Any former HLC people here? Or know of any personally?

by Mad Sweeney 8 Replies latest watchtower medical

  • Mad Sweeney
    Mad Sweeney

    I'm wondering whether HLC members have "report interesting cases to the Society" as part of their duties.

    There is a typical JW chain email going around right now about a blood doctrine victim in Kansas named Shay Brooks. The email is written in such Borg Writing Department style that I suspect it wasn't started by an actual friend of the victim's family but rather by writers at Bethel, who then leak the story out into the email grapevine of JWs, letting it take on a life of its own.

    A little digging confirms that a 13 year old boy by the name of Shay Brooks died in January in Wichita, KS, USA, and the online Obituary comments show that he was indeed a JW kid who "died faithful" to the Borg.

    But there are comments in the circulating email that make me suspicious about the veracity of the details surrounding this poor kid's experience.

    One thing it says is that he went to the hospital with a nosebleed and was diagnosed with "the kind of leukemia that only gives you a matter of days." My BS meter instantly went off and I've been googling about Leukemia every free moment this morning to find out if such a thing really exists. So far, I haven't found anything to support the concept that there is a form of leukemia that only gives a patient a matter of days. If anyone knows more about this disease, please post it.

    Another thing the email said is, "He went into the hospital and immediately they wanted to give him blood." Really? Immediately? For a nosebleed? More likely, it was after he was diagnosed with leukemia that they admitted him to the hospital and wanted to give transfusions to save his life, but the email doesn't specify that it was a second, later hospital admission, leaving the reader to think hospitals react with blood transfusions to treat pretty much everything, even when they're not needed [the Borg is wise, the medical establishment is reactionary, dangerous, and foolish]. The lack of a specific timeline of events or any solid evidence about any of it is suspicious to me.

    It goes on to lay out how they went to court and fought for this poor kid's right to be a Borg victim, how he wanted to get baptized before he died, so they let him, managing to dip him just three days before he died, how the funeral went, and what a great witness it was to others.

    In short, it made me sick reading it.

    But back to the original question, do these stories get back to the Society via the HLC? If so, isn't it likely that people at Bethel release these into the grapevine to "encourage the friends" rather than publishing a PR-damaging Awake! article like they did in the 1990s? The tone of this thing, coming on the heels of the "How To Let Your Kids Die For Us" letter given to the elders last fall, just makes me think it all falls together too nicely.

    Sometimes coincidences DO have a cause. This one makes me wonder.

  • Gayle
    Gayle

    Mad Sweeney, I have sent this account on to an ex-HLC/elder/JW for his opinion. Will let you know.

    This account about Shay Brooks is so sickening. It reminds me of Dennis Lindberg, 14, in Seattle. The judge ruled for Dennis to refuse the transfusion, had leukemia and died. Seemed the media, Dennis' school mates, radio talk show caused a good uproar about it there a few years ago.

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2004041765_transfusion29m.html

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer

    Mad Sweeney,

    You write:

    “I'm wondering whether HLC members have "report interesting cases to the Society" as part of their duties.”

    Most definitely.

    Since inception of the HLCs I have known and know HLC members and Watchtower staffers working in its Hospital Information Services department, and reporting on cases is a standard protocol. For a variety of reasons Watchtower will sometimes ask for more detail on a particular case, and particularly if it involves a child. But in the case of HLC and Watchtower, it would be highly unusual for any of these official HLC reports to see the light of day because of privacy concerns. Watchtower takes extraordinary precaution to avoid creating or leaving impression that patient information is treated recklessly.

    As for the particular patient presentation you cite, I’d have to know more to comment one way or another. But generally speaking, I’d not give too much weight to a email floating around. More than likely it is written by some idiot who could not tell the difference between an elephant and a typewriter. When it comes to Witnesses, blood and the rumor e-mill there is just about no limit to embellishment, misunderstanding and misrepresentation. The odd couple of exaggeration and understatement often find themselves bed-partners in the process.

    Marvin Shilmer

  • JW GoneBad
    JW GoneBad

    Mad Sweeney:

    I received the same e-mail. The individual who sent me the story is usually very careful not to be a party to rumors or reports of this sort that have not been confirmed.

    In any case, it seems everything happened way too fast for this little boy. You'd think that with all the recent talk about blood fractions being O.K. and the like, that there would of been something out there to help Shay that could have bought him some time.

    I sure hope his parents knew what they were doing. I'll tell you I lost some sleep over this last night!

    If anyone is interested in reading more, the email suggested looking up 'Shay Brooks' on youtube.

  • VIII
    VIII

    I am curious why JWs don't run Obits in the local newspapers?

    I know for sure that no one in my family has ever had an Obit run when they died. They were all JWs. The only way one knew they died was the Legacy.com thing.

    This is the one for Shay Brooks. The notes people have left, from all over the US, are telling.

    http://www.legacy.com/guestbook/kansas/guestbook.aspx?n=shay-brooks&pid=148153819&cid=gbsrchres

  • Mad Sweeney
    Mad Sweeney

    The notes are telling, all right. They are telling the world:

    itsacult

  • JW GoneBad
    JW GoneBad

    'Any Former HLC people here? Or know of any personlly?'

    I know a number of brothers who serve and have served on the HLC. For the most part they are personable and have (I would say) good bedside manners as anyone visiting patients in a hospital should have. But to qualify to handle life threatening medical situations/emergencies on behalf of another related to blood.....I doubt it!

    Most HLCs have little or no schooling in the medical field. HLCs I know are either 'widget' salesmen, unemployed/retired with nothing else to do, construction workers, in the janitorial field etc, etc, etc.

    What qualifies you to be an HLC member? You need to be an Elder and available.......Thats' it!

    I wonder what the brothers' expertise is/are in the secular world who handled Shay Brooks' life threatening situation?

    This is indeed sad if the above e-mail account is true!

  • TD
    TD

    It sounds like a true story that got garbled via the telling.

    Transfusion does not combat leukemia, it is given to counter the effects of aggresive chemotherapy.

    The parents were likely warned upfront that transfusion would be required. And this got distorted into the idea that the medical team wanted to transfuse immediately.

    Acute forms of leukemia can overrun the body in a matter of months and some of that time get's burned up before the patient really feels bad enough to see their physician. Sometimes the patient only makes it a month or so after diagnosis as Gayle's example shows. Very sad.

  • Mad Sweeney
    Mad Sweeney

    I agree, TD. The hospital probably didn't want to transfuse, immediately. They probably only mentioned it immediately, knowing that the family are JWs.

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