Jehovah's Witnesses, and the blood transfusion controversy? cont'd.?

The Watchtower's (JW) blood policy is more enmired than ever. Somehow, individual witnesses are supposed to become as well-educated as doctors in the risks and benefits of blood in medicine, bloodless surgery and the risks of life or death.

The cover of the May 22, 1994 Awake! magazine shows photos of 26 children, with the caption: "Youths Who Put God First." The magazine glorifies Witness children who died supporting WTS policy. The government of Bulgaria reacted to this by stipulating in its agreement with the WTBS that baptised JW minors may not be issued the WTBS "advance directive", which forbids the use of blood and blood components disallowed by the WTBS in the case of emergency

"Of growing concern over Jehovah’s Witnesses’ (JWs) refusal of blood is the intrusion of the religious organization into its members’ personal decision making about medical care. The organization currently may apply severe religious sanctions to JWs who opt for certain forms of blood-based treatment. While the doctrine may be maintained as the unchangeable "law of God", the autonomy of individual JW patients could still be protected by the organization modifying its current policy so that it strictly adheres to the right of privacy regarding personal medical information. The author proposes that the controlling religious organization adopt a "don’t-ask-don‘t-tell" policy, which assures JWs that they would neither be asked nor compelled to reveal personal medical information, either to one another or to the church organization. This would relieve patients of the fear of breach of medical confidentiality and ensure a truly autonomous decision on blood-based treatments without fear of organizational control or sanction." -- Osamu Muramoto Kaiser Permanente, Portland, Oregon, USA (Journal of Medical Ethics 1 999;25:463—468)

Yes, the medical profession has come up with alternate treatments. Meanwhile, what are the medical risks?

"The Watchtower Society (WTS) partially quotes and thus acknowledges a study indicating that for every 13,000 blood transfusions, there is one death. This is a slightly greater risk than that associated with taking an antibiotic, or having general anesthesia. The society also acknowledges a study which indicates the refusal of blood during surgery increases mortality by approximately 1%. (A chart published in the February 1993 issue of 'The American Journal of Medicine' shows that studies based on 1,404 operations mostly cardiovascular surgery and hip replacement performed on Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) without blood transfusions reveal that 1.4 percent of the patients died due to lack of blood as a primary or contributing cause of death.) This means that every time a JW has "bloodless surgery" his chance of dying is 1% greater. Expressed another way, for every 100 hundred operations, there is one unnecessary death. Multiply this by many years and thousands upon thousands of operations, add to it those who die from massive blood loss before making it to surgery, factor in the victims of childbirth complications, leukemia and related blood disorders, and what you have is the needless deaths of many thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses. (Compare WT 10/15/93 p. 32)

"We wish that we could provide some hard numbers, but for obvious reasons, the Society chooses not to document these deaths. We will attempt to illustrate the human cost. According to published reports, in 1994 there were 22.6 million surgical procedures performed in the United States. For the purpose of our illustration, we will assume that only 25% of these procedures would qualify as major surgery, or approximately 5.6 million cases. Based upon the WTS published figures, we can extrapolate that approximately 20,600 of these surgeries were carried out upon Witnesses (U.S. publisher ratio is 1:270). Since we know that a refusal to accept blood increases the mortality risk by approximately one percent, we can conservatively estimate that 206 Witnesses died in the United States, directly as a result of refusing blood therapy. Furthermore, there are 5.4 million Witnesses publishing the good news as of 1996. Less than one million of these were in the United States. So we can conservatively multiply this figure by a factor of five. The resulting estimate shows that approximately 1000 Jehovah's Witnesses die annually as a result of the blood prohibition. "

--AJWRB.ORG "Just What Are the Risks?"

"In 1997 AJWRB learned that the Watchtower Society had perjured itself before the European Commission on Human Rights. This is a commission that operates under the authority of the World Court, and to which the Watchtower Society submitted a false and misleading application regarding objections to legal recognition that had been raised by the government of Bulgaria.

