NO BENEFITS TO BLOOD TRANSFUSION...?

by Gill 61 Replies latest watchtower medical

• 

  Gill

  The August 2006 Awake, makes the claim that there is NO benefit to blood transfusion except in trauma, according to PRoffessor Bruce Spiess:

  There are few if any (medical) articles that supposrt transfusion actually improving outcome." In fact, he writes that many transufusions 'may do more harm than good in virtually every instance except trauma,' increasing 'the risk of pneumonia, infections, heart attacks and strokes.'

  On the next page, an interesting paragraph, and a quote from an unnamed source:

  'In truth, more than a few health care workers express themselves as did one hematologist, who told Awake, 'We transfusion medicine specialists do not like to get or to give blood.' If this is the feeling among some well trained individuals in the medical community, how should patients feel?'

  I also found disturbing, and wonder what the purpose was of having five lovely little children, aged about 7, photographed on page ten, above the title, The Real Value of Blood. Why the pictures of five children in what is a chapter on the WTBTS view of not accepting blood?

  On the opposite page, was the article on What are Hemoglobing Based Oxygen Carriers?

  Though, not for one minute, do I believe that there are not risks in blood, I found the article hysterical in its fear of disease, and threatening in that it was producing the possibility in peoples minds that new diseases could well be in store in blood, as serious as AIDS, and the possibility that these have not yet been discovered. It was a very fear ful article. It caused me to think of the number of people I know now, who have had blood transfusion in emergencys and are alive and well 10, 15, 20, 30 + years later.
• 

  Pistoff

  WIll the society EVER learn? More MEDICAL reasons to avoid blood; this is the type of persuasion that gets them into trouble all the time.

  News flash: not many people ELECT to take blood if it is not NECESSARY, you stupid old men in the writing department.

  TRAUMA is the REAL reason to take blood transfusion; if you are dying from lack of blood pressure or anoxia, a suppressed immune system as your only problem sounds pretty good.

  LIARS, CHEATS, FRAUDS.
• 

  jayhawk1

  Can somebody post that? I could use it in a speech I'm doing in College.
• 

  Scully

  I'd love a scan of this article if someone could make one. I'm sure my Transfusion Medicine Specialist colleagues would be very interested to see it.
• 

  damselfly

  I'm interested in this as well if someone could scann it. I'll be studying tranfusion medicine next year as part of my course. Can't wait.
  
  dams
• 

  glitter

  Why are they bringing medical disadvantages into it at all? Surely if Jehovah said no, then it's no - it shouldn't matter that it's "dangerous" to "prove" that Jehovah's rule is correct...
• 

  TD

  Generalization is one of their favorite fallacies when it comes to transfusion. In this context, Spiess' use of the term is more specific that than of the Witnesses, as he was referring to only the augmentation of a patient's oxygen delivery via red cells.

  Witness writers love to use specific statements like these as a general condemnation of transfusion in all its forms.
• 

  Gill

  I will try to get some help to scan this article in later. However, I tried to scan the new book and ran into all kinds of problems, so I can't promise. Failing that, if no one else has the mag and can do it, I'll type the whole thing out.
• 

  Gill

  TRANSUFIONS MEDICINE - IS ITS fUTURE sECURE? 'Transfusion medicine will continue to be a little like walking through a tropical rainforest, where the known paths are clear but still require careful navigation, and new and unseen threats may still lurk around the next corner to trap the unwary.' - Ian M. Franklin, professor of transfusion medicine. After the worldwide AIDS epidemic cast the spotlight on blood in the 1980's the efforts to eliminate its 'unseen threats' intensified. Still, huge obstacles remain. In June 2005, the World Health Organization acknowledged: 'The chance of receiving a safe tranfusion... varied enormously from one country to another.' Why? In many lands there are no nationally coordinated programs to ensure safety standards for the collection, testing and transport of blood, and blood products. Sometimes blood supplies are even stored dangerously - in poorly maintained domestic refrigerators and picnic boxes! Without safety standards in place, patients can be adversely affected by the blood drawn from someone who lives hundreds - if not thousands - of kilometers away. DISEASE-FREE BLOOD - A MOVING TARGET Some countries claim that their blood supplies have never been safer. Yet, there are still reasons for caution. A 'Circular of Information' prepared jointly by three U.S. blood agencies states on its first page : WARNING: Because whole blood and blood componenets are made from human blood, they may carry a risk of transmitting infectious agents, eg viruses...Careful donor selection and available laboratory tests do not eliminate the hazard.' Not without reason does Peter Carolan, the senior officer of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, say; 'Absolute guarantees on blood supplies can never be given.' He adds: 'There will always be new infections for which at the moment there is no test.' What if a new infectious agent were to appear - one that, like AIDS, remains in an undetectable carrier state for a long time and is readily tranmitted by means of blood?' Speaking at a medical conference in Prague, Czech Republic, in April 2005, Dr Harvey G. Klein of the US Nation Institutes of Health called the prospect sobering. He added: 'The blood component collectors would be scarecely better prepared to interdict a transfusion transmitted epidemic than they were during the early days of AIDS.' MISTAKES AND TRANSFUSION REACTIONS What are the greatest transfusion related threats to patients in developed countries? Errors and immunologic reactions. Reagarding a 2001 Canadian study, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported that thousands of blood transfusions involved near misses because of 'collecting blood samples from the wrong patient, mislabelling samples and requesting blood for the wrong patient.' Such mistakes cost the lives of at least 441 people in the US between 1995 and 2001. Those who receive blood from another person face risks essentially similar to those undergoing an organ tranplant. Immune responses tend to reject foreign tissue. In some case, blood transfusions can actually prevent the activation of natural immune responses. Such immunosuppression leaves the patient vulnerable to postoperative infections and to viruses that had previously been inactive. It is no wonder that Professor Ian M Franklin quoted at the outset of this article, encourages clinicians to ' think once, twice and three times before transfusing patients.' This is part of the second article. If no one has scanned the whole thing later, I will type out more.
• 

  greendawn

  For all its dangers blood transfusion has saved countless lives, a lot more than it harmed, and common sense dictates that it has to be seen in a positive light.
  
  That article is just one more piece of propaganda for internal consumption by the naive dubs.