I had a very interesting situation at work last night. Without going into a lot of details, I ended up administering a blood product for a serious blood clotting deficiency, called von Willebrand's disease, type III. According to http://www.medscape.com it is the most commonly inherited bleeding disorder, caused by inheritance of a quantitative or qualitative abnormality of von Willebrand factor (vWF). While the majority of patients are successfully treated with adjunctive therapies or with synthetic vasopressin analog desmopressin acetate (DDAVP), a subset of patients [Type III, such as my patient] requires replacement therapy. In the past cryoprecipitate was the mainstay of therapy; however, it was associated with seroconversion to hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in treated individuals. With the advent of virucidal methodology and more recently, nucleic acid testing (NAT) of plasma fractions, the plasma-derived concentrates containing VWF are now considered the therapeutic standard of care. [Copyright 2001 by W.B. Saunders Company.].
The disease is similar to hemophilia, in that the patient does not have the same blood clotting capabilities as a normal person does due to a missing clotting factor. In hemophilia, the clotting factor is called "Factor VIII", while for von Willebrand's disease type III, the missing clotting factor is called (not surprisingly) von Willebrand factor. While I was preparing the infusion for the patient, I read the package insert, part of which reads:
This product is prepared from large pools of human plasma...
LARGE POOLS!!
(Incidentally, this preparation, because it requires such a huge volume of donor plasma, is VERY expensive, approximately $3000 per dose.)
Now, let's back-track for a moment. The treatment of blood clotting disorders like this is one of those uses of blood products that the WTS will allow.
The WTS compares the forced transfusion of a SINGLE unit of blood (usually "leukocyte reduced red blood cell concentrate") to RAPE.
Let's follow the analogy through: it would follow that a JW who willingly accepted a blood transfusion would be comparable to committing FORNICATION or ADULTERY.
Yet, this compound, which is composed of collected clotting factors from MANY people, is permitted. However, if you follow the WTS's own sexual activity/blood analogy through to its logical conclusion, it would be the equivalent of HAVING AN ORGY.
Does this make ANY sense?? ANY sense at all??
Love, Scully
UADNA-C (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America-Canada)