Watchtower Doctor on Blood

by Marvin Shilmer 21 Replies latest jw friends

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer

    snare&racket,

    I agree doctors need to be fully informed on the coercive aspect of Watchtower doctrine onto the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I also very much encourage that you flesh out the topic you speak toward by researching and organizing your findings into a paper.

    On the point you raise the murky ground is paternalism. That is, contemporary society in developed countries has constructed an ethic around treating patients as they wish to be treated whether a doctor agrees the choice is medically sound so long as the patient is considered a competent adult.

    Because a competent adult can be mislead to hold a strong conviction that is not based on sound thinking and because a competent adult can choose to ignore countering information, it leaves ethicists with the dilemma of whether to treat such an adult based on their own unsound choice or as the treating clinician would decide.

    Contemporary ethicists have come down on the side of treating a competent adult as they wish to be treated regardless of how unsound it is. Or, at least this is the case with patients refusing certain treatments. Whether a doctor would relent to providing a certain patient request is another thing altogether. A doctor would probably agree to withhold blood transfusion on the request of a competent adult patient, but the same doctor would probably would not agree to administer some untested alternative simply because it was requested by the patient.

    During the conduct of research you’ll run across the issue of paternalism. I look forward to reading what you come up with.

    Marvin Shilmer

    http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com

  • snare&racket
    snare&racket

    Thank you, and thank you for the post. Shame on any JW doctor who knowing the reality of the issue has no courage to speak in honesty. How many JW's even know that accepted fragments and components come from a blood donation? Shame on those policy makers and doctrinal writers, may these people never be allowed to rest easy for the ironic blood on their hands.

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer

    -

    Shame on any JW doctor who knowing the reality of the issue has no courage to speak in honesty.

    You got my vote on that!

    If a person holds a conviction that it is right that Watchtower has Jehovah’s Witnesses socially ostracize members for the “sin” of accepting platelets from blood but not for accepting cryosupernatant from blood then he should be willing to tell-it-like-it-is and nothing short of that.

    Apparently the good Dr. Jon Schiller found himself unable to do this, which in my book says aplenty.

    Marvin Shilmer

    http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com

  • vanyell
    vanyell

    Hi Marvin,

    This is the youtube video that JWs are using as propaganda....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1rCBcJut9c,

    Blood Transfusions - What Doctors are Saying

  • BluesBrother
    BluesBrother

    Deliberately misleading and self contradictory He knows the difference between a momentary weakness and a chosen decision , so if a person decides on a blood transfusion it is a delberate act which requires disassociation. He also fails to explain the full meaning of "not being a J W". It gives the impression that you have just left - like leaving a social club :

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer

    vanyell,

    Thanks!

    Marvin Shilmer

    http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer

    -

    ... He knows the difference ...

    BluesBrother,

    And for a licensed medical physician that goes against every piece of training; every piece.

    Marvin Shilmer

    http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer

    -

    I forgot to mention that when Dr. Peteet responded to my comments he informed that Dr. Schiller had only a week or two ago given presentation to the current class at Johns Hopkins. This is good because the whole subject is fresh and it will make for a very good memory booster to remember "the rest of the story" in the documentation provided for class consumption. My guess is--once their jaws get off the floor--they won't forget the good doctor for a long time, and probably for their careers.

    Marvin Shilmer

    http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer

    Vanyell,

    I took a look at the youtube video you mentioned above. Watchtower apologists who use that video to suggest Watchtower’s blood doctrine is valid are rowing without a paddle.

    The two experts put center-stage are Drs. Bruce Spiess and Aryeh Shander. These two scientists are on the cutting edge of contemporary hematological practices. If I wanted to know the latest and greatest on the subject of transfusing any blood-based product these are the first two I’d turn to. So we have good experts. So far, so good.

    But here’s the problem for Watchtower apologists: Neither Spiess nor Shander support Watchtower doctrine because each understands and support transfusion of blood products that are forbidden under Watchtower doctrine for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

    Take a look at the following statement from Dr. Spiess:

    “Outcomes are the ultimate goal for patient care. As stated at the very beginning of this article, if

    a patient is bleeding and that bleeding is due to a platelet defect or thrombocytopaenia, probably

    platelet transfusions are life-saving.”--Spiess et al, Platelet transfusions: the science behind safety, risks and appropriate applications, Best Practice and Research Clinical Anaesthesiology, March 2010, Vol. 24, Issue 1, pp. 65-83.

    Spiess understands that transfusion of platelets is the standard of care for, in this case, treating a patient with bleeding due to platelet defect or thrombocytopaenia. Spiess supports this use of blood product. But this very therapy is forbidden under Watchtower doctrine for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

    Take a look at the following statements from Dr. Shander:

    “In situations where dangerously low Hb levels need to be quickly raised, RBC transfusions remain the mainstay management of severely anaemic patients.”—Shander et al, What is really dangerous: anaemia or transfusion?, British Journal of Anaesthesia, 2011, Vol. 107 (suppl 1), pp. i41–i59.

    “RBC transfusion is the quickest way to raise Hb concentration and it has been rightfully credited with saving lives of thousands since the fateful day in 1921 when Percy Lane Oliver, honorary secretary of the Red Cross at Camberwell, received an urgent call from a nearby hospital in need of a volunteer blood donor, creating the world’s first transfusion service.”—Shander et al, What is really dangerous: anaemia or transfusion?, British Journal of Anaesthesia, 2011, Vol. 107 (suppl 1), pp. i41–i59.

    Shander understands that transfusion of blood product can and has saved many a life that would otherwise been lost, and that to this day transfusion of red blood cells remains the standard of care for, in this case, severe anemia. But this very therapy is forbidden under Watchtower doctrine for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

    Drs. Spiess and Shander do not underpin Watchtower doctrine.

    Drs. Spiess and Shander underpin good science and medical practice.

    Marvin Shilmer

    http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com

  • Justitia Themis
    Justitia Themis

    marking

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