'Firm stand' on transfusions (Australia)

[Brother_Bliss]

MATT SMITH |TheMercury.com.au

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A JEHOVAH'S Witness leader has defended the position of the religion to make its own choices on blood transfusions.

Jehovah's Witness senior elder Graeme Martin said it was a misconception that Jehovah's Witnesses suffered a greater mortality rate as a result of refusing transfusions.

"An increasing volume of medical research indicates the very opposite," Mr Martin said yesterday.

He said a growing number of people around the world were refusing blood transfusions for cultural and medical reasons.

However, he said Jehovah's Witnesses were the only group of people who made the decision on religious grounds.

Mr Martin was responding broadly to the issue after a Tasmanian Coroner Rod Chandler published his findings into the death of a Glenorchy Jehovah's Witness.

Mr Chandler found a blood transfusion would probably have saved the life of Judith Louise Allen, who died of complications after lap band surgery in July 2009.

Medical staff tried to persuade her husband to consent to the transfusion when she became critically ill after the surgery, but he insisted that her religious beliefs be respected.

The case has prompted Mr Chandler to call on the Jehovah's Witness governing body to relax the doctrine that Christians should not accept blood transfusions.

Mr Martin said he could not comment on Mrs Allen's case.

"Nevertheless, it is common knowledge that Jehovah's Witnesses continue to take a firm stand regarding blood transfusions based on the Bible's clear injunction that Christians 'abstain from blood'."

Mr Martin said evidence showed blood transfusions did not help in some situations.

"In addition to lack of evidence for benefit, there is a growing body of literature showing transfusion to be associated with harm in the short, mid and long term," he said.

Article Source: TheMercury.com.au

[sianrose]

With the personal research I have done on blood...there is no way I would have a blood transfusion as a Jehovah's Witness or not...

and interesting in a UK newspaper report... on "Genetically modified rice created to produce human blood" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8871899/Genetically-modified-rice-created-to-produce-human-blood.html

...it says...."Currently in the UK around 1.6 million pints of blood are needed every year but just four per cent of the eligible population donate."

it makes you think if ...blood transfusions are viewed as so important by people ...why are they not more people coming forward to donate?...

[rocket]

For those who like to bring up our children, I like to refer them to this website:

http://www.taintedtrust.com/index.html

Now do you think this hospital is alone in the way they cover-up deaths directly related to blood transfusions?

Has anything really changed?

[rbrown1205]

Thank you, lynn!! A lot of people, including me, don't know about this. I do remember a series of articles in the Awake magazine that indicated that the blood collection industry has been a money maker, and isn't altogether clean.

*** g90 10/22 p. 3 Selling Blood Is Big Business ***

When you are sick in bed in the hospital with something, it is a great comfort to know that your doctors and other medical personnel are on your side, and will tell you the truth about your condition. Just to consider that this is not always the case is very disconcerting.

[Rosalie4u]

It is disturbing to me that people "donate" blood just for the medical authorities to turn around and charge so much for it! The other thing is they cover up a lot of infections as well as diseases people get from blood transfusions like Hepatitis, HIV, plus the small weird things like warts and stuff. Ugh!