Do "Thousands of JWs die each year" because they refuse blood? I say YES! (page 4)

ldrnomo

I suppose we would all agree that whether tousands die each year from refusing blood or only hundred die it is still a serious problem when a group of men are responsible for the decisions made by the rank and file followers.

LD

AndersonsInfo

Thanks to those who found the mistake like “caterer,“ which spell-check didn’t catch because it is an actual word but should have been “catheter.” And “prostrate” which should have been “prostate.” In that same paragraph I wrote it right once and wrong the second time. I should have sent the whole thing to a very smart former JW, who has volunteered to edit my work, but I didn’t do it this time.

There’s certainly lots of food for thought in this thread and I take to heart all the posts about this issue.

Peggy: Unless someone lives through the experience you related about your daughter, the emotional suffering, strain and damage cannot truly be comprehended and that's why we all need to hear about what WT's blood-ban is doing to the lives of real people. To my mind it’s comparable to Witnesses who really don’t understand the WT’s sexual child abuse policies until they go through the mess themselves when a loved one is harmed. Then when the reality hits home—the frustration, anger, sorrow, loss of control, and helplessness—it defies description.

I’m so happy your daughter’s story had a happy ending. I’ve seen too many children so completely messed up and lost without their mom or dad when a parent needlessly died because of WT’s blood-ban policy and it’s something never to be forgotten. It's these memories that push me on. JW onlookers are not immune to feelings when such tragedy unfolds, but we taught ourselves, with WT’s never-ending tutoring, to box up our feelings, telling ourselves, “Oh, he/she will come back in the resurrection...” as we steeled ourselves to continue in our door-to-door preaching work looking for the next victim of our persuasive and fanciful Bible interpretations that would also lead them into a life of emotional unconsciousness and never-ending servitude to a human organization that gives nothing in return.

TD

Aligot,

There are, I assume, very few, if any , statistics about JWs dying because they refuse blood. So, as it was put by another poster, we are here on the terrain of opinions and conjectures. Is record kept of all the people throughout the world who died because of transfusions ? of course not, big companies involved in blood trade will see to it.

....That sounds Rutherfordesque to me.

Both the risks of accepting blood and the risks of refusing blood have been analyzed statistically.

The most favorable study done in support of the JW position was conducted in 1993 by Dr. Craig S. Kitchens, a VA physician in Gainesville Florida. Kitchens searched MEDLINE and compiled 1404 surgical cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses which were collated into 16 surgical categories. Although Kitchens questioned the propriety of reflexively administering blood and rightly so, his own figures showed increased mortality associated with refusing blood ranging from amounts too small to measure to 2.77% and 8.33% in cardiovascular surgery. Overall, refusing blood resulted in an increased mortality of between 0.5% and 1.5%

On the flip-side of the coin, Sazama analyzed 355 blood transfusion associated deaths reported to the United States Food and Drug Administration just three years prior to this. The short-term mortality rate from accepting blood, which corresponds to Kitchens' estimate of short-term mortality rate from refusing blood, was 1 to 1.2 per 100,000 patients who received blood transfusions.

In other words, receiving blood transfusion increased mortality by 0.001 to 0.0012%, whereas refusing blood transfusion increased mortality by 0.5% to 1.5%.

The risk of blood transfusion was again extensively reviewed in the "Medical Progress" review in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1999. In this review, overall mortality from blood transfusion is estimated between 23 and 44 deaths per million units of blood. These numbers include every known complication from blood ransfusion, not just short-term mortality as in Sazama's report.

These figures do not directly speak to the magnitude of risk associated with allowing hemoglobin levels to fall much below 7g/dL. (Commonly considered to be the transfusion threshold in low risk patients) Carson et al. found that 61.5% of patients whose preoperative hemoglobin fell below 6 g/dL died following the surgery. Patients who refuse a blood transfusion deemed absolutely medically necessary by a physician therefore create a very substantial risk of death

wobble

Thank you TD, your knowledgeable posts are invaluable, priceless even, on here.

Of course this is a little ahead of the game, JW's need a relaxation of the present stance of the WT on blood before they can start to compare the risks. At present they do not have a real choice.

I wonder too, if our own dear Mary is not on to something big, could it be that , having got the fractions total nonsense accepted as a Doctrine, they can add the use of packed red cells or platelets as at least a "conscience" matter ? Was this their aim in introducing the fractions concept?

If so they really are playing with peoples lives, as well as their minds. How Satanically devious they must be.

I rather think though that they are doing these things on the hoof, I don't think they have the intelligence to plan it out.

Whatever, if they slide out of the blood problem. lives will not be lost in the future, and I am sure more will wake up, but we need to keep the pressure on to make sure progress is made on this, GO ANDERSONS !

Love

Wobble

aligot ripounsous

TD,

thank you for this information, like all statistics they have to be handled with caution. I won't criticize them since I know nothing in the matter. Still, I remember very well what we called in France the contaminated blood scandal, where stocks of HIV tainted blood, collected in prisons, had been wilfully sold because manufacturers convinced the political powers that the financial loss incured by destroying these stocks was unbearable. Didn't happen in Rutherford time, just in 1985, and I can't see any reason why it wouldn't occur again in poor countries where it is so easy to corrupt decision makers.

justpassing

I wonder how many people die each year BECAUSE of blood transfusion?

Maybe you could have a look at that Barbara.

http://www.jonbarron.org/heart-health-program/05-12-2008.php

Blood transfusions have been used as a standard medical procedure for over 100 years. And now it turns out they may be responsible for many millions of unnecessary deaths worldwide during that time. How could this be? Unlike alternative health, modern medicine is based on science -- not anecdotal evidence. So why didn't all those scientific studies on blood transfusions figure out that blood transfusions are, at best, an iffy proposition that should be reserved only for the most dire of emergencies?

The answer is quite simple. Until recently, there were no studies either supporting or negating blood transfusions -- or at least none that the medical community paid attention to.

besty

I wonder how many people die each year BECAUSE of blood transfusion?

I wonder how many people die each year because of medical mismanagement of all kinds?

Specifically what we are talking about here is a religious group deliberately misinforming its members about the risks of blood therapy to support a very dubious religious doctrine.

This directly leads to the senseless deaths of men, women and children, sometimes babies.

Some active Jehovah's Witnesses demand change - all they ask for is a level playing field with regard to medical treatment with the rest of the human race - after that they are in the hands of the medical community, hopefully for better but occasionally for worse, unfortunately. They want their religion to step out of the conversation between them and their doctor.

Please don't create a red herring about the risks of taking blood - this is not the argument here.

choosing life

JP, I think blood transfusions are "reserved for the most dire emergencies". That should be between the doctor and the patient, not some religious body.

One thing a lot of jws don't realize is that refusal of blood is not a pretty picture. Many think they will just drift into unconsciousness, but lack of blood affects the heart. Many die excruciating deaths of cardiac arrest. The pain can be difficult or impossible to control.

Once you have seen it, up close and personal, it is hard to believe that any god approves and requires such human sacrifice.

AndersonsInfo

Wonderful comments, all of them.

Hey Besty. You said in a few sentences what I've been trying to put together for the past hour as a reply regarding the risks of taking blood. Thank you.

Barb

besty

Hey Besty. You said in a few sentences what I've been trying to put together for the past hour as a reply regarding the risks of taking blood. Thank you.

LOL - let me know if you need any more help. :-))

I meant to also include a word of welcome to justpassing - please stick around - although your choice of username leads me to believe that may not be your plan....

Do "Thousands of JWs die each year" because they refuse blood? I say YES!

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