Posts by OrphanCrow

65

Doctors and surgeons say no to blood transfusions

by Mr Negative in

my mum recently told me that even surgeons won't have blood transfusions, but the common people don't get told this.

i have also seen or heard others say that a bunch of doctors/health officials/surgeons were asked, at some point, if they would accept a blood transfusion and they all said no.

is this true?

OrphanCrow

Prologos, it is important to understand that there has been, historically, a very distinct divide in the US between two different approaches to medicine - allopathic and osteopathic.

There are 'allopathic' doctors and there are 'osteopathic' doctors.

So, when you ask the question - " how have doctor's attitudes to accept transfusions for themselves been affected by tainted blood?", it is critical to understand that you will get different responses, depending upon which kindof doctor you are speaking of.

The doctors who follow the allopathic approach to medicine, like the ones that Backformore trained with, and who do use and take blood transfusions - are the doctors who would traditionally be seen as those who founded and belong to the American Medical Association. These are the doctors that the Watchtower Society has had a long standing feud with - the AMA. These doctors understand the need to reduce the use of blood unnecessarily, but they do see blood transfusions as a life saving measure. These also are the doctors who have worked very diligently to make improvements and changes in the blood banking system such that it is now common knowlege that the risks of contracting a disease from transfused blood is very, very low. I doubt very much if an allopathically trained doctor would say no to a blood transfusion for themselves or their family. Reduction of blood transfusions - yes. Elimination of blood transfusions - absolutely not.

It is mostly within the osteopathic field of medicine that you will find bloodlesss surgery methods promoted. It is the osteopathic doctors and surgeons who mostly support, endorse, and use bloodless surgery. And, it will more than likely be from an osteopathically trained doctor that you will hear some of the quotes that the Watchtower tosses around. Because, it is in this field, that of osteopathic medicine, that you will find Jehovah's Witness doctors and surgeons. And, of course, a JW doctor says that they won't take blood.

The history of the clashes and fights and struggles between the American Medical Association and the osteopaths is long, bloody and not pretty. A person can see elements of that struggle played out in old Watchtower literature. It took much fighting before the osteopaths gained recognition as 'real' medical doctors and surgeons and there still exists controversy surrounding the credibilty and ability of ospteopathic doctors in some states. The ospteopaths do have accreditation now, but it was not always so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_medicine_in_the_United_States

If you read the article I linked to in my last post, about the Watchtower Society's promotion of bloodless medicine programs in Canada (Candian health care is far different than the US and the Canadian public health care system has made it very advantageous for experimental technology to advance...behind the scenes, so to speak...), you will notice that the promotion of bloodless surgery has been done on the basis of cost saving - not health reasons and not about tainted blood. The way the Society has been able to introduce bloodless programs into public health care systems, like Canada and Australia, is by making a case that bloodless programs save money. Hence, the birth of 'blood management'.

When the Society's blood management teams 'sell' their programs to hospitals and to entire countries, they do not concern themselves very much with 'tainted blood' issues - that doesn't sell their bloodless programs - blood management does - the financial benefits of blood management is what drives the bloodless industry - not tainted blood.

Tainted blood, really, is almost a moot point in the current medical use of blood transfusions in North America.

I would be far more concerned about all that could go wrong with cell savers, etc. than I would be about contracting some disease from a blood transfusion. The cell saver and hemodilution procedures come with all the mechanical risks, and more, of an allogenic blood transfusion - the only thing that bloodless surgery procedures are able to afford protection from is disease - every other risk associated with blood transfusions exist with 'bloodless' methods.

71

Watchtower encouraging members to go and preach in Israel

by wannaexit in

jw
friends

an odd letter was read at last nights' meeting.

it was in regards to a special campaign for next year arranged by the governing body to go and preach in israel.

the call is going out to anybody that speaks hebrew and english.

OrphanCrow

That is odd, to be encouraging single women to head over to Israel.

Who knows what the Watchtower Society's ulterior motive is....but, for sure - it isn't looking for converts - the JWs have been used as a political 'force' in the past and I can't see the Society changing its ways.

I don't know if this has any bearing on why single sisters are being recruited:

There are several reasons that confer exemption from military service in Israel to the person involved; some only apply to men, others apply only to women, and others to both sexes.

