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.
It might be added that although the 1000 deaths per year figure seems large. It translates to less that one death for each 5,500 Witnesses annually. This means that in an average circuit of 2000 Witnesses, we would expect to see only one death about every three years. In the average congregation, we would expect to see a death only once every fifty years. H.L.C. members, and experienced elders will generally testify that the death rate they have witnessed actually exceeds that produced with this illustration.
There are so many assumptions made here, that these figures cannot be considered to be a reliable estimate. However, it should be remembered that these estimates do not take into consideration the Witnesses who bleed to death in emergency rooms from massive blood loss, those who die from diseases like leukemia, or those who otherwise bleed to death and never make it to the operating room. Additionally, JWs in the United States benefit from a higher standard of care than do many in other lands. This is especially the case with respects to "non-blood, alternative therapies," requiring special equipment and techniques not available in many lands.
The actual figures may be higher or lower. This is simply the best that we can offer at this time, although we are making an ongoing effort to improve the accuracy of our estimates