250,000 Jehovah's Witnesses have died refusing blood

by nicolaou 739 Replies latest watchtower medical

• 

  adamah

  Marvin said-

  The issue you cite of not knowing whether the numbers of JWs with blood disorders even in similar countries (e.g., Australia) are the same, let alone in very different countries (e.g., Ghana) is a factor to consider, and I did consider this in my assessment. My finding was that there is no reason to think mortality due to severe anemia patients (for all causes) refusing blood was more prevalent in New Zealand than any other nation. Hence to use these New Zealand values is not to overstate what we should expect overall (the world). For this reason my extrapolation is conservative.

  Your statement (in bold) is eerily reminisent of an 'appeal to ignorance' argument, AKA "lack of evidence to the contrary".

  From Wikipedia on "Argument from Ignorance":

  It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false.

  You're also "begging the question" (simply repeating the very question at stake, without presenting any supportive evidence) and engaging in "special pleading", as if you don't have to present supportiive evidence for YOUR UNVALIDATED CLAIM that it is appropriate to extrapolate from the clinical data to apply it Worldwide.

  Adam
• 

  Simon

  Nice attempt to deflect and change the subject Marvin.

  Please just stick to the point and answer the questions.
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

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  “The JW's and the control group were selected after the fact by Beliaev.”

  Besty,

  That does not change the fact that 19 JWs are documented to have died who shouldn’t have died for one reason and one reason only: refusing blood according to Watchtower doctrine.

  Tell me something, what happens when this number of 19 moves upward in relation to the finite population of JWs in New Zealand?

  Do you seriously think that the review of records from 4 hospitals in New Zealand contains all of such deaths among JWs in New Zealand?

  Think about this given the finite number of JWs in New Zealand.

  Marvin Shilmer
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  -

  “Please just stick to the point and answer the questions.”

  Simon,

  I don’t know which question you think I’ve ignored because I can’t answer it.

  I just invited you to present one of these questions, and you didn’t.

  So again I request of you:

  If there is some question you think I’ve skipped because I can’t answer it then please spell one out here and now, and I'll respond.

  Is this really so hard for you to do?

  Marvin Shilmer
• 

  Mary

  The only thing I can say, is that the blood doctrine nearly cost my father his life twice, and it ended up costing my brother in law his life 4 years ago. The figure of 250,000 is not unreasonable IMO, but the problem is that the refusal to accept a transfusion is quite often, the catalyst that causes something else to happen which ultimately causes the death. In my brother in law's case, refusing a blood transfusion was not listed as the reason he died, even though it was directly responsible for his demise. The official version is that he died from cancer, so anyone outside the family is not going to know the roll that this damn doctrine actually played.

  I imagine that the same scenario has been played a thousand times over the last 50 years.
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  -

  From page 4:

  “The risk multiplier is where this debate hinges. The NZ study indicates 10.74x. And yet the implication of Marvins' interpolation of the JW death rate being 0.26/1,000 (not per 100,000 as is more commonly used) is a 130x risk multiplier.”

  Besty,

  If you’re speaking of the risk fact of 10x mentioned by Beliaev then you’re wrong.

  If you’re speaking of some other risk factor (“the risk multiplier” you cite) then I don’t know what you’re talking about. The only risk “multiplier” I know at issue in this discussion is that mentioned by Beliaev of 10x.

  The reason you’d be wrong regarding the 10x risk by Beliaev is because his 10x statistic was not in relation to mortality statistics of anemia but, rather, strictly in relation to the match comparison of severe anemia patients in his study. To transpose this 10x risk onto any other patient populations is comparing relevantly dissimilar patient populations. One has nothing to do with the other.

  On the other hand, we have a hard number of 19 JW patients who died who, according to a matched comparison, should not have died. This mortality occurred over the 10-year period of 1998-2007. Please note this is a hard number and not a rate. We also have a hard number to compare this to of JWs in New Zealand. The number of 19 can only go up because the 19 is of patients treated in a minority of trauma centers in New Zealand. On the other hand, the number of JWs in New Zealand is finite.

  When this number 19 goes up the ratio of preventable mortality to JWs goes up.

  I prorated the 19 documented deaths by correlating these to population density in the 2 regions of the 4 hospitals used in Beliaev’s study. I did this very conservatively by assuming none of the other trauma centers in these 2 regions experienced a single mortality that would increase the value of 19.

  Do you find my method of prorating somehow misguided? If so, how so?

  Marvin Shilmer
• 

  Simon

  The reason you’d be wrong regarding the 10x risk by Beliaev is because his 10x statistic was not in relation to mortality statistics of anemia but, rather, strictly in relation to the match comparison of severe anemia patients in his study . To transpose this 10x risk onto any other patient populations is comparing relevantly dissimilar patient populations. One has nothing to do with the other.

  erm, but it's OK for you to transpose this risk to 7.5 million people?!?!?

  Anyway, the questions I've asked are easy to find. I thought you'd be able to find them by clicking on the page numbers but obviously not. I know you're trying to bait for insults so you can storm off but I'd like to thrash this out until you see your own error.

  How come your numbers don't change if the rate of deaths does? If there are 1000 JWs instead of just the 103 who refused treatment ... the rate is the same as regular people (1.9%) but your method comes up with 50,000 "extra" deaths. Are you claiming that *no* JW ever accepts blood?

  Your mistake through all this is to treat "JWs who chose to refuse blood" as synonymous with the entire population of JWs. Any stats to do with deaths from refusal to accept blood is already based on a smaller and more specific sample which is NOT representative of JWs in general. In fact, all JWs who do not refuse to accept blood are in the stats for, well, everyone else.

  It's why your numbers don't tally with simple sanity checks and experience / observation.
• 

  Simon

  If he'd had more patients in the study but the same mortality rate, then what would the extra deaths do to your numbers? What effect would fewer numbers (but the same rate) have?

  If your method was based on the rate it wouldn't change ... but it does. Almost as though it has nothing to do with the mortality rate.

  Can you see your error yet?
• 

  steve2

  Marvin responded to my earlier post by stating:

  My finding was that there is no reason to think mortality due to severe anemia patients (for all causes) refusing blood was more prevalent in New Zealand than any other nation.

  Marvin, kindly show me the actual finding that shows "there is no reason to think mortality due to severe anemia patients (for all causes) refusing blood was more prevalent in New Zealand than any other nation".

  Your statement looks suspiciously like an assumption and not a finding at all. Or do you use the words "finding" and "assumption" interchangeably. Your responses do not inspire confidence I'm afraid.

  Furthermore, your statement assumes (1) you have supportive data that shows the numbers of JWs with serious blood disorders (requiring transfusions) in other countries around the world is on a par with New Zealand JWs and (2) that the availability of Western medical treatment (especially blood transfusions) is uniformly equally available elsewhere in all other countries where there are Witnesses.

  You unknowingly pile assumption upon assumption upon assumption which bodes poorly for your conclusions - and you appear genuinely baffled by the robust criticism.
• 

  besty

  Scientists publish papers - bloggers write blogs - foolz exchange foolishness on discussion forums

  The barriers to entry are different for each.