by Fisherman 40 Replies latest watchtower medical
[...] blood is encouraged for the simple reason that a whole industry depends on the use of the product for its existence.
I seldom come across such piece of ignorant and paranoid thinking. You copied some physiological facts, but you can not connect the dots together.
G
My friend a jw had a premature baby. Doctors forced a blood tranfusison. Within hours the babay died.
I am glad that I have the personal freedom to choose whether I want quarts or gallons of someone elses body fluid transfused into my body. I do not feel that a child can make that choice. Children should not be sacrificed to God by their parents respecting blood. I feel that if it is a matter of life and death, it is better to risk a blood transfusion thant to die . I would rather die though than to get infected with aids or ravaging hepatitis. Personally, I have been persuaded to believe that blood medicine does not necessarily violate Bible principles, however, I also believe that 55 gallon blood medicine is too risky and only in life and death situations does the benefits outweigh the risks.
My little girl had open heart surgery when she was 3 years old. She received blood. Thank God she is alive and healthy today. My cousin was born with the rh-factor and had all his blood replaced shorlty after his birth. He is alive and well today. Thank God. I do not think that allowing a child to die refusing blood and hoping for the resurecection is sound thinking. My heart goes out to families that regret choices based on emotion and indoctrination and now are bitter.
Though I totally agree with Forscher's post on the dangers of blood transfusion, there are times when ONLY blood will do. The alternative is certain death.
Risks aside, everything we do in life is a gamble, and nothing is certain. Blood is to be avoided if possible but some times it MUST be given to give the seriously ill a fighting chance!
A policeman was stabbed in the jugular in the UK a few days ago. He's still alive because he was given blood. A JW would have allowed him to die. A caring Health service saved his life!
Says it all really. A family still have a good father and a wife, a good husband.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/16/107053/1.ashx pointblank: Commentary and opinion by Chris Stevenson www.voiceoffreedom.com
Drowning in Hemoglobin: Can New blood Article narrow gap between religious doctrine and doctors. "We've had long and distasteful contact with many cults-Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and others. They hold wildly different beliefs, but all seem to share several common characteristics... 1-Love bombing, bombard him/her with love 2-Separation from family, get target to sever connection to their families... target must be made to believe family is evil 3-Brainwashing, loss of critical thinking 4-Exploitation." The God Squad-Monsignor Tom Hartman & Rabbi Marc Gellman In this era of purging religion and references to God and prayer from the classrooms, government buildings, and even that most famous holiday, Christmas, questions are now surfacing as to just how far some faiths have gone in order to establish and maintain control over their followers. Many churches have enjoyed a judicial free pass over the decades due to the First Amendment Clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Well, in hindsight, perhaps Congress should have made a law, but it errantly viewed the church to be under the control of someone higher than man, and in so doing, allowed religion to be essentially controlled by select groups of men. The world in general has too much potential to be hindered by religion, how much more-so a civilized society? In spite of such seeming governmental immunity, ways have been found to take some churches to task through the very courts these churches no-doubt prayed they'd avoid. Through the misuse of they're own guidelines, you can actually grab confident, smirking, church leaders by the proverbial collar, and nail them to the cross examination. A new article may-in the long run-result in a good day for God, and a bad day for fundamentalist religions, especially one religion in particular with a 60-year-hold on it's members due in part to it's well-known principle on blood transfusions. The essay; "Jehovah's Witnesses, Blood Transfusions, and the Tort of Misrepresentation, (JW/BT)," by Kerry Louderback-Wood is featured in the latest edition of the Journal of Church and State (vol.47-no. 4), a 1,000 page quarterly magazine published in paperback textbook format out of Baylor University. If indeed blood is thicker than water, then the JWs are the jealous waters endlessly hoping to seep into all aspects of human life as much as possible, watering down relationships people commonly enjoy primarily between family members, individuals and doctors. They're the driver going 55 while on the fast lane that refuses to move to the right lane, they insist you go slow also. The "American Heritage Dictionary" defines tort as: "Any wrongful act that does not involve a breach of contract and for which a civil suit can be brought." In other words, personal injury due to misrepresentation. JW/BT invokes another legal breakdown on torts called "Prosser and Keeton on Torts," Their take on this in part is: "(1)ambiguous statements [that are] made with the intent that the listener reach a false conclusion (2) literally true statements that create a false impression (3) words or acts which create a false impression covering up the truth; or (4) nondisclosure when 'the parties stand in some confidential or fiduciary relation to each other such as... old friends,... where special trust and confidence is reposed (brackets mine).'" Louderback-Wood cites examples where "freedom of religion" itself was