Out of Time: Biomedicine, Endotoxin Detection, and the Plight of the Horseshoe Crab

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Project Summary This project is to write a book-length account of the biomedical use of American horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) to produce Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) – a compound used to detect the presence of potentially deadly toxins in all intravenous drugs, vaccines, and medical devices and a vital part of global public health infrastructure. This monograph will explore the history of LAL, its global implications, and the contemporary biopolitics around crab conservation and synthetic replacements for LAL in the pharmaceutical industry. The book’s contribution to health and medicine will be to shed light on a largely unknown component of public safety, and to aid in the development of theoretical frameworks for understanding the complexities of policymaking around drug and medical device manufacture – particularly when those policies may be in tension with other societal goals, such as environmental protection. No full-length monograph of the LAL industry currently exists, and the proposed book aims to be a contribution and model for cross-disciplinary, humanities-based, and policy-relevant work in analyzing biomedical infrastructures by deepening our understanding of the role of endotoxin detection in public health. More broadly, this project’s approach will lend itself to understanding a wide range of public health issues in which diverse regulatory agencies and stakeholder groups are involved. A significant innovation of this project is to conceptualizes the nexus of human and animal health as a site where biomedicine can both rely upon, and be in tension with, conservation. The proposed book will build upon and contribute to a range of historiography in American medicine, including histories of pharmaceutical development and regulation, as well as global histories of medicine and environmental history. In addition, by collecting published and unpublished documentation and conducting stakeholder interviews, the book will analyze the contemporary regulatory landscape in which LAL, its proposed synthetic replacements, and other biomedical innovations are currently being assessed. This project will appeal to academic scholars, stakeholders, and broad audiences interested in biomedicine and public health.