TALK ABOUT PICKING SCABS!

How about eating bandages?

Here’s a good reason why we need healthy oceans. As reported by Fish Update . Com

After a long search for a better way to stop extreme bleeding, the U.S. Army has purchased more than 400,000 bandages made from chitosan, a polysaccharide extracted from the exoskeletons of Icelandic shrimp.

Before deciding on the $10 million HemCon purchase last year, the Army tested fibrin bandages, collagen sponges and nanoporous ceramic powder, Wired News reported.

“The chitosan dressing has achieved over 97 percent success rates for external hemorrhage control in current combat operations,” Dr John McManus of the Army research programme for Combat Casualty Care is reported to have said.

Chitosan is a mucoadhesive, which means it gets very sticky when wet with blood. It's a derivative of chitin, the hard carbohydrate found in insect and shellfish exoskeletons, and has been used by tissue engineers as a scaffold for growing new body parts. It has also been used to deliver drugs.

Although they are edible and made from shrimp, the bandages don't taste a bit like seafood.

“We have tasted them,” said Staci McAdams, vice president of marketing at HemCon. “They aren’t gourmet.”

More importantly, they will not cause a deadly reaction in people who are allergic to shellfish. Allergic reactions are triggered by protein — chitosan is a carbohydrate.

HemCon is due to begin selling a civilian version of its flagship bandage this summer.