Witness Hemophiliacs are draining the blood banks dry! Yet only Worldly people can donate?

by Witness 007 18 Replies latest watchtower scandals

• 

  Scully

  rebel8 writes:

  Still, if 3 million donors are needed for each unit of clotting factor, this still means an immense amount of donated blood is needed to treat these folks.

  To clarify, though, a single unit of donated blood is fractionated into its main components: red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma and platelets. Clotting factors can be extracted from the plasma by a process which basically filters out clotting factors and immune globulins, leaving pure plasma to be donated to a patient who needs it. White blood cells go through a similar process to extract interferons and interleukons for treating cancer patients. One single donation of blood can help three patients within days of donation, via the RBCs, plasma and platelets. The other components are used in making pooled blood products.

  So yes, it takes a lot of donated blood to make a single dose of Factor VIII or Factor IX, it does not "waste" donations of blood, per se, because other patients do benefit from the RBCs, plasma and platelets.

  I find it ironic for the WTS to compare forced transfusions of a single component to "rape", and consenting to a transfusion of a single unit of major components to be the moral equivalent of "fornication" - yet if you carry the metaphor through in the case of a single dose of clotting factor from large donor pools, it would be tantamount to participating in an orgy - and it carries the WTS's seal of approval.

  I will be donating again on Monday. I try to consistently donate about every 9 weeks, since 1998.
• 

  blondie

  I have mentioned before on JWN that I donate too every 8 weeks. Being O negative makes we fairly popular. I will be signing up for apheresis.

  http://www.givelife2.org/donor/apheresis.asp

  In an apheresis (ay-fur-ee-sis) donation, from the Greek "to take away," donors give only select blood components — platelets, plasma, red cells, infection-fighting white cells called granulocytes, or a combination of these, depending on the donors' blood type and the needs of the community. Apheresis is most commonly used to collect platelets and plasma.

  Patient Benefits
  A single apheresis donation of platelets can provide as many platelets as 5 whole blood donations. In addition, a platelet transfusion from a single donor greatly reduces the chances of an immune system reaction to the transfusion. Bone marrow transplant, cancer and leukemia patients whose immune systems are already compromised, benefit particularly from single donor platelet transfusions.

  Apheresis donors' donations go through additional typing called Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) typing to ensure that the match between donor and recipient is as close as possible. Donors are then matched with specific patients in hospitals. Apheresis donors may receive emergency requests to donate for a patient to whom they are matched. Many apheresis donors find the knowledge that they are helping a specific individual in need particularly rewarding.

  People who donate just platelets can donate every 3 days for a maximum of 24 times a year.

  Who Can Be an Apheresis Donor?
  The same good health requirements that govern whole blood donors apply to apheresis donors. You must be at least 17 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds and be in good health.

  The Apheresis Donation Process: Safe and Easy
  Similar to a whole blood donation, an aphersis donation consists of four steps: registration, health history and mini-physical, donation, and refreshments. From registration to refreshments, the process lasts 1½ -2½ hours. During the actual donation, you will sit in a comfortable recliner, and a carefully monitored machine will draw blood from one arm through sterile tubing into a cell separator centrifuge. The blood stays inside the self-contained sterile tubing and never comes in contact with the machine. After the blood component(s) have been collected, the rest of the blood is returned to the donor through the same arm or the other arm. It's a safe process — the collection sets and needles are sterile, used once for each donor and then discarded. Donors usually relax, read, or enjoy a movie during the donation.
• 

  bluecanary

  Scully, if accepting a transfusion is fornication, wouldn't accepting fractions be loose conduct?
• 

  Scully

  bluecanary writes:

  Scully, if accepting a transfusion is fornication, wouldn't accepting fractions be loose conduct?

  No, because as rebel8 pointed out, each dose of a given fraction requires about 3 million donors, not one.
• 

  rebel8

  TD--I can assure you that *all* persons with bleeding disorders prefer products not made from human blood! Unfortunately they don't work for many of us.

  One thing I've heard repeated verbatim by active dubs is that all Hemophiliacs can use nonblood substitutes. It's even repeated using the same wording, so I can only assume they are hearing it from the same source.

  Nonblood medications are wonderful and I hope we all can use them one day (strike that--I'd prefer to be cured). Unfortunately, we can't, and the dubs are on a mission to spread the lie that we can.....we're 'just choosing blood because we're influenced by Satan or demon-influenced doctors who are lying to us'.

  https://www.givelife.org/
• 

  Witness 007

  Watchtower - strict on fornication but "loose" on blood products....good point.
• 

  C. T. Russell

  I work at a large medical research company that makes “artificial blood”. It’s not a big market since real blood is so cheap by comparison. Their big customer is military since whole blood can only be stored for 42 days. There are also a small number of patients who can’t have the real stuff for medical reasons.
  
  The Society should just put their money with their mouth is and invest. Either in new technology or in bringing production costs down.
  
  This woe is me Rutherford style self inflicted persecution over blood is really annoying. I see allot Harvard Med School students working in the lab. Funny how none of them are JW’s.
• 

  TD

  TD--I can assure you that *all* persons with bleeding disorders prefer products not made from human blood! Unfortunately they don't work for many of us.

  You're right of course. There are no synthetic products for factor V and other atypical bleeding disordres at all and as you point out, recombinant products for factor VIII and IX deficiencies don't work for everyone.

  My thought was more along the line of whether the blame for, "Draining the blood banks dry" can be laid at the feet of individuals. (i.e. Witness hemophliacs) I don't think it can for the reason in your statement above.

  Even if that weren't the case, no hemophiliac, Witnness or not could possibly pay back that kind of a "debt" to the blood supply. It seems to me that the "blame" if there is any would fall on the Witnesses community as a whole, or more properly, upon the leaders.
• 

  rebel8

  Definitely true! Not only can we never "pay back" the blood supply, but we are a drain on health insurance as well. I will never in my lifetime earn more than my medical bills total, had I paid them out of pocket. I don't like it, but it's true, and I will continue to choose life as long as I have that choice.

  Ah well....an interesting hypothetical discussion w007 has gotten us into!