Doctors and surgeons say no to blood transfusions

by Mr Negative 65 Replies latest watchtower medical

• 

  Bugbear

  One of my daughters, is a professionally trained and examined medical doctor. With more than seven years spent at university. Raised as a JW child, of course the blood issue has been one of the questions that interested her by most. Investigation this thoroughly, she has never ever heard a colleague saying something so stupid. In fact here in Scandinavia it would be impossible to become a professional medical doctor and swore the Hippocratic ode, and get your license, if you refuse your patients proper treatment.

  Bugbear
• 

  rebel8

  

  Interestingly it should not matter one single iota whether a blood transfusion is dangerous or totally safe. That is NOT the given reason for the ban on transfusions.

  Absolutely correct. I think we need to keep responding to jws with this line of reasoning. wts is using these fairy tales only because it lacks confidence that its own adherents will abide by it for doctrinal reasons alone.

  This has a subtle conspiracy theory inside it too--"Doctors themselves don't want blood, but they want to get us to take it." I had a great deal of experience with that and I was repeatedly told Satan is getting doctors to get us to take blood unnecessarily, just to threaten our chance for everlasting life.
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Yes. The quote exists. I tracked it down a few years back.

  This book here:

  http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Blood-George-Dalgleish/dp/B001KT7P4O

  Bad Blood by George Dalgleish.

  This thread has a bit about the book and George:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/54353/book-bad-blood?page=1&size=10

  Yes, George Dalgleish was a Jehovah's Witness. He had a television home improvement show in Winnipeg at one time. He also ran a home construction company.

  Mr. Dalgleish had no medical training or education.

  George has now passed on. I tried to find out some information on the publisher, Pennefeather Press in Winnipeg, but the best I could come up with was a google map image of a bare lot in the industrial area of Winnipeg. The address doesn't really exist.

  The book is terrible because it is written as though the author has credibilty and he has none. And it is in that piece of bloodless surgery propaganda that you will find that quote. I believe it may have been Dr. Ron Lapin who said it - along with saying that he brought family members from overseas to have bloodless surgery at his clinic in California.

  But, the quote is in that horrible book.
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Dr. Ron Lapin.

  An article from the LA Times in 1995:

  'Bloodless Surgeon' Ron Lapin, 53, Dies.

  http://articles.latimes.com/1995-05-16/local/me-2458_1_ron-lapin

  SANTA ANA — The man touted as the "bloodless surgeon" among Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious groups died of an apparent heart attack at a local hospital, relatives and friends said Monday. He was 53.

  Ron Lapin, a surgeon who introduced an operating procedure that does not require blood transfusions, suffered a heart attack at his Lemon Heights home Friday evening, just hours after he had asked his 42-year-old fiancee to marry him.

  He died between 1 and 2 a.m. at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, said Lapin's fiancee, Deeanne Cassidy.

  "We were making wedding plans, not funeral plans," she said. "I'm still very shocked over it. All I can say is that he was the most wonderful, knowledgeable humanitarian to have come around in a long time."

  Lapin, a Tel Aviv-born physician who was working at Coast Plaza Doctors Hospital in Norwalk, had battled colleagues and blood-bank industry officials who questioned the appropriateness of his operating method, which was introduced in the 1970s.

  The procedure was intended to prevent excessive bleeding through the use of an electric cautery at the end of each blood vessel as tissues were sliced. It also involved liberal doses of folic acid and Vitamin B-12 to lower blood pressure.

  Artificial blood known as blood volume expanders also were used, Lapin said in earlier interviews with The Times.

  Lapin's medical practices led to a five-year investigation by state medical authorities, who dropped it in 1986, citing an inability to prove their case against him.

  He also gained notice when his third wife was charged with two counts of felony kidnaping in 1987 when she failed to return the couple's two children to their father's house after a visit.

  Orly Lapin, a former Israeli beauty queen, then accused him of molesting the couple's daughter and raping the child's nanny, according to court records at the time.

  Neither husband nor wife was convicted, and the children remained in Ron Lapin's custody. He also had a third child by another wife.