breached by government in a case where the Supreme Court upheld a law against polygamy because it was seen as a threat to the traditional family unit (Reynold's v. US). JW/BT concludes by citing another religious/judicial hot potato, and drawing comparison to the government's duty to represent what is in the best interest of the American citizen if it is proven the religion they belong to isn't willing to do so: "...courts historically have been unwilling to meddle in religious affairs, and rightly so because the state should not dictate religious matters. But that tide is turning with the recent church sex scandals. Should a court allow victims (children and adults whose lives are at stake) to sue their religion when it has misrepresented either (1) its own policies or (2) secular writers to bolster its doctrinal position?" Louderback-Wood makes no attempt to prove whether or not said religion is true, or should be shut down, nor is she a blood advocate. What she does, is track the array of JW articles on the blood rule by their timeline, and finds some stunning intellectual misappropriations, small enough to go unnoticed over time if you are a practicing JW, yet significant enough to cost lives. Having grown up in a Witness family, and seeing her mother encounter the blood issue twice over, her interest on the subject motivated her to stop attending the JW meetings when she grew up, and pursue higher education (another no-no in that church, although fortunately-unlike the blood restriction-they are unable to make it an official rule outside the realm of power of suggestion. But that's a subject for another essay) at Georgia State University, and Florida State . The administrative arm of the Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) is its Watchtower Bible and Tract Society located in Brooklyn New York . They base their whole blood or whole blood cell transfusion prohibition on three scriptures, Genesis 9: 3-6, Leviticus 17: 13, 14 and Acts 15: 22-29. Of course several Bible passages have been fair game for various religions to enforce their chosen abstinence, even though many a given verse or verses had more relevance during the period it was written, or it was a small part under a completely different set of laws. The article cites the JW pamphlet "How Can Blood Save Your Life?"a strange title for a people who don't want blood to save your life. The seeming misrepresentation doesn't stop there, Louderback-Wood sees unnecessary attempts by the Watchtower to give the blood restriction credibility through the quotes of several authorities on blood that could prove costly to them and their followers. The quotes are crucial as the Watchtower advertises these doctored statements as "medical evidence" to prospective converts. Thus ancient biblical historians, scientists, and doctors such as Joseph Priestley, Eusebius, Tertullian, and Dr. John S. Spratt, had statements used in the pamphlet or their flagship magazine The Watchtower that were taken out of context, spinning isolated quotes as if they were advocates of the Watchtower's cause, exaggerating the medical risks of taking blood, and risk of contracting diseases such as AIDS, with the intent of leaving the JWs and their potential members with an immediate fear of dying, in addition to losing out on any hope of being a part of that faith's prime carrot; living forever in a peaceful new world (formerly called the "new order" and "new world order") through excommunication. The JW blood pamphlet quotes Priestley at it's conclusion, from a book he wrote during the 18th century: "if we interpret [the] blood prohibition of the Apostles by the practice of the primitive Christians, who can hardly be supposed not to have rightly understood the nature and extent of it, we cannot but conclude that it was intended to be absolute and perpetual; for blood was not eaten by any Christians for many centuries." To most Witness followers this is enough of a quote to give the impression that Mr. Priestley was against "eating blood" and therefore blood transfusions must fall under his "perpetual" list. After all, if a non-JW like Priestley rejects taking in blood, then it must be wrong. Louderback-Wood however, read further into Priestley's work, and found a striking discrepancy: "Priestley argued elsewhere that Christians could indeed eat blood because nothing that goes into the mouth defiles a man... It is a misrepresentation for the Society to quote Priestley as an adherent to an absolute prohibition, when in fact he was not committed to either eating or not eating blood and did not think the argument was important enough to include in his main text." This end-justifies-the-means approach may surprise some regarding the JWs, what stands to be more surprising is their apparent about-face regarding blood components, fractions and hemoglobin. In the same pamphlet (31 pages) the Watchtower states that Jehovah's Witnesses may accept blood components. Strange but true, for what are blood components such as hemoglobin, but blood itself? Will the Watchtower continue to prohibit adultery, but allow married men to go to strip clubs and get a lap-dance? Well this controversy runs deeper, according to JW/BT: "From 1954 to 1974, the Society banned most blood fractions. In 1958 the Society carved out the first exception, which provided that antibodies (such as tetanus, rabies, and snakebites) derived from blood could be accepted by individual judgment. In 1961 and 1964, the Society carved out another exception, permitting vaccinations and inoculations derived from blood to be accepted by personal judgment... In 1980, the Society began allowing any fractions of plasma,... and in 2000 purportedly began allowing any components of whole blood cells and plasma." Louderback-Wood goes on to state that it