Other than marriage, pregnancy and parenthood, there is another criteria that allows women to avoid being conscripted:

Exemption for religious reasons (for women only), in accordance with sections 39 and 40 of the Security Service Law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exemption_from_military_service_in_Israel

65

Doctors and surgeons say no to blood transfusions

by Mr Negative in

my mum recently told me that even surgeons won't have blood transfusions, but the common people don't get told this.

i have also seen or heard others say that a bunch of doctors/health officials/surgeons were asked, at some point, if they would accept a blood transfusion and they all said no.

is this true?

OrphanCrow

I have not watched the Watchtower video. But I am familar with it - I found the DVD in a research hospital's library a few years back.

But, I did encounter Dr. Boyd in this article from 1996: Jehovah's Witnesses leading education drive as hospitals adjust to No Blood requests.

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/eppp-archive/100/201/300/cdn_medical_association/cmaj/vol-154/0557e.htm

Charland is director of hospital information services for the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Canada, which represents more than 200 000 Jehovah's Witnesses. He and some of his colleagues were at Dalhousie to give a presentation, "Meeting the challenge of nonblood medical management." It is part of a larger effort to educate the medical community about the Jehovah's Witness position on blood and to promote "bloodless" medicine and surgery in Canada. In recent years, Charland and other Watch Tower representatives have visited more than 10 medical schools and 200 hospitals across the country.

This was their third appearance at Dalhousie, where their presentation is now part of an undergraduate curriculum unit. Charland provided students with a brief overview of the medical interventions Jehovah's Witnesses will and won't accept, and then explained the biblical basis for their beliefs. He also discussed the ethical issues surrounding the doctor-patient relationship and the treatment of Jehovah's Witness children, and described how his organization -- through access to experienced specialists, hospital liaison committees, and online research -- can assist physicians in caring for church members.

This was the Society's sales pitch at that seminar, which Dr. Boyd was present at:

"Worldwide," he said, "there are some 100 bloodless medicine and surgery centres or programs offered in tertiary, regional and teaching hospitals." There are 52 of these hospitals in the United States alone, which assure patients that blood will never be used. As one ob/gyn resident remarks later in the session, "these centres must be inundated with people - everyone wants [to go] bloodless these days."

That trend has not been lost on Charland and his colleagues, and they believe it's only a matter of time before bloodless medicine and surgery programs begin to emerge north of the border. "In Canada, we don't think it's a question of whether," Charland said. "It's a question of where first."

Bloodless medicine and surgery programs "embrace all the specialties where blood transfusions could become a consideration," he says. According to Watch Tower literature, the programs include a coordinator, "a core team" of specialists willing to treat patients without allogeneic blood, hospital policies and procedures that facilitate patient care (such as patient forms and identification), and mobilization of appropriate treatment techniques and protocols.

He adds that many hospitals have implemented various components, and four want to take a more "formalized or institutionalized approach." But it hasn't been an easy sell. Although blood usage has been decreasing here, Charland says Canada is "conspicuously absent" from the list of more than nine countries where bloodless programs have been set up in response to the needs of Jehovah's Witnesses and the wishes of other patients.

He cites several reasons for the lukewarm reception. "At first glance there isn't an immediate financial incentive," he says. "Administrators and doctors in Canada have a difficult time visualizing how this saves the system money. . . . Many are working with the old myth that blood is free. They're not looking at the direct or indirect cost of blood-transfusion therapy."

Dr. Pinkerton was not in support of bloodless surgery programs:

"I don't see these programs serving any useful purpose," adds Dr. Peter Pinkerton, director of clinical pathology at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre in Toronto. "What we should be doing is trying to reduce transfusions across the board. This concept is the extreme end of a continuum. . . . You can carry this too far - you can start denying transfusions to people who should really receive them.

"Obviously with Jehovah's Witnesses you have to respect their religious beliefs and refrain from giving any blood product, but [for] any other patient you give them as little as you can reasonably get away with [while] maintaining their clinical condition."

But Dr. Boyd did support a bloodless program:

On the other hand, suggests Dr. Mark Boyd, bloodless programs may have beneficial side effects. Boyd, head of gynecology at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, has performed more than 500 procedures on Jehovah's Witnesses and can recall only one of his non-Witness patients being transfused in the past 5 years. "I think it's positive," he says of bloodless programs. "Blood isn't a popular product, particularly in the last decade."

