250,000 Jehovah's Witnesses have died refusing blood (page 8)

VM44

What will the JWs who lost family members due to the WT's blood doctrine do when eventually "new light" is received and the doctrine is rescinded?

slimboyfat

Maybe it never will be. Watchtower is probably hoping non-blood medical solutions will replace blood entirely and let them off the hook.

besty

@marvin

I've taken a look and this is what I get.

Your blog premise is the JW death rate in New Zealand from anemia is 0.26/1000.

Quoted from your blog - " That is, the extrapolated annual rate of mortality for Witnesses who suffer death from severe anemia as a result of Watchtower’s blood doctrine is .026%." (0.26/1000)

and

"This study found 103 Witness patients who suffered severe anemia and 20.4% of these died. During this period the death rate among patients who suffered severe anemia but accepted ARBC transfusion was 1.9%."

In other words a JW with severe anemia (in New Zealand) dies at 10.74x the rate of the general population with the same condition. Are we in agreement so far?

The problem is that 0.26/1000 is a factor of 130x with the 0.2/100,000 anemia death rate for the general population in New Zealand according to worldlifeexpectancy.com. And yet according to the NZ study the variance is 10.74x.

So which is it? Are JW's 10.74x more likely to die from anemia or 130x more likely?

The next obvious questions for me are how many JW's have there been on average at any one time, and what is the typical death rate from anemia. If we know how many JW's are walking the planet in any one year, we can apply the anemia death rate and multiply that figure by 10.74 to extrapolate JW anemia deaths, based on the NZ study.

According to http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/anaemia/by-country/ - New Zealand has 0.2/100,000 anemia death rate. The USA has 0.5/100,000. The UK has 0.1/100,000.

Lets use 0.75/100,000 to be generous and accounting for more recent growth in JW's in Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico etc. Multiply by 10.74. That gives a JW an anemia death rate of 8.055/100,000. That is - a JW with anemia is like a Rwandan with anemia - anyways.

Now how many JW's are there at any one time?

I'm going to use round figures:

1960's decade total - 10m 1970's - 20m 1980's - 30m 1990's - 45m 2000's - 65m

1960's = 10m * (8.055/100,000) = 805 JW's in the 1960's died from anemia.

Continue the maths and you get to total 13,700 JW's that have died from anemia for the 5 decades, globally.

Just a thought.

EDIT - I haven't subtracted the estimated number of those who would have died 'anyway'

besty

@SBF - what was your methodology to get to 29k?

slimboyfat

Basically I multiplied 19 by 5 to get the total in New Zealand for five decades (rounding down 1961 to 2013 to make a round five decades). That gave me 95 deaths due to refusal of blood in New Zealand over the whole period. Then I estimated the average number of JWs worldwide between 1961 and 2013 would be about 4 million. I rounded 12,700 up to 13,000 and divided 4,000,000 by 13,000. That gives 307.6. Which meant that roughly 1 in 307.6 JWs worldwide live in New Zealand. So to work out the number of deaths from refusal of blood for JWs worldwide I multiplied that figure by the number of deaths from refusal of blood in New Zealand. And 307.6 times 95 gives 29,230.

besty

In summary my method was:

Anemia death rate x JW Risk Multiplier x estimated number of JW's per decade

I used an anemia death rate of 0.8/100,000 which is at the high end of - the USA is 0.5/100,000 and the UK is 0.1/100,000 for comparison. Wikipedia gives a global figure of 0.24/100,000 for iron deficiency anemia.

The risk multiplier is where this debate hinges. The NZ study indicates 10.74x. And yet the implication of Marvins' interpolation of the JW death rate being 0.26/1,000 (not per 100,000 as is more commonly used) is a 130x risk multiplier.

Marvin is using a study that indicates a 10.74x multiplier to interpolate a 130x multiplier. Go figure.

The number of JW's per decade is easy to estimate.

slimboyfat

I just realised one(!) problem with my calculation is that it assumes that the number of JWs in New Zealand was a steady 13,000 over the whole period. That's obviously wrong. If the average number was more like 9000 that would bring the number of blood deaths in New Zealand for the five decades down to 66 and the global total for the five decades down to 20,191.

slimboyfat

I don't know why the anemia death rate of the general poulation is relevant besty. I thought the situation was that 19 JWs in New Zealand died over a period of ten years who would not have died if they had not refused blood. So it was not necessary to compare the JW death rate with the general population, because the figure of 19 deaths already includes the comparison. Is that not the case? My whole calculation was based on that assumption.

besty

I don't know why the anemia death rate of the general poulation is relevant besty

because it answers the question how many JW's 'should' die of anemia.

I thought the situation was that 19 JWs in New Zealand died over a period of ten years who would not have died if they had not refused blood. So it was not necessary to compare the JW death rate with the general population, because the figure of 19 deaths already includes the comparison.

yes thats correct. the NZ study showed that 20% of JW anemics died, whereas only 2% of non-JW anemics died.

So therefore 10x risk multiple for being a JW anemic.

If you know the death rate from anemia in the general population and the number of JW's, you can calculate JW anemic deaths by including the JW risk factor in your calculation.

My question for Marvin is the NZ study shows a 10x risk factor (2% non-JW deaths -> 20% JW deaths = 10x), and yet his extrapolated figure for JW anemic deaths is 0.26/1000 which is 130x compared to the NZ national figure of 0.2/100,000 given by worldlifeexpectancy.com and wikipedia etc.

I'm beginning to wonder if Marvin has confused 0.26/1000 with 0.26/100,000

slimboyfat

I still don't see why a comparison with non-JW death rates is necessary. (Because it is already implied in the initial statistic) If 19 JWs died who would not have died without refusing blood that's all we need to know for the worldwide calculation. The rest is simply extrapolating that figure to the equivalent for JWs over five decades instead of one, and worldwide instead of New Zealand alone.

Marvin lost me when he claimed his figures worked because New Zealand is an island. My God what on earth has that got to do with it? The mind boggles.

250,000 Jehovah's Witnesses have died refusing blood

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