hi amyfa
Your question was asked earlier in the post basically answered similar to what I say to you now, smoking, shooting, running around the streets painted blue screaming "Come on you reds" are also not in the bible should we do them too? Jews got the law, Christians got principles, we all have to use personal judgement on a lot of things as to whether they are against our consciences. in 99% of christian religions christmas is fine and a loved holiday in this the JWs are going against current opinion.
Sacolton, your not gonna make me google Christmas and pagan and put another list on, I already did once earlier in this thread and posted it /cry
Insearchoftruth
Not meaning to add another topic, but Luke 6, quoted above, is a story where a mosiac law was violated to save a life....where does that differ from getting a blood transfusion (I guess a transfusion of one of the major components, since most every other part of blood is allowed) to save a life?
I actually agree with you on this one, its one of the reasons i'm still only studying and researching because i think this principle is a sound one to apply to saving lifes with blood transfusions, for me I may still refuse but if i was responsible for anyone else i would accept for them using this principle and accept the consequences, Also i'm no hypocrite if as a parent i was sitting back hoping for a court order to allow my kids to have a transfusion than i would just go ahead and do it, if the hope is there i've already commited the sin in my heart so a bit pointless pretending otherwise.
But on saying all that the Jw's are not lying when they say there is a mortality rate with blood transfusions but that is getting less as we understand the proper uses of it more, I think most blood banks are now removing the white cells which are thought to be carriers of the undetectable illnesses from what i read from news items on google but nothing is cut and dried and blood transfusions are an extremely volitile subject more so than christmas but i'll post some non-witness current news info for you to judge by yourself. A better suggestion is to google for youselfs than take anyone word on such an important subject.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/24/medicalresearch.health
Many blood transfusions may increase risks, doctors warn
· UK study found dangers for heart surgery patients
· Fears over death rate and storage lead to US inquiry
More than half of blood transfusions may do more harm than good, with some patients facing a six-fold greater risk of dying following surgery because of transfusions, doctors warn today.
Fears over the safety of blood transfusions have prompted some physicians to recommend they are used only as a last resort, with hospitals urged to be more selective over which patients receive blood. According to a report in New Scientist today, the National Institutes of Health, the US government's largest medical funder, has launched a review into the safety of the procedure. Bruce Spiess, a cardiac anaesthetist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, America, told the magazine: "Probably 40%-60% of blood transfusions are not good for the patients."
While the risks of contracting life-threatening infections, such as HIV, from blood transfusions are well understood, doctors believe the danger posed by the blood itself is more serious.
Although they do not fully understand why blood transfusions are linked to higher death rates, they suspect that ageing blood that has been stored before being given to patients is less able to carry oxygen to vital organs and causes damage to the immune system.
Blood transfusions became a common procedure during the two world wars, when they were used to save critically-injured soldiers. They are now used routinely in heart surgery, hip replacement operations and cancer treatment. According to the National Blood Service, only 8% of donated blood is used in accident and emergency situations.
According to New Scientist, a recent flurry of studies highlighting the risks of blood transfusions has prompted the wide-ranging safety review. One study of almost 9,000 patients, led by cardiac surgeon Gavin Murphy at the Bristol Heart Institute, found that patients who had heart surgery between 1996 and 2003 were three times more likely to die a year after their operation if they had a blood transfusion. In the month after surgery they were six times more likely to die than patients who did not receive donated blood.
"There is virtually no high-quality study in surgery, or intensive care or acute care, outside of when you are bleeding to death, that shows that blood transfusion is beneficial, and many that show it is bad for you," he said. There are more than 30,000 cardiac operations in Britain each year, with around half involving blood transfusions.
The American review will attempt to find out why blood transfusions appear to be so harmful to many patients.
One theory is that chemicals in donated blood suppress the patient's immune system, making it harder to fight off infections. But doctors also know that within hours of being collected red blood cells stiffen up, making them less able to squeeze down narrow blood vessels and supply oxygen to vital organs.
A study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine found that patients who received blood that was more than two weeks old were almost 70% more likely to die within a year than patients who received fresher blood.