Boyd recently completed a study of 100 hysterectomy patients who refused blood transfusions, and about 10% were not Jehovah's Witnesses. He says all did well and left the hospital at the same time as patients in the control group. Furthermore, of the 10 control patients who received blood, 8 transfusions "were unnecessary." Boyd, who is not a Jehovah's Witness, believes bloodless programs could make physicians more aware of preventing the need for transfusions in other patients. "The recognition that it's possible to do these things and to formalize them and have people try to make decisions before an actual crisis is important," he says. "There's nothing radical about the Jehovah's Witness approach, and everybody is capable of it . . . but it's not something that everyone is comfortable about doing."

Note the 90 JW women that he used in a medical study.

Nice having a willing group like that to try out radical approaches to health care.

No wonder he supported the Watchtower - they were sending him subjects for his medical research.

And, unrelated to the doctor opinion - later in the article there is this:

In Chicago, however, Jan Castro Graziani recommends "a formal setup." Castro Graziani is coordinator of the Center for Bloodless Medicine and Surgery at Our Lady of Resurrection Medical Center, which was established in 1987 and is the oldest bloodless centre in the United States. She describes the Chicago centre as, essentially, a hospital department. When patients are admitted, they sign the appropriate forms and receive blue wristbands and blue coding on their chart. Then they are streamed into the normal patient population.

Jan Castro Graziani is a Jehovah's Witness. Many, if not all, of the Bloodless Institutes established in the States were started and maintained by Jehovah's Witnesses.

65

Doctors and surgeons say no to blood transfusions

by Mr Negative in

my mum recently told me that even surgeons won't have blood transfusions, but the common people don't get told this.

i have also seen or heard others say that a bunch of doctors/health officials/surgeons were asked, at some point, if they would accept a blood transfusion and they all said no.

is this true?

OrphanCrow

Just a bit more information to add to that of Mr. Earnshaw, the doctor who appeared on the front cover of the Awake magazine.

His photo also appears connected to a bloodless surgery website.

http://www.rumburak.friko.pl/ARTYKULY/zdrowie/krew/pionierzy.php

It appears like the bloodless industry is as guilty as the Watchtower Society in misrepresentation.

71

Watchtower encouraging members to go and preach in Israel

by wannaexit in

jw
friends

an odd letter was read at last nights' meeting.

it was in regards to a special campaign for next year arranged by the governing body to go and preach in israel.

the call is going out to anybody that speaks hebrew and english.

OrphanCrow

I find this call for people to preach in Israel quite alarming.

Muddywaters, you said

In William Schnell's book, "30 Years a Watchtower Slave", he described how Rutherford would DELIBERATELY send in his "companies" (publishers/colporteurs) into areas of high resistance to stir up persecution, which he would then push through the court system to help the WT gain legitimacy, protection, legal status, publicity, sympathy, and whatever else they could gain from having his minions be beaten, thrown in jail, tarred & feathered, etc.

Yes. It was a deliberate campaign organized primarily by Hayden Covington.

Jennifer Jacobs Henderson, in her paper The Jehovah's Witnesses and their plan to expand first amendment freedoms, published in 2004, speaks of this very thing.

http://www.manitobaphotos.com/theolib/downloads/First_Amendment_Freedoms.pdf

The legal department was up and running when Hayden Covington joined the staff in 1939. At the
time of Covington's arrival, the Watchtower legal department consisted of the chief legal counsel,
several assistants, and a clerical staff. Many of the practices for gathering information from local
congregations and contacting attorneys had already been established. Booklets providing legal
instructions to Witnesses in the field had been distributed. The legal department was not proactive,
however, until Hayden Covington arrived. Covington's first task was to develop a legal strategy as
aggressive as Rutherford's spiritual one. The first step of his plan was to identify local communities
where Witnesses faced legal roadblocks to their ministry.