  Funeral arrangements are pending. An autopsy was performed but results were not available pending the outcome of toxicology tests.
• 

  OrphanCrow

  And from the LA Times article about the rape of the nanny and molestation accusations during the custody battle (which didn't hold up with the judge - Ron got custody later):

  http://articles.latimes.com/1988-08-24/local/me-699_1_baby-sitter

  "The 48-year-old surgeon became well known in medical circles a few years ago for his success with so-called bloodless surgery--operations performed without blood transfusions--which was favored by religious groups opposed to transfusions. But the state medical board frowned on the controversial technique and filed a malpractice claim against him. The claim was eventually dropped when Lapin agreed to stop that type of surgery."
• 

  Witness 007

  You have 1 hour to live...you will change your mind.
• 

  snare&racket

  If the doctor/surgeon's kid had an injury and was bleeding out..... only one substance will save them, blood. We have no synthetic blood and we die without it. Want to try to make up a reason they would deny it for them, or themselves?

  Blood is not some magical substance. It is water and minerals, it has red blood cells which are nothing more than iron and proteins.Blood is screened and treated so the risk of infection is very low.

  Blood is used in two ways, one to improve symptoms or in preperation for blood loss dueing a procedure.

  The other is when someone has bled and who will die without it.

  Some can get away with saying no to less vital indications, but not for the life threatening.

  You need to be more careful in taking what you hear without question.

  If blood scares you, do some reading about what it is made of and note that every human is full of it and dies without it and even gets very sick if some is lost. There are risks with medical interventions, there are even risks giving someone oxygen, giving fluids even.... but water and air are not dangerous.

  Would some doctors say no to blood if it was offered to them in a non life threatening medicsl scenario......maybe, likely, yes....... bit that is wholly different to life saving blood required after a car crash, or a heavy post birth bleed or if you have a bleeding disorder etc etc etc... then only blood will do.
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Another doctor that the Watchtower Society has used as expert support for the promotion of bloodless surgery is Dr. Peter Earnshaw from Great Britain.

  Mr. Earnshaw was featured as the doctor on the front of one of the Awake magazines in 2000.

  He is also featured in the slide presentations and other material published by the Society for the purposes of promoting bloodless surgery to those in the medical field.

  "Mr Earnshaw is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon and the Clinical Director of Surgery at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals. He trained in medicine at Guy’s Hospital and then continued his postgraduate studies in Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery in Canada and the US where he worked for many years before returning to the UK."

  http://www.londonbridgehospital.com/LBH/consultant-det/mr-peter-earnshaw/

  The quote that is used in Watchtower publications goes like this:

  "It just so happens that bloodless surgery is particularly relevant to Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, this is how we want to treat everybody."

  Mr. Earnshaw's assistant, Sinead Flynn, answered an email inquiry that I made a while back concerning this quote with this reply:

  "Thank you for your email.

  Mr Earnshaw would reply as follows:

  "It was a general comment made many years ago simply stating that although Jehovah Witness patients have more exacting needs, we treat most our patients in a similar fashion i.e. we do everything to avoid blood transfusions unless absolutely necessary and the transfusion rate has been significantly reduced over the years. London Bridge Hospital does not therefore offer anything different in this regard"."

  I also asked if Mr. Earnshaw was a Jehovah's Witness and if he knew that his photo and quote was used by the Watchtower Society and he replied:

  "Mr Earnshaw has read your email and would note:

  “......No
  I can only assume it was because I did early research on this topic and published papers. I was interviewed at the time and an article was written.
  I have not done this type of research for many years.”"

  The Watchtower Society has got a lot of mileage from a statement that Dr. Earnshaw made years ago when he was researching the possibility of bloodless surgery methods reducing the need for blood in orthopedic surgery. Orthopedic surgery has very high demands for blood and Dr. Earnshaw's concern at the time he was interviewed for Watchtower literature, was to reduce the use of blood in those cases - not eliminate the use of blood transfusions.
• 

  snare&racket

  Great work orphan crow.

  One of the biggest shocks I had when leaving Watchtower, was how well they convinced us all by quoting things in a very deceitful manner. It means a watchtower writer has read something IN context and then used it OUT of context, knowingly. That is shameful and makes them blood guilty for inumerous incidents.
• 

  rebel8

  Mr. Earnshaw was featured as the doctor on the front of one of the Awake magazines in 2000...
  
  also asked if Mr. Earnshaw was a Jehovah's Witness and if he knew that his photo and quote was used by the Watchtower Society and he replied:
  
  "Mr Earnshaw has read your email and would note:
  
  “......No
  
  omg. It's so nasty to do that, I'm sorry, maybe it's legal but it's no better than tabloid journalism.
  
  But this is an old trick for wts.

  I can understand including a quote from someone (not a misquote or taken out of context), but I can't understand putting someone's picture on the cover of your magazine and using him as a sort of endorsement of a dangerous doctrine.