was a 1975 (again that dreaded year) mixup that eventually left a few members' blood boiling: "Indeed prior to 1975, followers with hemophilia were permitted to receive one infusion of Factor VIII, as it was considered medicine and not a feeding on blood. On February 1975, however, hemophiliac followers were directed they could no longer receive any clotting factors, including Factor VIII." What few knew, was that on 6/75 the Society reversed their ban on multiple infusions of clotting factors for their hemophiliacs (make up your minds will you), only they didn't publish it in their journals, particularly the Watchtower and Awake, or release it in any outside printed medium as the New York Times. Nope, reportedly the decision was to notify individual hemophiliac members, this became too much of a case load and there was a fear of upsetting the various congregation elders (their equivalent to Pastors etc.), so by and large, the JWs were kept in the dark about the reversal until an article in the 6/15/78 Watchtower. In 1981 avid JW readers of the Journal of the American Medical Association (virtually none) witnessed the official announcement of the change to the world at large. Things could be worse, that organization is more decisive with its hemoglobins than its homo-globins (child molesters). This is just the tip of the iceberg of Louderback-Wood's essay, implications get deeper once you read it. Imagine people suffering because a few religious officials wanted to needlessly add some secular-sauce to their blood edict, only to try to avoid embarrassment by covering up a time sensitive reversal. Followers of the strict faiths-like the JWs, Mormons, Christian Scientists etc.-do a better job defending their sect than their Organizational heads, unfortunately the JWs can't defend the Society in court as official legal representatives. The Watchtower wings it on researching the blood issue, and then hire real lawyers. Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion, his column Pointblank can be read at
What i learned, THE REAL DEAL:The RC at that time 2001 did in fact get only $120.00 for a pint of blood,of which at least half of this cost is spent by the RC themselves on rigorous laboratory testing.
The local director when on to say that "they have been broke for years and live hand to mouth and only 60 days from being evicted from their building for non payment of their rent."
Jehovah's Witnesses revile the Red Cross
This is my page that rebuts the watchtower LIE that the RC is in it for the money.
| http://www.watchtower.org/library/hb/article_00.htm this is the same URL as 2004 and it has been changed? Quality Alternatives to Transfusion | ||||
You might feel, 'Transfusions are hazardous, but are there any high-quality alternatives?' A good question, and note the word "quality." Everyone, including Jehovah's Witnesses, wants effective medical care of high quality. Dr. Grant E. Steffen noted two key elements: "Quality medical care is the capacity of the elements of that care to achieve legitimate medical and nonmedical goals." (The Journal of the American Medical Association, July 1, 1988) "Nonmedical goals" would include not violating the ethics or Bible-based conscience of the patient. — Acts 15:28, 29 .
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Skilled physicians can help one who has lost blood and so has fewer red cells. Once volume is restored, doctors can administer oxygen at high concentration. This makes more of it available for the body and has often had remarkable results. British doctors used this with a woman who had lost so much blood that "her haemoglobin fell to 1.8 g/dlitre. She was successfully treated . . . [with] high inspired oxygen concentrations and transfusions of large volumes of gelatin solution [Haemaccel]." (Anaesthesia, January 1987) The report also says that others with acute blood loss have been successfully treated in hyperbaric oxygen chambers.
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Many people today will not accept blood. For health reasons, they are requesting what Witnesses seek primarily on religious grounds: quality medical care employing alternative nonblood management. As we have noted, major surgery is still possible. If you have any lingering doubts, some other evidence from medical literature may dispel them.
* Witnesses do not accept transfusions of whole blood, red cells, white cells, platelets, or blood plasma. As to minor fractions, such as immune globulin, see The Watchtower of [June 15, 2000, pages 29-31]. #The Watchtower of [October 15, 2000], pages 30-1, considers Bible principles that bear on methods of blood salvage and on blood-circulating (extracorporeal) equipment.
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| How Can Blood Save Your Life? | |||||
| You Have the Right to Choose | |||||
A current medical approach (called risk/benefit analysis) is making it easier for doctors and patients to cooperate in avoiding blood therapy. Doctors weigh factors such as the risks of a certain drug or surgery and the probable benefits. Patients too can share in such an analysis. Let us use one example that people in many places can relate to—chronic tonsillitis. If you had this problem, likely you would go to a doctor. In fact, you might consult two, since health experts often recommend getting a second opinion. One might recommend surgery. He outlines what that means: length of hospital stay, amount of pain, and cost. As to risks, he says that severe bleeding is not common and death from such an operation is very rare. But the doctor giving a second opinion urges you to try antibiotic therapy. He explains the type of drug, likelihood of success, and expense. As to risk, he says that very few patients have life-threatening reactions to the drug.
