by nicolaou 739 Replies latest watchtower medical
Did Marvin answer this question or have I missed it:
Marvin, this should be a fairly straightforward question which you've danced around:
How many JWs have died? (using known populations and normal mortality rates)
What proportion of those deaths are you claiming are due to refusing blood?
Dear "Questions from Readers",
About how many of our brothers and sisters have lost their lives due to abstention from blood transfusions?
correction: the voxsanguinis figure - 22% maoris was correct as there were 23 Maoris and not 19 in the group. My figure 19 came from the line below which I mistakenly transposed to the line above. I blame the tiny print and my haste in going in where angels would fear to tread
as to sharing the articles (there are two) with you guys this is what one site says
Copyright of Vox Sanguinis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Trying to model a seemly accurate statistic from this off the wall mostly irrelevant study in New Zealand toward
creating a probably number of the deaths of JWS, is fraught with intellectual stupidity, about as intellectually stupid as the doctrine itself.
Most would agree to that.
The actual numbers of deaths occurring from the no blood doctrine may have actually decreased in recent years due to
modern surgical techniques (bloodless surgery) the allowance of fractions of blood by the WTS.
As pointed a few times on this thread medical practices and capabilities varies from country to country, this too
has a determining factor to a probable total sum.
I agree Finklestein, I think everyone but Marvin understands that. But I like a good puzzle and my ADD brain won't stop thinking about how to get realistic numbers, or at least prove that the numbers used in the study cannot be applied on a larger scale. I used to do some statistical analysis as part of my job, so I like to crunch numbers. I don't even think having access to the study would prove anything, but I could start from there.
One question is, how were these patients selected.
Was it all severe anemia cases in those four hospitals, or were there cases of severe anemia in those hospitals that were not selected for some reason?
Were patients from other areas moved to these hospitals because of the study, or for some other reason?
What has changed due to the increased use of blood substitutes and fractions since the study ended?
What is the death rate in New Zealand for severe anemia overall? That would be a great sanity check to see if we are in the ballpark.
Why do four hospitals out of eighty treat 57% of the population?
All these things are factors that could have made the statistics invalid for simple extrapolation. The study is interesting, and I think they proved that blood transfusions can save lives in cases of severe anemia, but I think even the people who did the study would agree that you cannot then extrapolate those statistics to the entire JW population and come up with any kind of useful number.
And this study doesn't address deaths to to accidents where the patient might have lived l if they had accepted blood. I would think the cause of death would be listed as accidental injury, even though the blood issue was a contributing factor. That would, in effect, hide other cases of deaths because of the blood policy.
Marvin seems to think that because he is making conservative estimates in certain areas, he is justified making assumptions in other areas, and I just don't get that. Potentially under estimating in one area does not make it OK to make huge assumptions in other areas, it just makes you wrong.
Marvin said-
First, what you cite is misplaced because my presentation is not based on incidents of anemia but rather a statistically hard mortality number, and that mortality is not related to anemia but, rather, to refusal of blood product.
Sigh....We're still playing like we're biostatisticians, I see?
Although they're homophones (pronounced the same), the words 'incidence' and incidents' have very different meanings. In statistical analysis, the proper term is to use is 'incidence', not 'incidents'. If you're going to act like you're a biostatistician, at least learn to use the proper lingo:
http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/Incidence-And-Incidents.htm
Marvin said-
Of the 19 and 103 values the sample is 103 and the population of that sample is 19. This sample of 103 was used by Beliaev to form a matched comparison group to identify whatever disparities between the two groups, and in particular disparity of costs between the two groups in relation to outcomes.
This is just embarrassing, Marvin: in fact, I'm embarrassed FOR YOU, at this point.
By definition in statistics, the term 'population' is reserved for the ENTIRE set/group under observation in a particular study. Specifically to avoid confusion with the size of the population, the size of the sample is referred to as a 'subpopulation'. That's a standard agreed to by statisticians.
Marvin, where did you earn your degree (masters or doctorate-level) in biostatistics? Harvard, Yale, UW, UC Berkeley, UCLA? Maybe Johns Hokins, Oxford?
Never mind that: have you TAKEN ANY course in stastistical analysis at ANY college (including a junior college), even just an 'Intro to Stats for Liberal Arts' course for the (i.e. stats as tailored for non-science majors)?
BTW, I've sent an e-mail to Dr Beliaev, asking for his opinion on the (im)propriety of using his study for such "extrapolations" well-beyond the boundaries for which the study was designed to allow. If Dr Beliaev actually responds, maybe Marvin would listen to the person who conducted the study (and wouldn't that be ironic if Marvin refused to respect the authority of the opinion that he's basing his claim upon)?
Adam
Marvin built a calculator you know. Have you ever built a calculator? Mmm thought so.