IDENTIFYING LOCATIONS

Covington would determine which communities were targeted for intensive fieldwork, and thus,
potential future litigation. Covington would "send people into areas they knew would be a problem,
especially if there was a large Catholic population," (29) "an active priest," (30) or "previous
opposition." (31) Covington would simply inform a certain congregation that they needed to preach in
a certain territory, often adding, "It hasn't been preached in awhile." (32) For example, in New Haven,
Connecticut, three Witnesses and two of their sons were canvassing Cassius Street with a new
Judge Rutherford recording attacking the Roman Catholic Church. About 90 percent of the residents
of Cassius Street were Roman Catholic. (33) While Covington never admitted to deliberately
provoking local residents or law enforcement agents, his tactics often produced the desired
outcome--arrest.

Identifying localities ripe for litigation was a long, often challenging process. When communities
initially targeted produced little response from law enforcement, Witnesses were sent on to the next
potential test site. Professor Jerry Bergman, a former Jehovah's Witness, explained, "They would
deliberately send them into this area and if there was no problem, send them into another area." (34)

Covington "probed in community after community," Historian Merlin Owen Newton wrote, "to
determine local limits." (35) Covington saw the process of cultivating arrests and appeal as a
"long-term struggle," one that would not end by "winning a case tomorrow." (36)

Witnesses were often sent into confrontational situations unaware of the danger, (37) but they did not
question Covington's plan. Even when they may have suspected trouble, Witnesses were taught not
to question decisions from the Watchtower leadership who claimed they had a direct line to God.
Also, Witnesses saw themselves as instruments of God, and "God was fighting this battle." (38)
Witnesses believed that they should be used in whatever way necessary to advance the cause.
Newton explained that Roscoe and Thelma Jones, whose case Jones v. Opelika would reach the
Supreme Court in 1942, believed "if their convictions could be used to further the larger cause ... then
their convictions must be part of Jehovah's divine plan." (39)

Many of the witnesses sent into these 'hotspots' were brutally treated. Some of the accounts are horrifying - one young boy was castrated. Because at the same time that Covington sent his army of witnesses into the field, the children were being tested on their allegiance to either the Theocratic Government/Watchtower Society or the Amercian flag and the American pledge of allegiance.

It was ugly at that time to be a Jehovah's Witness when you were being called upon to make changes in the American constitution.

15

Doctrine, Disfellowshipping and the IRS

by OrphanCrow in

i watched an episode of "lie to me" on netflix that piqued my curiosity.. .

in the episode truth or consequences, a cult leader is investigated by the irs to determine if his cult has tax exemption or not.. one of the criteria that has to be met in order to be a legitimate 'church' or 'religion' in the eyes of the irs is that the members have to display "genuine belief'.. here is the portion of the script that speaks of this:.

http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=lie-to-me&episode=s02e02.

OrphanCrow

Just a little bit more information to add to the tax climate in the 1950s.

Keep in mind that up to that point, it was the bragging rights of the Jehovah's Witnesses everywhere that "We are not a religion - we are a group of like minded people who study the Bible. The Watchtower Society is a '"Corporation". Or words to that effect - it has been a while and the mantra has slipped from my memory. However, don't take my word for it - there are many quotes of Rutherford's boast, both in Watchtower publications and in the public press. "We are not a religion" was said by a whole generation of Witnesses. And then it all changed. Sort of gradually in the rank and file - but at the top level, the move from Corporation to religion would have had major financial benefits for the Watchtower in 1950.

America was in war recovery - they, like every other country, had a huge war debt to consider. So they made some changes to the tax laws.

Revenue Act of 1950

Individual Income Tax. Eliminated portion of the individual income tax rate reductions from 1945 and 1948 acts.

Corporate Tax. Eliminated 53% corporate tax rate "bubble"; increased top corporate rate from 38% to 45%.

All of a sudden, claiming not to be a religion came with a huge financial cost.

Hence, the shift to a 'religion'.

And having to qualify as one meant having to establish 'genuine belief'.

Voila. Offical doctrine on disfellowshipping in 1952.

As far as 1914 doctrine goes. I am afraid that the above explanation makes sense to me.

More sense than anything the GB can pull out of their grey bible.

15

Doctrine, Disfellowshipping and the IRS

by OrphanCrow in

i watched an episode of "lie to me" on netflix that piqued my curiosity.. .

in the episode truth or consequences, a cult leader is investigated by the irs to determine if his cult has tax exemption or not.. one of the criteria that has to be met in order to be a legitimate 'church' or 'religion' in the eyes of the irs is that the members have to display "genuine belief'.. here is the portion of the script that speaks of this:.

http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=lie-to-me&episode=s02e02.