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In many places today, the patient has an inviolable right to decide what treatment he will accept. "The law of informed consent has been based on two premises: first, that a patient has the right to receive sufficient information to make an informed choice about the treatment recommended; and second, that the patient may choose to accept or to decline the physician's recommendation. . . . Unless patients are viewed as having the right to say no, as well as yes, and even yes with conditions, much of the rationale for informed consent evaporates."—Informed Consent—Legal Theory and Clinical Practice, 1987.*
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| Many people agree that a court is no place for personal medical issues. How would you feel if you chose antibiotic therapy but someone went to court to force a tonsillectomy on you? A doctor may want to provide what he thinks is the best care, but he has no duty to seek legal justification to trample on your basic rights. And since the Bible puts abstaining from blood on the same moral level as avoiding fornication, to force blood on a Christian would be the equivalent of forcible sex—rape.— Acts 15:28, 29 . Yet, Informed Consent for Blood Transfusion (1989) reports that some courts are so distressed when a patient is willing to accept a certain risk because of his religious rights "that they make up some legal exceptions—legal fictions, if you will—to allow a transfusion to occur." They might try to excuse it by saying that a pregnancy is involved or that there are children to be supported. "Those are legal fictions," the book says. "Competent adults are entitled to refuse treatment." Some who insist on transfusing blood ignore the fact that Witnesses do not decline all therapies. They reject just one therapy, which even experts say is fraught with danger. Usually a medical problem can be managed in a variety of ways. One has this risk, another that risk. Can a court or a doctor paternalistically know which risk is "in your best interests"? You are the one to judge that. Jehovah's Witnesses are firm that they do not want someone else to decide for them; it is their personal responsibility before God. If a court forced an abhorrent treatment on you, how might this affect your conscience and the vital element of your will to live? Dr. Konrad Drebinger wrote: "It would certainly be a misguided form of medical ambition that would lead one to force a patient to accept a given therapy, overruling his conscience, so as to treat him physically but dealing his psyche a mortal blow."—Der Praktische Arzt, July 1978. LOVING CARE FOR CHILDREN | |||||
Court cases regarding blood mainly involve children. On occasion, when loving parents have respectfully asked that nonblood management be used, some medical personnel have sought court backing to give blood. Of course, Christians agree with laws or court action to prevent child abuse or neglect. Perhaps you have read of cases in which some parent brutalized a child or denied it all medical care. How tragic! Clearly, the State can and should step in to protect a neglected child. Still, it is easy to see how very different it is when a caring parent requests high-quality nonblood medical therapy.
* See the medical article "Blood: Whose Choice and Whose Conscience?" reprinted in the Appendix.
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Does anyone seriously think that the Red Cross, much less anybody else, tests for all those diseases, many of which are potentially fatal?
Yes, I do. For one thing, they are so severely regulated that I cannot imagine the many checks and double checks could be skipped.
Secondly, over the last 2 years, I have had lifesaving infusions of clotting factor comprised of blood cells from literally millions of people (~3 million donors per unit).*
------------------------>>>>>>>> Can you explain how I am still HIV negative if donor screening is not being done?
Thirdly, the Red Cross in the US is a nonprofit organization so no one should continue claiming they are out to make a profit. The fact is, they are not.
*By the way, I do prefer having taken clotting factor as opposed to being dead. If I had a choice other than death or disability, I would have not taken it.
I still have the wts mentality on blood. It is deeply rooted and ingrained. I cannot reason it away.
My grandmother (not a JW) died of a fast-moving bone cancer. She died after about a year. She refused radiation treatment because of the cancer risk, and blood transfusions because she feared AIDS.
HELLOOOO she was DYING of cancer. HIV or radiation were the LEAST of her worries. But, as with most terminal patients, the doctors followed her wishes. It was her life, and it was her death.
Her choices were just not reasonable or logical. I'd like to move people past their phobias, because some phobias can literally kill.
Fisherman, FWIW here are my thoughts on wishing away the jw mentality on blood.
An important distinction: Beliefs can indeed be reasoned away. It is feelings that are harder to shake off with logic alone.
So then we are left with feelings, which translates to fear and in some, a phobia. Been there, done that, breathed into the paper bag.
Experiencing a strong feeling is nothing to fear in itself. I had a full-blown phobia of taking clotting factor. It was hard, I was very embarassed to be crying hysterically in the treatment center, but I just kept telling myself it is just a feeling----feelings aren't facts. I am a fairly calm person and know my treatment staff on a personal level, so they were shocked to see me so upset and kept calling to see if I was ok. I suspect they thought I was going to have a breakdown or something.
Once you face a phobia, its power diminishes. I am still extremely hesitant to take clotting factor but not likely to decompensate into a weeping crazy person the next time I have to.
The best treatment for phobias/anxieties is cognitive behavioral therapy, which in part requires the person to challenge the logic behind their anxiety-provoking thoughts. Once you stop the illogical thinking, you are left with handling the learned anxiety response to whatever you're afraid of, and the way to overcome that is to just do it.
IMO the reason many xjws never get past this fully is because they don't have the opportunity to face their phobia head on (i.e., take a blood transfusion). And thankfully so!
