by ukpimo 11 Replies latest watchtower medical
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-69025640
How do you feel about this latest inquiry? Although we expect Jehovah's Witnesses to use this opportunity to say "we were right all this time", it's nonetheless a historic blow to the NHS.
It makes me question which other health scandals will come to light in the decades to come. I'm fascinated by this news and I'm following the details now.
This is not unique to the NHS. Look at the post office scandal. It's shocking but not particularly surprising to me, people in the UK have a tendency to hold too much reverence for the NHS and the tendency in these big organisations much like the JWs is to be protective of reputation.
And I say that as someone from the UK.
A certain percentage of people received infected blood over a 20 year period. Of those people, 10% died.
It doesn't explain
Also, the report concluded that the disaster should have been largely avoided. The article doesn't quantify the word largely. 90 percent? 80 percent? Would this mean that the true number of victims (those who died) would be 2,400 instead of 3,000?
Of course its bad, its very bad! The victims deserve full reparations. However, we need to be realists here and acknowledge that medical progress has helped people in general live much longer than they ever did in the past. Obviously, it doesn't give NHS a free pass to lie and cover up things. That's why there must be consequences. Still, the severity of this situation can be measured and reported better than what I've seen from this article.
As for JW speakers all over the world, they without a doubt use this and make it sound like you will definitely get AIDS if you get a blood transfusion.
you will definitely get AIDS if you get a blood transfusion.
It's worse than that! You'll become a homosexual!
it will be interesting to see if the watchtower makes any reference to this at all.
That was always a talking point, because there are always going to be cases where a transfusion goes wrong. If you only ever hear about transfusions that go badly, then you get the impression that it's a widespread problem. And if that impression aligns with your view that god wants you to abstain from blood, then it confirms that you are right.
It is the same as those JWs who refused transfusions and survived. They consider themselves an example of why transfusions are unnecessary. They do not consider the extraordinary effort and extra resources that may have been used to provide lifesaving care in lieu of a blood transfusion. They use whatever confirms their beliefs and conveniently ignore the rest.
This is really a two edged sword for JWs .
1) On the one hand it does support what we were told by WT , at the time that diseases such as AIDS and Hepatitis C can and were contracted from blood products.
2) On the other hand it shows that the blood fractions ,which they nowadays allow and seem to almost encourage, are just as liable to carry a disease, if one should be in it. . The haemophiliacs taking factor 8 were just as badly affected as anyone having a transfusion.
That fact seems lost on the JWs I know, who are too busy saying “ We told you so !”
They don’t want to know either…..
There was a major blood scandal with Canada receiving blood from jailed inmates. Blood being sold to transfuse without being checked for viral disease. Approx 30,000 Canadians infected with Hep C, HIV- blood also sent out to Japan, Germany and Britain - late 70-80's Approx 8,000 deaths
Check out Final Report on the Krever Inquiry.
Patients needing factor 8 were the most affected group. The WT permitted factor 8 even at the height of the contamination crisis. They have nothing to feel smug about.
Successive governments, civil servants and the NHS have conspired to hoodwink the public yet again. Nothing changes.
- the percentage of people that received infected blood vs total transfusions.
- how long the victims lived after receiving blood transfusions.
- how many would have died without blood transfusions.
- how many had co-mortality issues
Good points. Most of the haemophiliacs were patients at The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead - the hospital I trained at. Even in the early 90s out of 500 patients 450 had contracted HIV. They were diagnosed early, were given treatment with AZT and didn't survive. A few patients had made it into the late 90s and good HIV treatments. Your points 4 and 5 apply. Blood was necessary for their survival in the very short term...let alone the mid to long.
As to Hep C, we had a test for non A non B (which is what we used to call Hep C) waaay back in the early 80s late 70s. The first treatment was interferon in the 90s (a hell of a drug). It was regarded as fairly rare and mainly found among IV drug users because it's only transmitted blood to blood and - rarely - vertical transmission (mother to child).. This is why even to this day you can't donate blood if you were ever an IV drug user.
So fairly quickly we started testing for Hep C & HIV in donated blood.
What we have to remember is that yes, many of these infected patients would have died without blood anyway.
I'm only speaking from personal experience and I'm not aware of the politics around the issue. The hemophiliacs story is heartbreaking and there have of course been tragedies, such as expectant mother's passing on the virus. But again, I personally know the first baby born in Europe to a known HIV +ve mother who was negative. (She's a talented camera woman in her 30s and a new mother herself. Sadly her own mum died just a few years back). So many patients who contracted these conditions lived happy lives for decades with the condition. They may not have lived at all without blood.
