Argument re: alcohol injected in body like blood transfusion proved wrong

by truthseeker 12 Replies latest jw friends

  • truthseeker
    truthseeker

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7037443.stm


    Doctors save man with vodka drip
    Australian doctors have kept an Italian tourist alive by feeding him vodka through a drip for three days, medical staff in Queensland say.

    The 24-year-old man, who had swallowed a poison in an apparent suicide attempt, was treated while in a coma.

    Doctors set up the drip after running out of medicinal alcohol, used as an antidote to the poison.

    Medical staff said the patient had made a full recovery, and the hangover had worn off by the time he woke up.

    He had been taken to hospital in the northern Queensland town of Mackay after swallowing ethylene glycol - a poison contained in anti-freeze.

    "The patient was drip-fed about three standard drinks an hour for three days in the intensive care unit," Dr Todd Fraser said in a statement.

    "Fortunately for him he was in a medically induced coma for a good portion of that. By the time he woke up I think his hangover would have well and truly gone."

    He spent 20 days in hospital before being discharged.

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    Maybe bars could start a service like this. The wt arguement is wrong, of course, becasue their comparison can only be applied to a small proportion of foods eaten/drank. Things like sugar, alchohol, some drugs. That is because those substances are not broken down in digestion. Blood that is eaten is digested. Since blood is digested and alchohol is not, the comparison breaks down right there. Maybe somebody else can explain it better.

    S

  • SirNose586
    SirNose586

    It's easy to disprove their "transfusion = injected alcohol argument," Satanus, but that article doesn't do it. (If anything, it just reinforces the fact that you don't have to drink alcohol.)

    The problem is this: they think a blood transfusion is like "eating" blood. This, of course, is wrong. When donated blood inters the veins, it's treated as--wait for it--blood! (For the record, I'm not sure what happens when you put an incorrect blood type in your veins. I know it's bad, I'm just not sure where the reaction takes place.) New blood is not consumed from the veins. You would have to physically drink it before your digestive system breaks it down.

    How do we know you're not eating it? Well, what happens to people who starve to death? Are their veins emptied of blood? Of course not. Blood is there to transport nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and to take waste away. You cannot give a starving man a blood transfusion and expect him to live.

    Also, orthodox Jews can have blood transfusions. They, above JWs, are more concerned with not consuming blood. Do you think orthodox Jews would be okay with transfusions if it were really consuming blood?

  • Amyfa
    Amyfa

    The Alchohol was not put in the body like a blood transfusion

    "The hospital's alcohol supplies were soon exhausted, however, so they purchased a case of vodka to help finish the job. "We ... decided the next best way to get alcohol into the man's system was by feeding him spirits through a naso-gastric tube," http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,300661,00.html

    It went direct to the stomach

  • worldtraveller
    worldtraveller

    The ridiculous part about all of this is that I have not met a single vegetarian JW. Meat contains blood, no matter how you clean it. Eat meat-eat blood. The bible does not say what kind of meat does it?

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer

    Truthseeker,

    Standard medical therapy for ethyl glycol (“anti-freeze”) poisoning is, as you point out, intravenous application of alcohol. The reason this medical therapy contradicts Watchtower teaching is because it remains the therapy of choice even in cases of alcoholic patients.

    Hence, contrary to Watchtower teaching, a doctor who tells his alcoholic patient that he or she should ‘abstain from alcohol’ is not suggesting that medical intravenous application of alcohol should be avoided when necessary to prevent death. This context blows to smithereens one of the common refrains heard from the typical Jehovah’s Witness Watchtower parrot.

    Marvin Shilmer

  • M.J.
    M.J.

    What Marvin said!

  • greendawn
    greendawn

    The blood for transfusions is not obtained in a way that would harm let alone kill the donor and this is a crucial difference between this instance and the instance where the animal is killed and loses its life. Something as simple as this has completely gone over the head of the JWs.

    In one instance a donor willingly gives blood to in fact save a life, in another an animal loses its life against its desire to live.

  • Dead Man Joaquin
    Dead Man Joaquin

    Also, think about this: If a blood transfusion is the same thing as eating blood (re: the intravenous argument), then by the same logic an organ transplant would be considered cannibalism. I'm pretty sure the GB frowns on cannibalism, so why are organ transplants a "conscience matter"?

  • wha happened?
    wha happened?

    From what I was told by the DR., Blood transfused into one's body remains in the body for about 3 months. The cells eventually die off. They are hardly digested.

    One stupid argument I read from the society is that there might be nutrients that transfused blood may contain naturally and u would be in effect "eating the nutrients" that came from blood so it is like eating blood. Can't remember the article. Anyone?

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