Blood - A Balanced View??

by Aude_Sapere 14 Replies latest watchtower medical

  • Hellrider
    Hellrider

    By the way: Has anyone taken a look at what the JW official website says about blood?

    http://www.watchtower.org/library/hb/index.htm

    ...heres a little from the article:

    "We are not being naive in this matter, for we realize that not all will agree with this approach. People differ as to conscience, ethics, and medical outlook. Hence, others, including some doctors, may find it hard to accept a patient's decision to abstain from blood. One New York surgeon wrote: "I will never forget 15 years ago, as a young intern when I stood at the bedside of a Jehovah's Witness who bled to death from a duodenal ulcer. The patient's wishes were respected and no transfusions were given, but I can still remember the tremendous frustration as a physician I felt."

    The British Journal of Surgery (October 1986) reported that prior to the advent of transfusions, gastrointestinal hemorrhage had "a mortality rate of only 2.5 per cent." Since transfusions became customary, 'most large studies report a 10-percent mortality.' Why a death rate four times as high? The researchers suggested: "Early blood transfusion appears to reverse the hypercoagulable response to haemorrhage thereby encouraging rebleeding." When the Witness with the bleeding ulcer refused blood, his choice may actually have maximized his prospects for survival.

    This same surgeon added: "The passage of time and treating many patients has a tendency to change one's perspective, and today I find the trust between a patient and his physician, and the duty to respect a patient's wishes far more important than the new medical technology which surrounds us. . . . It is interesting that the frustration has now given way to a sense of awe and reverence for that particular patient's steadfast faith." The physician concluded: 'It reminds me that I should always respect a patient's personal and religious wishes regardless of my feelings or the consequences.'

    You may already realize something that many physicians come to appreciate with "the passage of time and treating many patients." Even with the best of medical care in the finest of hospitals, at some point people die. With or without blood transfusions, they die. All of us are aging, and life's end is approaching. That is not fatalistic. It is realistic. Dying is a fact of life."

    ...my concern is this: The people that wrote this article, are not doctors! And the things they say, affect many, many peoples lives, as these people rely more on every word written by the WTS than all the doctors in the world. And that`s pretty...scary, in my opinion..

  • rebel8
    rebel8

    More irresponsible drivel.

    Please tell me they don't have a pic of a tombstone on their website. That brings a new meaning to the words tacky and ghoulish.

  • Hellrider
    Hellrider
    Please tell me they don't have a pic of a tombstone on their website

    Yup, it`s in there with the articles on blood, under the "The blood that really saves lives": http://www.watchtower.org/library/hb/index.htm

    Death-cult, I tell ya, death-cult.

  • outnfree
    outnfree

    Hmmph!

    I threw away my "No Blood" card years ago, too, and told my doctors I was no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses and thus was open to receiving blood if deemed necessary.

    But when it came down to the first test of my newly liberated stance, I actually found that many of the old bugaboos remained in my thinking -- perhaps not without good reason. I was reading up on a test I had to have performed for which it was noted that the pre-test injection would have red blood cells attached to it. I surprised myself by freaking out, asking myself "WHOSE red blood cells?" I was not at all sure that I wanted the test if it were someone else's blood cells that would be used.

    As it turned out, the substance attached to my own red blood cells (I phoned ahead and asked for an explanation), and then a picture was taken later of how they'd moved around my own circulatory system.

    My strong reaction against the idea of anyone else's blood being transfused in any form into my body was an unexpected eye-opener! I thought I had the balanced view Aude_Sapere is espousing -- cautious, conservative use of blood transfusion, but my actual response was very emotional.

    All that said, I STILL don't know if I'd have had the test if it were someone else's red blood cells that were to be used.

  • IT Support
    IT Support

    After chatting to my GP about this subject, I was pleased to hear that doctors do not now routinely give blood. They themselves (obviously allowing for individual variabilities) now tend to only give it when no other alternatives are available.

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