Thank you, snare&racket.
Rebel - from the correspondence I had, it was clear that Mr. Earnshaw is not a Jehovah's Witness but it wasn't clear if he actually knew that he was being used as the Society's poster boy for bloodless surgery. I am sorry - when I re-read what I wrote, I can see that I may be misrepresenting what Mr. Earnshaw said. And I wouldn't want to do that - he has been misrepresented enough by the Watchtower Society and the bloodless industry.
"...using him as a sort of endorsement of a dangerous doctrine."
Not only is it a dangerous doctrine, it is also a dangerous surgical procedure that they are endorsing. The society is quick to point to the successes of bloodless surgerry but they fail to mention the countless failures that bloodless surgery has encountered in its history. Many Jehovah's Witnesses have died, not only as a result of refusing a blood transfusion, but from the resulting experimental procedures tried on them. This claim is not hard to prove - the evidence can be found in published medical studies. As well, trials of bovine blood substitutes have been pulled because of high mortality rates in the subjects. And, of course, the JWs were in the clinical trial sample groups.
The Jehovah's witnesses are certainly right about one thing - bloodless surgery would not have the success it has without a willing group of volunteers to test their technology on. The Jehovah's witnesses are the only group in the world that the medical industry can use as test subjects for bloodless surgery methods and actually test the extreme limit of their procedure. Without a 'religious' doctrine on their side, by law, they must intervene with all means possible before death claims their subject. With Jehovah's Witnesses, the subject can be taken right to death's door...and beyond. It is a situation that has been exploited in the quest for bloodless surgical methods and the holy grail of medicine - blood substitutes.
And it is not only surgical procedures that are being tested on Jehovah's Witnesses.
Babies are born all the time that are RH negative who would normally get an exchange transfusion.
People suffer from hemophilia.
There is so much confusion over the Society's stand on blood factions, etc when it is really simple.
If you want to understand the Society's shifting stance on the 'blood issue', do some research into the history of the medical procedures concerning blood. The shifting stance of the Society dovetails very nicely into the required test groups needed by researchers in those fields of study.
The Society's spin is that these procedures developed in response to the Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine.
They are absolutely right. And it is horrifying.
The Jehovah's Witnesses have made for a fine group of guinea pigs. Obediently following the directions from the Society concerning health care choices.