Bloodless transfer of kidneys between JWs

by dozy 5 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  dozy

  http://www.metro.co.uk/news/883321-blood-free-kidney-transplant-carried-out-between-two-jehovah-s-witnesses

  Firstly - haven't times changed - both sisters would likely have been DFd in times past...

  “When men of science conclude that this normal process will no longer work and they suggest removing the organ and replacing it directly with an organ from another human, this is simply a shortcut. Those who submit to such operations are thus living off the flesh of another human. That is cannibalistic.” (WT 15 Nov 1967, p. 702)

  Secondly - why is it that transfusion of white blood cells is wrong , yet removing the blood from your body , removing unwanted fractions (such as in apheresis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apheresis ) and then re-infusing is regarded as acceptable?
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  Mickey mouse

  It makes no sense.
• 

  sd-7

  Yeah, but in 1980 it was made clear that no judicial action would be taken against those who get an organ transplant. You apostates are just twisting the Society's words! ha ha ha ha ha ha! I just couldn't keep a straight face!

  --sd-7
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  Mickey mouse

  By the way dozy, you have a PM.
• 

  sizemik

  dozy . . . I just read this article today and then found your thread on it.

  I have to wonder how the white cell count is safely lowered? . . . is this done chemically or by procedure? I don't know enough . . . but the average JW probably knows less. The lines are so complex now. The fractional use of blood and blood derived products are complex too . . . how do the average JW's manage it all mentally? What's kosher and what's not kosher has become ridiculous.

  Silly men tampering with things they ought not. Medicine is not the field of janitors, window washers and free-loaders, no matter how much self-importance they attach to themselves.
• 

  dozy

  From what I can make out , the white blood cell count is reduced by passing the patient's blood through a filter which removes some of them & which is then passed back into the body - in a similar manner to a kidney dialysis machine. This reduces the patients immunity so reduces the attack on the new organ. I think a similar method is sometimes used in cancer treatment.

  Of course , if the JW patient then needed the white blood cells at a later date , then that would not be permissable as it has been defined by the WTBTS as a "major fraction". Or maybe it would be OK - I really have no idea.

  To me , it just illustrates the arbitrary means by which the WTBTS accepts or refuses certain treatments. A former HLC member once related to me an agonizing session involving an unconscious patient when a couple of JW HLC window cleaner elders were pacing around a hospital ward on the phone to the medical desk of the UK branch who were also on the phone to Brooklyn determining if a particular new treatments was WTBTS sanctioned or not while the hospital staff almost wept in sheer frustration.