250,000 Jehovah's Witnesses have died refusing blood

by nicolaou 739 Replies latest watchtower medical

• 

  adamah

  Marvin said-

  “11 million Jehovah’s Witnesses attended their annual communion in 1993. According to the American Red Cross, one of the nation’s leading suppliers of blood products, 200 people per thousand or 20% of the populace will need blood in some form every year. Therefore, over 6,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses per day put their lives in jeopardy.”—(Questions for Jehovah's Witnesses, Bill and Joan Cetnar, originally published in 1983)

  That claim has problems I don't want to even get into bringing up....

  The one that is relevant is this one:

  “…one arrives at an estimate of the loss of lives from refusing a transfusion to be as many as 5,000 deaths a year.”—(Blood Transfusions A History and Evaluation of the Religious Objections and a Consideration of the Biblical and Medical Arguments, Bergman, 1994)

  In this case I suspect an individual read dialogue between others discussing the issue and recalled someone suggesting the number of deaths due to Watchtower’s blood doctrine could be as high as 250,000. I don’t think she made up the number from thin air.

  Well, there you go: that quote is the likely source of Ms Barrick's claim, since that figure (5k/yr) would yield 250k deaths over 50 yrs (i.e. 14 deaths per day). Still an extrapolation, and it's disclosed as being estimated on high side ("as many as") not "conservative", but that seems to be the source of her claim.

  Soooo, this entire kerfuffle SHOULD point out the importance of being able to provide a source for a claim, IF asked to provide one. Then do so, with a smile: it's not an unreasonable request, but is in fact the author's responsibility, especially if asked.

  All she had to do was properly cite the source of her info, and then those skeptics who doubt the claim could see what study(s) Bergman cited as HIS source, and verify the study's validity/methods/conclusions for themselves.

  Adam
• 

  EdenOne

  Tilly, I rather blow whistles that people take seriously. This isn't one of them.

  Is the blood doctrine wrong? Yes. Does it put lifes in danger ? It does. Have people died unecessarily as a result of that? Yes. Have 250.000+ people died as a sole direct consequence of refusing blood? I've been a JW over 25 years, and I've never knew anyone who had died as a result of refusing blood. If that figure had any measure of credibility, I should have met a handful of cases like that in my life, and I haven't.

  Eden
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

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  “The number of actual deaths due to refusal of life saving blood transfusion will never be proven and can only be subject of speculation. But logic tells us that the number in the past 50 years must be in the thousands. That causes Jonestown to pale in comparison and deserves to be examined and exposed. Why argue over actual numbers? The deaths are there and they are many. Just because it is hidden in obscurity like pedophilia does not warrant ignoring it. WBTS is a mass murdering cult. Whistles need to be blown.”

  I don’t disagree with the sentiment behind that statement, but I disagree its only speculation to speak in terms of numbers of deaths due to Watchtower’s blood doctrine when there is information by which to make a responsible extrapolation from.

  The 2012 article by Beliaev et al provides sufficient data to make such a responsible extrapolation, and sharing this information goes a long way toward blowing the proverbial whistle you speak of.

  For years this sort of data did not exists for arguably the most common disorder JWs die from due to refusing blood product. Prior we had lots of vetted data speaking to specific patient presentations, such as maternal deaths due to hemorrhage. But these data sets were not helpful for extrapolating across the entire population of JWs because of limited scope or insufficient demographic information. The data collection published by Dr. Beliaev et al does not suffer these.

  Marvin Shilmer
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

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  “Well, there you go: that quote is the likely source of Ms Barrick's claim…”

  adamah,

  Unfortunately the statement by Bergman is not supported by the source he cited as authority for the claim he made.

  If, as you suggest, Bergman’s statement is the source of the claim at issue then the claim is unsupported.

  Marvin Shilmer
• 

  Anony Mous

  From the Red Cross: Every 2 seconds someone needs blood in the US. That's a population of over 300M people. Extrapolated towards 7M that's every 85 seconds (or 1.5 minute). That means there will be 350632 incidents of JW-vs-blood per year. Blood is only applied in a medical context during emergencies when there is no alternative (blood is expensive and scarce) so you can say that in general, used when complications arise.

