We all want safe medicines, vaccines and medical devices. To do this, they must be free of so-called pyrogens, which can cause fever or blood poisoning. To ensure this, animal-free pyrogen tests have been available for decades. Nevertheless, more than 550,000 horseshoe crabs are still pulled out of the sea every year to obtain test substances and transported to factories where up to a third of their blood is drawn from them without anaesthesia. According to estimates, about 150,000 animals do not survive this procedure.

We demand an immediate ban on the pyrogen test obtained from the blood of horseshoe crabs and a consistent use of existing animal-free methods.

The horseshoe crab blood test

Horseshoe crabs' blood clots when it comes into contact with certain bacteria. The so-called Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) test makes use of this. To do this, a cannula is inserted into the animals' hearts, the blue blood is tapped and the blood cells, the so-called amebocytes, are broken up. The resulting lysate can be used to test for certain pyrogens derived from bacteria.

Is there a cruelty-free alternative?

The components from horseshoe crab blood can be produced artificially in large quantities. The so-called rFC test has been available for around 25 years, this test replicates the properties of horseshoe crab blood, and has been proven to produce more precise results without any animals having to suffer or die. There is also a test procedure that uses human blood cells, the “MAT test”. The cells are brought together with the substance to be tested and the reaction of the immune cells is then measured. This test makes it possible to detect all pyrogens that can harm humans, including those that cannot be found in horseshoe crab blood. 

The senseless suffering of the horseshoe crabs must end!

The testing of medicines, vaccines and medical devices is required by law and the procedures that may be used for this are recorded in the European Pharmacopoeia. It is incomprehensible why the cruel LAL test is still listed in these regulations even though there are animal-free methods available that are even superior to this test.

Our years of protests have led to the removal of the rabbit pyrogen test from the European Pharmacopoeia in 2026. This must also be possible for the LAL test!

We demand the immediate deletion of the LAL test from the pharmacopoeia. We call on pharmaceutical companies to switch to animal-free testing of their products and laboratories that offer the LAL test as a service to immediately remove the LAL test from their program.

For more detailed information about the Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) test, please visit here.