"By reading the court's ruling on the application filed by the Watchtower Society, it will be readily apparent to anyone familiar with Jehovah's Witnesses that Watchtower officials have grossly misrepresented crucial facts concerning Jehovah's Witnesses and the blood doctrine. Here is one key paragraph regarding children and the blood issue:

'As regards the alleged involvement of children the applicant association [The Watchtower Society] submits that children cannot become members of the association but only participate, together with their parents, in the religious activities of the community. In respect of the refusal of blood transfusion, the applicant association submits that there are no religious sanctions for a Jehovah's Witness who chooses to accept blood transfusion and that, therefore, the fact that the religious doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses is against blood transfusion cannot amount to a threat to "public health". '

"It is not unheard of for children to be baptized, and to become members of the association before reaching the age of ten, although most Jehovah's Witness children are probably in their early teens when they officially become members of the congregation, and subject to its judicial process.

"As for a Witness who accepts one of the banned blood products, or a whole blood transfusion, the Watchtower's position has been quite clear for four decades:

"...the receiver of a blood transfusion must be cut off from God's people by excommunication or disfellowshiping....if in the future he persists in accepting blood transfusions or in donating blood toward the carrying out of this medical practice upon others, he shows that he has really not repented, but is deliberately opposed to God's requirements. As a rebellious opposer and unfaithful example to fellow members of the Christian congregation he must be cut off therefrom by disfellowshiping. - The Watchtower 01/15/1961 pp. 63, 64 "

EDIT:

NMB: ""Thousands upon thousands of Jehovah's witnesses have died due to this call for abstainance...."

Your source for this claim?"

Apparently you didn't read MY post here. Take a look... right here (above and below).

It is the Watchtower that has heaped controversy on itself with it's arbitrary flip-flopping decisions on what "parts" aka fractions of Blood are allowed and disallowed.

If you go by the old testament it says to pour ALL the blood onto the ground as dust as it is ALL sacred to God.So,where does the Watchtower get the authority to decide what "parts" of something that is sacred can be used??

Moreover,no question it's more healthy not to put another persons blood or any body parts into your body if you don't need it.In cases of emergency trauma such as in a car crash if I lose 3-4 pints of blood I will die without an emergency transfusion there is no time for fancy modern gadgets or vitamin supplements to 'build up my blood'.

Case in point,I had a 'totalproctocolectomy' major surgery and did all the things you JW's suggest to build up and prep my body for surgery and had two pints of my own blood (forbidden by the WT) on standby that my skilled surgeon did not have to use.BUT I had 3 months to prepare for that surgery.

Some cases need immediate life-saving emergency blood transfusions and the watchtower's doctrine Say's NO.

Too, common sense says in cases where someone is gushing blood there isn’t time to slowly try to bring up blood volume with expanders etc.

Moreover,the Watchtower condemns using (your OWN stored) autologous blood!

The Watchtower WILL excommunicate you if they find out a baptized JW has had a transfusion.To deny this and say it's a "personal conscience matter" is a lie.

It is predicted that in possibly 10-20 years an "artificial souless blood" will be available for everybody putting an end to Red Cross collections and the blood transfusion controversy.

__

Tell the truth don't be afraid,Danny Haszard born 1957 3rd generation JW

(Some educational links provided below:)

http://www.ajwrb.org/ Jehovah Witness blood policy reform site

http://www.towertotruth.net/Articles/blood_transfu... Will you die for a lie?

Know this,the reason that JW refuse blood is because of their spin on the 3000 year old Biblical old testament,modern medicine will eventually make blood donations and transfusions a thing of the past.When this technology happens it won't vindicate the Jehovah's Witnesses and all the deaths that have occured so far.

(Jehovah's Witnesses do use many products that are derived from blood banks (so called blood 'fractions') but they themselves won't donate a drop)

The Scriptures have not changed, nor has Jehovah's Witnesses' respect for blood and for God's Word.

Jehovah's Witnesses have for many decades understood that adherence to Acts 15:20,28,29 and related bible principles meant that a true Christian would not "use" blood for any human purpose and would recognize that the bible command to 'abstain from "blood"' must logically include abstaining from components which seem theologically and reasonably equivalent, even if not medically synonymous.

Until 2000, the publications of Jehovah's Witnesses worked to conscientiously specify how and why a dozen or so different minor blood fractions might be considered to be affected or not affected by the bible command to 'abstain from blood'. As medical and scientific technology has progressed, it became clear that any list that could be compiled would be both incomplete and subject to constant change (based on secular research and pharmaceutical production methods).