  Read this and weep: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3496240/

  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2571392/

  "The surgical mortality rate was representative and the surgical complication rate was excessive. The most frequent complications (93.5 percent) were wound-healing problems."

  If maternal deaths are representative of general surgical deaths (and they pretty much are) the regular complication mortality rate (average across the medical industry) is 0.71% or ~2489 JW's will die regardless (because of statistics). IF the complication rates increase 600% as the latest study shows, 10,000 more Witnesses will die each year because of the blood transfusion. If you extrapolate that over the last 10 years (where there have been a stable 6M-7M JW's) that's about 100,000 JW's that died BECAUSE of the blood issue.

  The first study however says the complication mortality rate among JW's is ~2% but that study did not select for complications specifically caused by blood transfusions (which when blood is involved are higher risk surgeries) but this would still mean ~7,000 people/year die during those encounters, as I said 2,000 will die regardless so 5000 extra.

  It's a large number regardless, the problem is that JW's are a very small population (0.1% of the population) and don't typically cooperate with these kinds of studies.
• 

  Finkelstein

  Why argue over actual numbers?

  Because if you come off as being intellectually dishonest in the first place you weaken the whole intent of publicly bringing

  this problem to the forefront.

  This what everyone is needling about.

  Everyone here knows this is one crazy harmful religious doctrine and for people such as myself who has had a family member die

  from not taking BT, it becomes more of a personal issue.
• 

  adamah

  Marvin said-

  Unfortunately the statement by Bergman is not supported by the source he cited as authority for the claim he made. If, as you suggest, Bergman’s statement is the source of the claim at issue then the claim is unsupported.

  So, the next question becomes, did Ms Barrick know that Bergman's claim was unsupported by evidence when she perpetuated it?

  (and I realize that only she could likely state whether she knew it was a BS claim or not)

  If so, that's intellectually dishonest; we all know liars (or those who perpetuate lies) never prosper. That is, unless they're a religion!

  Adam
• 

  Tylinbrando

  Eden, I can name a dozen in my circuit from the past 25 years including my mother, good friend and a young daughter of my parents best friend. Perhaps that is why the figures do not seem exaggerated to me. I do understand and appreciate your caution but I disagree this is not a worthy subject to expose. I will do it in my own small way but I would like to see something solid and effective en mass.
• 

  Giordano

  If we want to argue about this why not simply say Jonestown murdered/or compelled their followers to commit suicide. Allmost a 1000 men, women, children, Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents practiced for that day ........ blood cards anybody? And the WTBTS compells it's members to do the same.

  They presented their blood policy in 1945. In the early 1960s it was enforced with DF consequences there-by compelling their followers, as Jonestown did, with might and force.......... to swallow the posioned kool-aid. At least 68,000 thousand followers of the WTBTS have died by any rational count (a thousand a year since 1945)............... and we are not even including deaths due to their past history of baning vaccines and transplants.

  Personally i think it's a lot more then that. And like Jim Jones the WTBTS CELEBRATES these deaths as something noble and godly. And because the WTBTS has no moral compass they will change their doctrines on a whim and leave the destroyed families in their wake under the banner 'of new light'

  The ban on blood.....what did Jesus say about that.....................nothing................. isn't that just f-ing perfect.
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  -

  “So, the next question becomes, did Ms Barrick know that it was an unsupported claim when she perpetuated it?”

  adamah,

  To the best of my knowledge no one has ever questioned the statement published by Bergman, until today when I pointed out that his cited source does not suggest what he claims. This piece of information is hard to come by because the source cited by Bergman is not given proper bibliographic treatment in his book. It took me months to locate the source. Then I was unable to find anything remotely suggesting the claim made. Hence I doubt Julia Barrick would know what I’ve shared here for the first time (to my knowledge).

  Marvin Shilmer