OrphanCrow

Thank you for the advice, Vidot.

I totally understand what you are saying.

There is much disinformation out there.

28

New Zealand News: Jehovah's Witness dies after refusing blood transfusion

by AndersonsInfo in

jehovah's witness dies after refusing blood transfusion.

monday, october 20, 2014.

3 news - nzn.

OrphanCrow

I believe the woman was actually an ex-JW at the time of the surgery.

Blood-brainwashing has a long life span.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/10639363/Ex-Jehovahs-Witness-bled-to-death-after-surgery

Crazyguy - I don't think that bovine blood substitute is readily available for general use. There may be some clinical trials still in progress, but, several years ago when it was all the rage for JWs, it was only clinical trials being conducted. I believe most of those trials were in South Africa. Some (or all) of those trials had to be stopped because of high mortality rates in the trial groups (which, of course, were JWs).

15

Doctrine, Disfellowshipping and the IRS

by OrphanCrow in

i watched an episode of "lie to me" on netflix that piqued my curiosity.. .

in the episode truth or consequences, a cult leader is investigated by the irs to determine if his cult has tax exemption or not.. one of the criteria that has to be met in order to be a legitimate 'church' or 'religion' in the eyes of the irs is that the members have to display "genuine belief'.. here is the portion of the script that speaks of this:.

http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=lie-to-me&episode=s02e02.

OrphanCrow

Getting a bureaucracy to become proactive takes a lot of effort, unless politicians pass laws to either fund it to be proactive or penalize it for draggin its feet.

Have you thought about contacting Congressional representatives to promote changing tax laws for non-profit organizations? Have you thought about becoming more politically active, like joining the Linkedin group Advocates for Protecting Children from Maltreatment

I understand what you are saying, BibleStudent, however, I am more interested in redemption than I am in making changes in tax laws.

Fighting tax laws are for those who think it can make a difference. The difference has to come from the WTS and unfortunately that will only happen once they have established their position as a recognized religion in all countries. Canada, for example, has a general time frame of 75 years for a religion to establish itself as legitimate before the shunning rules (which determine 'genuine belief') can be dropped. The irony is that the more a citizen protests the tax laws for churches the more that the IRS will demand these kinds of proofs of belief such as disfellowshipping.

The damage has already been done and I am more interested in making this information known to the exJW community and then, from there, to the JWs themselves. It is more important to raise awareness within those communities themselves so that terms of retribution can be determined for those whose lives have been destroyed for the only reason of increasing the WTS' coffers.

I wonder how many people who have lost loved ones to the disfellowshipping policy will feel once they find out that the only reason their loved ones have committed suicide or been ostracized as 'unclean' is entirely based upon the Watchtower Society's tax exemption status. I wonder how many current JWs will 'see the light' once they understand that salient point.

15

Doctrine, Disfellowshipping and the IRS

by OrphanCrow in

i watched an episode of "lie to me" on netflix that piqued my curiosity.. .

in the episode truth or consequences, a cult leader is investigated by the irs to determine if his cult has tax exemption or not.. one of the criteria that has to be met in order to be a legitimate 'church' or 'religion' in the eyes of the irs is that the members have to display "genuine belief'.. here is the portion of the script that speaks of this:.

http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=lie-to-me&episode=s02e02.

OrphanCrow

"I really have no doubts that the JWs qualify as a religion under the IRS Code as it stands now"

The point of this post is not whether or not the WTS qualifies a religion now.

I could care less whether it does or not but I do care that the disfellowshipping practise that has ruined and taken so many lives since it was put in place in 1952 was put in place to satisfy IRS demands and it had fuck all to do with biblical doctrine and was only put in place so that the WTS could claim that it didn't have to pay tax.

That is the concern - the people who killed themselves, the people who dealt with terrible consequences because of disfellowshipping and it was only because of money.

The point is that all that happened, not because of biblical principles, like the WTS claims, but so that the WTS could establish themselves as an entity that didn't have to pay tax.

People have died over the disfellowshipping doctrine.