by RodrigoGuerreiro 18 Replies latest watchtower medical
Sorry if my topic question was difficult to understand (English is not my native language). I will like to know the year when the so called “blood fractions” was available as an alternative to a whole blood transfusion. My question is triggered by the curiosity about how long JW died or put their life at risk, refusing that type of treatment before the year 2000 (when the “new light” allowed that type of treatment).
Thank you
Remember, in terms purely of 'blood fractions', there was this, from 1958.
There's more, but others can answer better than me.
I believe this QfR allowed for JWs to use Factor VIII?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_VIII
Watchtower September 15, 1958
Questions From Readers: Are we to consider the injection of serums such as diphtheria toxin antitoxin and blood fractions such as gamma globulin into the blood stream, for the purpose of building up resistance to disease by means of antibodies, the same as the drinking of blood or the taking of blood or blood plasma by means of transfusion?No, it does not seem necessary that we put the two in the same category, although we have done so in times past. Each time the prohibition of blood is mentioned in the Scriptures it is in connection with taking it as food, and so it is as a nutrient that we are concerned with in its being forbidden. Thus when mankind for the first time was permitted to eat the flesh of animals, at the time of the restatement of the procreation mandate to the Deluge survivors, blood was specifically forbidden. (Gen. 9:3, 4) In the law of Moses blood was forbidden as food, and therefore we repeatedly find it linked with fat as things not to be eaten. (Lev. 3:17; 7:22-27) And so also in the days of the apostles; it was in connection with eating meat sacrificed to idols that the eating of strangled animals and blood was forbidden.—Acts 15:20, 29.
The injection of antibodies into the blood in a vehicle of blood serum or the use of blood fractions to create such antibodies is not the same as taking blood, either by mouth or by transfusion, as a nutrient to build up the body’s vital forces. While God did not intend for man to contaminate his blood stream by vaccines, serums or blood fractions, doing so does not seem to be included in God’s expressed will forbidding blood as food. It would therefore be a matter of individual judgment whether one accepted such types of medication or not.
As darkspilver points out, plasma fractions were first allowed in the year 1958.
However these were not alternatives to either whole blood or blood component therapy. Plasma fractions are typically used in post-exposure vaccines, antivenins and similar preparations.
In the year 2000, the scope of acceptable preparations was enlarged to include fractions of any "primary component" which made hemoglobin based blood substitutes acceptable. (One product was nearing the point of actual clinical trial at the time.)
However none of these products have worked as well as expected and even if that were not the case, there are still many scenarios where blood component therapy is the most viable treatment.
Thank you TD and darkspliver, I learned something new today!
Rodrigo, you may find this thread useful:
This is a fairly complex issue. The Watchtower's position vacillated during the 1950's, 60's and 70's repeatedly. It continued to evolve over subsequent decades, but steadily allowing more and more plasma fractions. Late in the 1990's AJWRB started pointing out the obvious contradiction between allowing allowing all of the plasma fractions, but none of the other blood products. In 2000 the Watchtower responded by opting to permit all blood fractions.
Thank you both.
Another question:
when the medicine presents the “blood fractions” treatments as a possibility for any patient?
(I know there will be a difference between the date of the “invention” of the technology involved to produce the sub-products and the date when they became widely available for the majority of the patients)
Another question:
when the medicine presents the “blood fractions” treatments as a possibility for any patient?
(I know there will be a difference between the date of the “invention” of the technology involved to produce the sub-products and the date when they became widely available for the majority of the patients)
Rodrigo, I am not sure that I understand your question.
Can you clarify who you mean by "the majority of patients"? Do you mean the population at large?
Are you asking if there was a time lag between the blood products being available to the JW patient and being available to the general population? Or the other way around?
And, can you expand on your understanding of what blood fractions treatments actually are? How do you perceive these treatments?
“Are you asking if there was a time lag between the blood products being available to the JW patient and being available to the general population”
yes, that is my main question.
Imagine the immunoglobulin injections now they are “allowed” by the cult, but I think that for some amount of time (I don’t know specifically how much years ) they are presented by the medical community as an optional treatment and the JWs rejected that option because the blood prohibition.
IgG is the basis of post-exposure vaccines.
If you step on a rusty nail, for example, your doctor will give you an injection that will very likely contain tetanus immune globulin.
If you are bitten by a rabid animal, you will be given an injection containing rabies immune globulin.
If you are bitten by a poisonous snake, you will be given an injection containing immune globulin specific to the venom.
This practice has a long history. We were actually doing it before we knew what immune globulins were and those preparations were simply called "serums" back then.
This is not an alternative to transfusion, which is administered for entirely different reasons.
I believe the time lag you speak of does exist with experimental treatments and techniques. PolyHeme, for example was an experimental oxygen carrying blood substitute and it was used on some JW patients in actual clinical trials.
I'm not sure if this is a good example of what you had in mind though. PolyHeme was discontinued around 2009 because of its negative side effects.