A Pharisaical tendency would have moved a less godly organization to continue to maintain such a "list". Jehovah's Witnesses are certainly NOT Pharisaical, and so about 2000 the publications of Jehovah's Witnesses noted that Acts 15:20,28,29 undoubtedly applies to the use of whole blood, plasma, platelets, and red/white cells; that is, the Divine Author Jehovah God plainly wishes for humans and especially Christians to respect blood and to abstain from it and its major components. While the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses would no longer take any position for or against any minor blood fraction, each Christian was/is encouraged to follow his informed conscience.

This answer was typed fresh without reference to any previous notes or writings from anyone. Not one word was cut or pasted from somewhere else (although this has since been copied to this questioner's nearly identical other "question").

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200707...

I'll even hand-type a link for more information on Jehovah's Witnesses' understanding regarding blood...

http://watchtower.org/e/hb/

thankfully my family never had to face this situation while I was "in."

I can only imagine how betrayed the faithful JW who allowed their family member to bleed out and die is going to feel when the dawning realization comes to them that, had this "new light" about an existing, nonchanging scripture flashed just a bit sooner, their loved one would still be in their life. Their daughter who died during childbirth would be there to raise their grandchild... this could go on and on.

I can't see how people continue to defend this and I'm not saying the prospect of a blood transfusion is not scary. If I were facing one (and my daughter almost did just a few months ago) I would hope everything would be done to avoid it.. but I'm not going to allow a sure death to occur in the here and now for a theoretical "everlasting life" in the hereafter.

--WHERE ARE your references --FOR THE "thousands upon thousands of Jehovah's witnesses"--From the slanderous presentation of Leslie Stahl & "60 MINUTES" ? or SOME OTHER falsified report?--At least name your slanderous source?

-- THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS -have died directly from blood transfusions and thousands upon thousands have contracted chronic diseases:

*** bq pp. 42-43 Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Question of Blood ***

***Can knowledgeable doctors dismiss the stated dangers as being exaggerations?

115 Hardly, for the reality of the dangers is often brought home to physicians. “No biologic product,” wrote Winfield S. Miller in Medical Economics, “has a greater potential for fatal mistakes in medical practice than blood. More than one doctor has learned to his sorrow that every bottle of blood in the blood banks is a potential bottle of nitroglycerin.”

116 The patient or his family may not realize the dangers until it is too late. Stanford University’s Dr. J. Garrott Allen, a leading expert on the blood problem, estimated that blood transfusions kill at least 3,500 Americans each year and injure another 50,000.54 But there is strong reason to believe that this actually is an underestimation. For instance, the Southern Medical Journal recently suggested that the estimate that “between 3,000 and 30,000 deaths attributable to transfusions” is probably a conservative estimate.55 And bear in mind that these are figures for just one country, to say nothing of the rest of the world.

117 At a meeting of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Robert J. Baker reported that the ‘danger of adverse effects from blood is far greater than previously believed with one out of 20 patients developing a reaction.’ How many persons realize this? Showing why that report should concern us all, Dr. Charles E. Huggins, associate director of a large blood bank, added: “The report is frightening but realistic because the same problems are facing every institution [throughout] the world.”56

118 Is relief in sight? Many persons, perhaps even some in the medical profession, may feel that science has been making real headway in overcoming the dangers of blood transfusion. But, as was stated in a recent issue of the journal Surgery, “major new problems related to massive transfusion have been proposed, problems hardly or not at all considered as recently as five years ago, yet potentially overshadowing almost all the problems that haunted the consciousness of the blood bankers, clinicians, and investigators for the first 40 years of clinical blood banking.”57

***What Are the Dangers?

119 Without belaboring the fact that dangers do exist, we can briefly examine what some of these are. Though many doctors are acquainted with the following information, it may help other persons to appreciate that, even though the stand taken by Jehovah’s Witnesses is for religious reasons, it has merit medically.

