish.
There being no Scriptural stipulation to squeeze or soak meat to remove blood, no one is under obligation to take extreme measures to extract blood from fish. Of course, the blood of every sort of creature represents its life and is therefore sacred. So, if, on cutting a fish open, a person sees an accumulation of blood, he should remove it.

Therefore it would be wrong by WTS standards to suck the blood from the animal and use it in medical practices. It's not like you're eating one crab and incidentally running across blood - no, you're specifically getting the blood only and not even using the meat of the animal - and for medical purposes at that!

Let's see if we can find out how much of the stuff they use in IVs.

AK - Jeff

During my final few years in the dubs, I began to ask 'curious' questions. They were legitimate, mind you, but curious to witnesses who never question anything from HQ.

One of the main one's was "Would a Christian [pronounced JW] properly eat a lobster, since it contains blood.?"

I got a ton of funny looks. A few shrugs. But never a single answer. I ask elders. I ask Co's. I ask Do's. I searched the society's publications.

Funny that the answer that I never got was right there in the pubs all along, but not a single witness knew it. Apostate brain-power rules!

Jeff

TheListener

aha!!

I found a website that states that lobsters can in fact take in air to live. That is what makes shipping live lobsters possible.

http://www.chilipaper.com/FWharf/Lobster/Lobster_Handling/lobster_handling.htm

"Lobsters have a limited ability to take in oxygen while in air, a fact that makes shipping live lobsters in air possible. However, for the lobster to be able to extract as much oxygen as is required to remain strong and healthy, they must be kept cool and their air moist at all times."

And from another webiste that white stuff covering the lobster meat (which if you've eaten lobster you've seen) is in fact blood!!!(I can't believe I never knew this):

http://www.maine-lobster.com/lobfacts.htm#blood

What is the white substance covering my lobsters meat

Lobsters have a primitive circulatory system and blood. When they are alive, their blood appears clear, but once they have been cooked, the blood congeals and turns white. You will often see it on the claws in particular. The cooked blood has no taste and is harmless. You can easily scrape it off if you wish. Sometimes you will see some blood in your pot as you boil your lobsters. Once again it is perfectly harmless and quite normal.

TheListener

Excerpt taken from: http://www.horseshoecrab.org/med/med.html

How is an LAL test performed?

To use the commercial product, a laboratory reconstitutes the vial of freeze-dried LAL with endotoxin-free water. An equal amount of reconstituted LAL, usually 0.1 ml, is then added to the sample solution in a small, glass, endotoxin-free test tube. The mixture is then incubated at 37C for one hour. At the end of this time, the mixture is examined for gel formation by gently inverting the tube. If sufficient endotoxin was present in the sample, a firm gel, one that can withstand inversion of the tube, is formed. Knowing the sensitivity of the LAL then allows the investigator to determine the quantity of endotoxin in the sample. If the sample is found to contain an amount that exceeds the limit set by the FDA, the sample fails and the lot of pharmaceutical product must be rejected. The US FDA currently requires the LAL test to be performed on all human and animal injectables as well as medical devices used to deliver these injectables. In addition, many implantable devices and artificial kidneys used for renal dialysis also require an LAL test.

Are there other uses for LAL?

Since LAL detects endotoxin, a component of Gram-negative bacteria, the test can also be used to detect the presence of these bacteria. However, there are two major drawbacks:

1. LAL cannot discriminate between living and dead bacteria, and
2. LAL cannot differentiate species of bacteria-endotoxin, which cause a similar reaction with LAL.

Even with these drawbacks, the LAL test has been used to rapidly diagnose urinary tract infections and spinal meningitis. In these cases, the presence of endotoxin is almost always indicative of living bacteria, i.e., an infection, and the types of bacteria causing these infections are few and quite similar. The LAL test has also been used to assess food spoilage (fish, milk, ground beef), air and water quality, and (in experiments) to determine the ability of new drugs to neutralize the toxic effects of endotoxin.

Are there other compounds in the horseshoe crab that are of biomedical interest?

Besides LAL, a number of reagents and medically useful compounds have been discovered in the blood of the horseshoe crab. These include:

A new test for fungal infections (G-Test) which is already in use in Japan and is expected to be licensed in the US next year
An endotoxin-neutralizing protein which has potential as an antibiotic as well as an alternative endotoxin assay. This protein, ENP, can be made synthetically, which would eliminate the use of live horseshoe crabs for the LAL reagent.
A number of other proteins that show anti-viral and anti-cancer activity.

Written for ERDG by: Thomas J. Novitsky, Ph.D.
Edited by: Lisa Smith

peacefulpete

Well I guess my memory was wrong. I would have sworn they drew a distinction between fish and air breathers. OF course I would not have likely remebered the 73 article so maybe they wrote a contradictory piece later, who knows and who cares. Very intersting research about lobsters as well.

M.J.

heh heh...

***

w90 9/1 p. 5 Does the Soul Survive Death? ***

Interestingly, being a soul is not unique to man. Genesis 1:20 tells us that in one creative epoch, God said: "Let the waters swarm forth a swarm of living souls." Yes, even fish are souls! In another creative epoch, God indicated that the "domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast" are souls!—Genesis 1:24; compare Leviticus 11:10, 46; 24:18; Numbers 31:28; Job 41:21; Ezekiel 47:9.

"Soul" in the Bible, therefore, does not refer to some shadowy spirit entity that leaves the body after death. It means a person or an animal, or the life that a person or an animal enjoys.

***

w73 5/15 p. 301 par. 5 Avenging the Blood of the Innocent Ones ***

Animals, fish and birds are called "souls" (Gen. 1:20-24)

peacefulpete

I was wrong.

Blood of the horseshoe crab helps save humans

Share this