Read through all of this and figured I'd weigh in. I have no dog in this fight and no enemies on this board, though I might make a few with this post. :/
The "250,000 deaths directly attributable to the blood doctrine" figure cannot possibly be correct. The statistical sample is too small and the methodology to find a reliable delta between normal and blood-refusing death rates too fuzzy. Worldwide, I would submit that the introduction of variables inherent between First and Third World medicine makes the whole proposition a non-starter until these variables can be isolated and applied to each delta.
Full disclosure: I am not a biostatistician, but I do work in insurance with morbidity and mortality tables and have done college statistics.
As others have stated, even from a 35,000 foot view, the 250,000 claim looks, feels and tastes wrong. Stating such without ironclad, peer-reviewed anaylsis to back it up is irresponsible and counterproductive. And inflating death claims, aside from being sensationalistic, is needless. Recall the Talmud: "Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world."
One needless death is terrible enough to condemn the entire organization and its false doctrine. It does not need embellishment to be execrable.
I also agree that the suicide rate among Witnesses versus the general population is something worth investigating. In relative terms, suicides may well be a bigger issue than the blood doctrine. In moral terms (again, pointing to the Talmud above) both issues are absolutely damning to the Governing Body and WTBTS.
Again, I'm not looking to make friends or enemies on the board, but I do believe we owe the world community intellectual honesty and responsible witness to the shameful actions of the Society. Nothing can be gained from stretching the truth about the truth.
Are you saying that out of 80 hospitals, the four hospitals in the study treat 57% of the population? That would mean the other 76 hospitals treat 43% of the population. That doesn't make any sense to me, can you explain?
I would say that would be a big indicator that they are not at all equal and comparable as Marvin claims they are - the main hospitals are likely more specialist centers and so it could well be a similar situation to the article Barb posted about them getting the most challenging cases and so having a higher than ordinary 'bad outcome'.
I'd also be concerned that they did the study for 57% of the population ... why not the rest? How much extra effort would it have been? Were figures that gave the desired results cherry picked? Who knows, it's an easy way of getting the results you want to see and again, I'd point to it being the Institute for Blood Transfusion which doesn't sound independent at all.
Marvin built a calculator you know. Have you ever built a calculator? Mmm thought so.
Yeah, all this talk of calculators is worrying - so far I've seen nothing presented that equates to any sort of calculator / model or simulation beyond just a few basic and very simplistic calculations as you can do with a $3.99 calc bought from Walmart.
The issue to me is still the confusion between:
I have little confidence that the 3rd can genuinely be accurately identified as the conclusive cause of death from records but let's keep ignoring that elephant in the room for now and focus on the rest of the herd.
The 103 would be group number 2 above. The 19 would be a subset of that, group 3.
Marvin is erroneously taking the rates from group 2/3 and applying them to group 1 but we know that group 1 and group 2 are different and group 2 is always going to be a subset of group 1.
If the number of JWs treated was 1000 and 103 (~10%) refused blood and 19 of these died then the mortality rate for being a JW is 1.9% which would be the same as the regular rate. Yes, if you refuse treatment your mortality rate goes up but the figures for that can then only be applied to people who refuse treatment, not to all JWs.
Now, what percentage group 2 will be of group 1 will be impossible to say but is also going to be affected by what treatments are available and the rules for accepting those treatments.
I believe there probably was a window where the doctrine was strongly promoted and more dangerous because alternative treatments were less available and this would dramatically affect the figures for that time period.
The doctrine has been dramatically weakened to the point that it no longer has such an impact and also the advances in alternative medical treatments mean that the consequences are less likely to be as severe as death.
A true model would take all these changing factors at different periods combined with the population of JWs at each time into account.
As far as I can tell, this has not been done and claims of 'building a calculator' is just another attempt to stiffle criticism by a crude appeal to intellectualism.
For the reasons above I believe Marvins figures are likely to be wildly wrong or at least have such a low degree of confidence that they can't in good faith be promoted, certainly not as being 'conservative' figures as claimed (actually saying that the result has a high confidence / low margin for error!).
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“Are you saying that out of 80 hospitals, the four hospitals in the study treat 57% of the population? That would mean the other 76 hospitals treat 43% of the population. That doesn't make any sense to me, can you explain?”
LisaRose
No. I am certainly not saying that out of 80 hospitals, the four hospitals in the study treat 57% of the population.
New Zealand has 4 healthcare regions. The 4 hospitals in Beliaev’s data set are in 2 of these 4 regions. The population of those 2 regions is 57% of the total population of New Zealand.
My extrapolation assumes that not one single death of a JW occurred at any other hospital in the same regions of New Zealand as the 4 hospital are in. Mathematically this makes my usage of Beliaev’s data conservative, and this is underscored by the fact that there are several additional hospitals in these 2 regions with trauma services.
Marvin Shilmer