**120 The textbook Hematology contains this table:58

**Types of Transfusion Reactions

Febrile

Leukocyte antibodies

Platelet antibodies

Pyrogens

Allergic

--Hemolytic

(incompatible transfusion)

Transmission of disease

Serum hepatitis;

Malaria ;Syphilis; Cytomegalovirus infection;

Gross bacterial contamination

Cardiac overload ;Citrate intoxication

Potassium intoxication

***THESE STATISTICS were taken from a booklet dated 1977 imagine the dangers that have raised their ugly heads from blood transfusions since then--IF YOU NEED MORE it will certainly be supplied for you!

--THAT IS if you wish to face the truth!

--KEEP IN MIND since the early 2000's there were over 100,000 surgeons, anesthesiologists, doctors etc. that would use non-blood transfusions on people world wide, THE NUMBER HAS GROWN!"

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UPDATING:

*** g95 5/22 pp. 28-29 Watching the World

***Blood Transfusion Risks

“Canada’s blood supply could be scrutinized a millennium from now and blood transfusion risks would still exist,” reported The Toronto Star. Testifying before a commission investigating the safety of Canada’s blood supply, Dr. William Noble of St. Michael’s Hospital said: “They (the risks) exist and they will always exist.” The blood transfusion risks include “everything from allergic reaction to contracting AIDS from donated blood,” says the Star. Experts in administering blood transfusions claim that more and more patients today are worried about contracting AIDS from blood. Says Dr. Noble: “There never is a day that goes by that we don’t have a conversation concerning ‘Should I give a transfusion or should I not"

What controversy?

The only controversy comes from those who simply do not agree with basic Bible instructions.

"There has of late been "New Light " in the Watchtower organization."

What's the Watchtower organization and what is "New Light"?

"transfuse Most components of blood (namely red Blood Cells, and more)."

I am unaware of any plans to accept blood components for transfusion. Red blood cells are blood to me.

As for other FRACTIONS, at what point does blood cease being blood? Since the biggest component of blood is WATER does that make water blood?

"Thousands upon thousands of Jehovah's witnesses have died due to this call for abstainance...."

Your source for this claim?

"My thinking is not in question here"

Says who? Your thinking is seriously flawed to me.

Again at what point does blood cease being blood?

-.

**SINCE YOU HAVE CLOSED OFF THA, to answer your TIRADE against cut & paste, IF THEY CONTAIN the truth WHY BE SO PREDJUDICED?

****WE ASK AGAIN ---WHERE ARE YOUR REFERENCE, BIBLIOGRAPHIES, FOOTNOTES, DOCTORS TESTIMONIES, RED CROSS REFERENCES, BLOOD BANK REFERENCES???

*** g 8/06 Transfusion Medicine—Is Its Future Secure? ***

“Transfusion medicine will continue to be a little like walking through a tropical rainforest, where the known paths are clear but still require careful navigation, and new and unseen threats may still lurk around the next corner to trap the unwary.”—Ian M. Franklin, professor of transfusion medicine.

AFTER the worldwide AIDS epidemic cast the spotlight on blood in the 1980’s, efforts to eliminate its “unseen threats” intensified. Still, huge obstacles remain. In June 2005, the World Health Organization acknowledged: “The chance of receiving a safe transfusion . . . varies enormously from one country to another.” Why?

In many lands there are no nationally coordinated programs to ensure safety standards for the collection, testing, and transport of blood and blood products. Sometimes blood supplies are even stored dangerously—in poorly maintained domestic refrigerators and picnic boxes! Without safety standards in place, patients can be adversely affected by the blood drawn from someone who lives hundreds—if not thousands—of miles away.

Disease-Free Blood—A Moving Target

Some countries claim that their blood supply has never been safer. Yet, there are still reasons for caution. A “Circular of Information” prepared jointly by three U.S. blood agencies states on its first page: “WARNING: Because whole blood and blood components are made from human blood, they may carry a risk of transmitting infectious agents, eg, viruses. . . . Careful donor selection and available laboratory tests do not eliminate the hazard.”

Not without reason does Peter Carolan, the senior officer of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, say: “Absolute guarantees on blood supplies can never be given.” He adds: “There will always be new infections for which at that moment there is no test.”

