The biomedical industry is adopting new standards to protect a primordial sea animal that is a linchpin of the production of vital medicines. But conservationists worry the approach doesn’t go far enough in protecting horseshoe crabs that are a food for a declining bird species. Drug and medical device makers depend on the valuable blue blood of the crabs to test for potentially dangerous impurities. The animals are drained of some of their blood and returned to the environment, yet some inevitably die. Regulators say recent revisions to the guidelines for handling the animals should keep more alive through the process.
