by nicolaou 739 Replies latest watchtower medical
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“That's the point - patient outcomes are rarely so binary with certain life or certain death from any treatment.”
Simon,
You don’t understand the statistical value of matched comparative studies. Look it up. Then read the article by Beliaev et al.
Marvin Shilmer
Marvin: you don't seem to 'get' that your tiny study in a small country with some rather unique circumstances simply can't be applied to 'the world' with any degree of accuracy. You can use as many decimal places as you want, but it's precision and not accuracy.
I just did a study of 1 person and apparently, if I extrapolate things out, everyone in the world is Mancuniun and supports Manchester City.
But it if helps your sensibilities you should know the author uses the same data set to make a universal statistical statement saying “compared with JW patients, ARBC transfusion in anaemic patients was associated with a 10 times reduced mortality, lower rates of cardiac, neurologic and infective complications.”
So if you question whether Dr. Beliaev accepts that the given data set is useful toward a broad extrapolation the answer is yes . He does it himself right within the article.
Everything is within the context of the study. The author wouldn't say that on every page and if they were extrapolating it out worldwide then they would say so. I imagine they would have said how many global deaths it would equate to if they thought it applied.
Did they say this?
@simon, marvin
call me a simpleton but....
- Beliaev and Marvin agree 10x mortality for anemic JWs
- 0.2/100,000 is the accepted mortality rate for anemic non-JW's
- 2/100,000 mortality would be a reasonable assumption for anemic JW's
now do the maths. and it ain't 50,000 dead JW;s.
If the organization bandied about such convolutedly-deduced statistics that supported its blood ban we'd jump on it immediately, accusing it of scholastic dishonesty.
If it smells too fishy, it's probably no good.
A bit like the ludicrously speculative claims made by Jerry Bergman in the late 1970s about JWs being about 30%more likely than non-witnesses to suffer from mental health problems. Anti-JWs grabbed hold of this statistical sophistry and quoted it as fact - and years later were still quoting the figure. That it was based on - ahem - anecdotal impressions conveniently escaped people's attention.
The only other time I have seen such brazen misuse of questionable numbers was by the organization.
I guess we've learnt a lot from the religion of our birth about sounding scholarly in order to distract from dubious reasoning.
Dare I say it, but do we need to deduct from the figure an estimated number of lives saved by not taking blood?
Great point SBF. I have lost count of the number of times Watchtower publications have reported on JWs who died even though blood transfusions were forcibly administered or JWs who did not receive blood transfusions but lived.
The risk in any discussion such as this is, proponents of transfusions will tout the statistical advantages of taking blood whilst opponents of blood will tout the statistical disadvantages.
None of this means I support the blood ban, but I do not support shonky statistics from either side.
@sbf
Dare I say it, but do we need to deduct from the figure an estimated number of lives saved by not taking blood?
this is where I get bogged down in the extrapolation
to me it seems logical to multiply the JW risk factor (10x) to the 'normal' death rate and you are good to go.
0.2 x 10 = 2
any questions?
BTW, Marvin, you also have "tells" that reveal you're a non-scientist (eg, the way you handled 'sig figs' on the calculations and decimal places you showed on your website is atrocious; it's something anyone who's earned an undergrad degree in any science field would likely note, right off the bat). Not that your work is undermined by it, overall: you make some valid points, and I admire your work and dedication.
As if often the case, I'm writing it off to you simply not knowing what you don't even know, but that's not necessarily a show-stopper: most JWs ALSO are blissfully unaware of what they don't know, and likely wouldn't even notice or let it interfere with the broader point we're all trying to make: JW blood policy is a needless and preventable cause of death that's all the more inexcusable, since it's based on a flawed anomalous translation of Genesis 9:5-6, where the JWs seemingly misunderstand the Biblical Flood account:
That article is MY contribution to the cause (yes, it's a shameless plug for JW lurkers who haven't read it yet).
That stated....
Marvin said-
I have not contacted the author inquiring as you suggest because it’s unnecessary.
But it if helps your sensibilities you should know the author uses the same data set to make a universal statistical statement saying “compared with JW patients, ARBC transfusion in anaemic patients was associated with a 10 times reduced mortality, lower rates of cardiac, neurologic and infective complications.”
So if you question whether Dr. Beliaev accepts that the given data set is useful toward a broad extrapolation the answer is yes. He does it himself right within the article.
There's your problem, then.
Perhaps you're unfamiliar with interpreting scientific literature, but whenever an author discusses their results in a study, the implicit understanding is they're confining their comments TO THEIR STUDY and POPULATION. The author is fully justified in referring to JWs within the population he studied, since that's exactly WHY such studies are done: to draw conclusions (extrapolate) for larger similar populations via SAMPLING. When he says "JWs", he's referring to those JWs who live within the area of the four hospitals, even if they weren't actually participants in his study.
The methods used in determining how many samples are needed to draw reliable inferences to the larger group of JWs within NZ is well-beyond a layman's grasp without having done the requisite coursework in stats, but presumably the study was done with input from a biostatician.
As pointed out by Simon, it would be nice if drawing conclusions was as simple as conducting a study in a remote corner of the World and then applying its findings Globally (just think of the $$$ that could be saved!), but it's flawed, precisely because of the unique characteristics of the population in the study (20% indigeneous population, for one; they aren't likely representative of anything but themselves, much less the traits of humans living half a world away!).
In a nutshell, the study author didn't attempt to extrapolate: you did. Hence why I asked if you contacted him, knowing the odds are great that he'd tell you that the study would have to be repeated globally, a far more costly endeavor necessary to make such broad claims as you'd like. You likely engaged in mental insertion, reading something into his results which he never stated (and would not state: it's a freshman-rookie mistake for a college undergrad to make, and simply inexcusable for a medical researcher to make, trying to extrapolate globally like that).
BTW, I tried to verify that Red Cross claim you cited (it was a few pages back, but was something like, "20% of people will need blood products in a year"). It's a claim that strikes me as incredibly high, and I could find no record of it ever being made by the Red Cross.
What I found on the Red Cross site was a claim that every two seconds someone in the U.S. will need blood.
That works out to 16 Mil people per year (assuming no one goes back for 2nds), which given 300 Mil, works out to only 5%, max. (As the other bullets point out, patients with sickle-cell and leukemia will require many transfusions during the course of their treatment, sometimes daily).
A four-fold difference of 20% vs 5% needs some explanation, so that statistic you gave is also questionable, since it directly contradicts info available from the American Red Cross.
Adam
call me a simpleton but....
must ... resist ... urge to insult ... growing ...
Yes, you're right ... the 10x increase means 2/100,000 which comes to a very small number when applied to the 30m over the past whatever number of years.