What if a new infectious agent were to appear—one that, like AIDS, remains in an undetectable carrier state for a long time and is readily transmitted by means of blood? Speaking at a medical conference in Prague, Czech Republic, in April 2005, Dr. Harvey G. Klein of the U.S. National Institutes of Health called that prospect sobering. He added: “The blood component collectors would be scarcely better prepared to interdict a transfusion-transmitted epidemic than they were during the early days of AIDS.”

***Mistakes and Transfusion Reactions

--What are the greatest transfusion-related threats to patients in developed countries? Errors and immunologic reactions. Regarding a 2001 Canadian study, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported that thousands of blood transfusions involved near-misses because of “collecting blood samples from the wrong patient, mislabelling samples and requesting blood for the wrong patient.” Such mistakes cost the lives of at least 441 people in the United States between 1995 and 2001.

--Those who receive blood from another person face risks essentially similar to those undergoing an organ transplant. Immune responses tend to reject foreign tissue. In some cases, blood transfusions can actually prevent the activation of natural immune responses. Such immunosuppression leaves the patient vulnerable to postoperative infections and to viruses that had previously been inactive. It is no wonder that Professor Ian M. Franklin, quoted at the outset of this article, encourages clinicians to “think once, twice and three times before transfusing patients.”

Experts Speak Out

Armed with such knowledge, a growing number of health-care workers are taking a more critical look at transfusion medicine. Reports the reference work Dailey’s Notes on Blood: “Some physicians maintain that allogeneic blood [blood from another human] is a dangerous drug and that its use would be banned if it were evaluated by the same standards as other drugs.”

Late in 2004, Professor Bruce Spiess said the following about transfusing a primary blood component into patients undergoing heart surgery: “There are few if any [medical] articles that support transfusion actually improving patient outcome.” In fact, he writes that many such transfusions “may do more harm than good in virtually every instance except trauma,” increasing “the risk of pneumonia, infections, heart attacks and strokes.”

--It surprises many to learn that the standards for administering blood are not nearly as uniform as one would expect. Dr. Gabriel Pedraza recently reminded his colleagues in Chile that “transfusion is a poorly defined practice,” one that makes it “difficult to . . . apply universally accepted guidelines.” No wonder Brian McClelland, director of Edinburgh and Scotland Blood Transfusion Service, asks doctors to “remember that a transfusion is a transplant and therefore not a trivial decision.” He suggests that doctors ponder the question, “If this was myself or my child, would I agree to the transfusion?”

--In truth, more than a few health-care workers express themselves as did one hematologist, who told Awake!: “We transfusion-medicine specialists do not like to get or to give blood.” If this is the feeling among some well-trained individuals in the medical community, how should patients feel?

Will Medicine Change?

--‘If transfusion medicine is so fraught with dangers,’ you might wonder, ‘why is blood still used so extensively, particularly when there are alternatives?’ One reason is that many doctors are simply reluctant to change treatment methods or are unaware of therapies that are currently used as alternatives to transfusions. According to an article in the journal Transfusion, “physicians make transfusion decisions based upon their past teaching, enculturation, and ‘clinical judgment.’”

--A surgeon’s skills also make a difference. Dr. Beverley Hunt, of London, England, writes that “blood loss is highly variable between surgeons, and there is increasing interest in training surgeons in adequate surgical haemostasis [methods to stop bleeding].” Others claim that the costs of transfusion alternatives are too high, although reports are emerging that prove otherwise. Many doctors, however, would agree with medical director Dr. Michael Rose, who says: “Any patient who receives bloodless medicine is, in essence, the recipient of the highest quality surgery that is possible.”

[Footnote]

See the box “Alternatives to Blood Transfusion,” on page 8

--“Think once, twice and three times before transfusing patients.”—Professor Ian M. Franklin

***Death by TRALI

--Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), first reported in the early 1990’s, is a life-threatening immune reaction following a blood transfusion. It is now known that TRALI causes hundreds of deaths each year. Experts, however, suspect that the numbers are much higher, as many health-care workers do not recognize the symptoms. Although it is not clear what causes the reaction, according to the magazine New Scientist, the blood that causes it “appears to come primarily from people who have been exposed to a variety of blood groups in the past, such as . . . people who have had multiple transfusions.” One report states that TRALI is now near the top of the list for causes of transfusion-related deaths in the United States and Britain, making it “a bigger problem for blood banks than high-profile diseases like HIV.”

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