John Wallwork, professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Papworth hospital in Cambridge, said: "We are concerned about blood transfusions for a variety of reasons. We don't want to use blood unless we have to. In heart surgery around half receive blood transfusions, but often they are patients who are sicker or bleed significantly during the operation. It's always a case of balancing the risks."
Blood transfusions raise heart patients' infection and death risk -- especially women
New finding helps 'connect the dots' of a women-specific medical mystery
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Blood transfusions save the lives of millions of heart surgery patients and others each year. But a new study suggests that patients who receive transfusions during heart bypass surgery have a higher risk of developing potentially dangerous infections, and dying, after their operation.
In fact, this increased risk may help explain a longstanding medical mystery: why women bypass patients are more likely than men to die in the first few months after surgery. Women are more likely to receive blood during heart bypass operations, which are performed on more than 465,000 Americans each year.
The findings, from the Patient Safety Enhancement Program (PSEP) at the University of Michigan Health System, are based on data from 9,218 Michigan bypass patients. After adjusting for factors such as the urgency of the operation, those who received blood transfusions from donors were five times more likely to die within 100 days of their operation than those who did not.
The paper is published in the December issue of the American Heart Journal. It builds on a previous U-M analysis that found that a difference in infection rates accounted for the difference in death risk between men and women bypass patients.
The U-M team, with the help of Neil Blumberg, M.D., of the University of Rochester Medical Center, focused on blood transfusions as a contributing factor. Prior research has shown that recipients of stored donor blood have more post-surgical infections, and that women receive more transfusions because they tend to have lower hemoglobin concentrations.
This new study connects the dots. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to state that allogeneic transfusions may be the reason why women have a greater post-bypass surgery mortality risk than men," says author Mary A.M. Rogers, Ph.D., M.S., PSEP, research director and research assistant professor of internal medicine. Allogeneic is the term for blood from another person.
The authors strongly note that blood transfusions can be life-saving, and that the infections observed in this study are not likely due to contamination of the blood. Rather, they may be due to other factors, including the patient's immune response to substances such as white blood cells that are present in stored donor blood. These findings may help guide hospitals and blood banks in deciding whether to filter donated blood to reduce the levels of white blood cells. This practice is increasingly common, but not yet universal, in the United States.
The study is based on analysis of data from all Medicare beneficiaries ages 65 and older who had coronary artery bypass operations in Michigan in a single year.
The researchers performed statistical analyses that took into account the patients' blood transfusion status, their co-existing diseases, age, race, sex, and whether the bypass operation was done on an elective, urgent or emergency basis. They looked at infections and deaths that were reported during the 100 days after surgery.
In all, about 88 percent of women received an allogeneic blood transfusion during bypass surgery, compared with nearly 67 percent of men. When the researchers adjusted for other factors, women were 3.4 times as likely as men to receive blood. This gender difference was evident regardless of whether the operation was elective, urgent or emergency.
The odds of having an infection of any kind were about three times greater in patients who received allogeneic blood than in patients who did not. The more blood they received, the higher their infection risk. This "dose dependent" relationship strengthens the evidence that transfusions may be related to infections.
No single type of infection stood out as more common among blood recipients, which suggests a body-wide immune response issue rather than a problem, for example, at the site of the incision.
The analyses revealed that women were more likely to experience an infection than men after bypass surgery, which appeared to be due to the increased number of transfusions in women. This resulted in an increased mortality rate in women. Overall, 9 percent of women and 6 percent of the men died within 100 days of their operation.
For patients who had banked their own blood ahead of the operation and who received only their own blood, the infection risk was similar to that of patients who received no blood transfusions. Rogers notes that patients should ask their doctors regarding banking their own blood if possible, when scheduled for a bypass operation or other kind of surgery.
In addition, physicians are increasing their use of transfusion alternatives such as blood "expanders," blood substitutes and blood-conserving procedures during bypass surgeries.
The results also highlight the importance of the proper use of antibiotics and infection control practices in patients hospitalized for a surgical procedure, says Rogers
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-12/uomh-btr121906.php
