Lorenz Reibling gives interview about real estate

by OrphanCrow 162 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  OrphanCrow

  Edenone: A little more about the early days of Hemopure:
  In this article published in the New York Times in 1990, was noticed that Biopure announced with some fanfare that the first safety human trials had been conducted in Guatemala.

  Did you notice who one of the researchers was?

  ''I think it's very promising, and I would take it myself,'' said Dr. Michael N. D'Ambra, an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General.

  Dr. Micheal N. D'Ambra, was one of the editors of The Soul of Medicine, a book that Dr, Jon Shiller, a JW doctor, contributed to.

  http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.ca/2012/03/watchtower-doctor-being-honest.html

  If D'Ambra isn't a JW, he rubs shoulders with a doctor who is one.

  It looks like the Hemopure fiasco has Watchtower written all over it from its very beginnings. It wouldn't surprise me if Dr. Rausch's "colleagues" were Watchtower men.
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  EdenOne

  I have found a name that connects SABM with the Jehovah's Witnesses: Yvette Bunch.

  I found her name as one of the speakers on the 2012 annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Blood Management on the subject "Consent Process and Patient Directives". On her LinkedIn profile, it states that she works at the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System in the capacity as "Bloodless Medicine / Patient Blood management Program Coordinator".

  She is listed as a member of SABM and also AABB.

  Scrolling to the bottom of her profile, you can see that, among her interests are "Bible History", and then, voila! - on her volunteer & causes she lists her experience in "KH Regional Building":

  Oklahoma and South Carolina KH Regional Building is professional volunteers organized by states for the purpose of building Kingdom Hall which serve as educational centers.

  Although the name "Jehovah's Witnesses" isn't mentioned, we all know that Kingdom Halls are the places where Jehovah's Witnesses conduct their meetings. So, Ms. Yvette Bunch, of SABM, is a Jehovah's Witness.

  Eden

  
  
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  EdenOne

  Found another name: Brenda DePena Gray.

  She was the opening speaker on the said 2012 SABM meeting, on the subject "Leadership and Structure Program". Her current position?

  Clinical Director Bloodless Medicine/ Transfusion Alternative Program Atlanta Medical Center

  Again, a look at her LinkedIn profile reveals the connection to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Scroll down to the bottom. Again, on volunteer & causes:

  Pioneer. JW.ORG

  And, listed among her interests:

  I am a regular pioneer and enjoy helping people understand the Bible.

  So, another member of SABM identified as a Jehovah's Witness.

  Eden
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  OrphanCrow

  Yes, EdenOne, the SABM is pretty much made up of all JWs - at least, most of them are. I had said earlier that if you shake the tree, that JWs will tumble out. You don't really have to shake it, just lean on it a little. I have a list somewhere, (I am looking for it) of the original founding members of SABM.

  A list of all the JWs connected to and working in the blood management world would prove to be interesting.

  For some more on the Biopure litigation in 2006, this is the court document - lots of names on that could be looked at

  https://scholar.google.ca/scholar_case?case=10446548670834197813&q=biopure+corp+derivative+litigation+424+F&hl=en&as_sdt=2006
  
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  OrphanCrow

  Edenone, another person you might want to look at who is very, very active in the blood management world is Sherry Ozawa, an active Jehovah's Witness who is also an RN.

  http://www.hhnmag.com/Magazine/2012/Sep/0912HHN_FEA_Trending

  Sherri Ozawa, R.N., clinical director of the Institute for Patient Blood Management at Englewood (N.J.) Hospital and Medical Center, put the current number at about 100, although she adds that without established national criteria on what qualifies as a blood management program, the exact number is hard to pinpoint.
  "I'm aware of about 100 active programs and I'm aware of at least a couple hundred more in development," says Ozawa, also a board member for the Society for the Advancement of Blood Management. In 1994, when Englewood's program began, there were fewer than 10 programs, she says.
  The programs have evolved from a way to treat a small subset of the population for whom transfusions aren't an option to a way for hospitals to evaluate what they're spending on blood, examine outcomes after transfusions and explore whether some transfusions are unnecessary.

  She has been involved in blood management prior to the establishment of the SABM.

  From a 1996 article:

  At Englewood Hospital, which treats patients referred from 15 states, a team of surgeons, plus nurses, anesthesiologists and other staff coordinates each patient's medical or surgical treatment according to his or her wishes, through nurse manager Sherri Ozawa, who is herself a Jehovah's Witness.

  
  
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  EdenOne

  Yes, Sherry Ozawa popped up on my research, but at least on a superficial look I couldn't find a connection to the JW's. But there it is ...

  Eden
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  OrphanCrow

  I had made this statement earlier in this thread:

  By the way, I doubt the blood transfusion ban will be going away anytime soon - after a history of increases in stock value, the company is in a bit of a slump and is experiencing a little hiccup in stock value right now. If the JW blood ban was lifted completely, Haemonetics' stock would surely dip even more. Brian Concannon just sold off a chunk of his stock - maybe he needed the cash to keep his hands green.

  Haemonetic technology has been around a long time - its first success was built on stem cell harvesting which was late 60s, early 70s. The cell saver development has had many hiccups and controversy around its use. It has emerged as benefical in many different surgical procedures and is commonly used in surgical settings.

  However, its best use is in conjunction with allogenic blood, not as a sole blood recycling machine. So, the medical benefits have been established, along with the ways it isn't useful.

  Blood management programs are dependent, to a large degree, upon technology that is produced by Haemonetics, and other companies like it. One of the strategies adopted by Farmer et al - Axel Hoffman, the JW financial guru - in Australia to push the SABM standard into the country's health care system, was to heavily emphasize the cost savings. Blood management became a profit-based model, and improved patient outcomes were murkily termed "evidence-based".

  Cell saver technology has been an integral part of surgical environments now - many "gifted" to hospitals by donors or the company itself, for research purposes. The Netherlands is one country that has been using blood saving technology for some time now, long enough to determine that cell savers and the use of erythropoietin are not cost effective in hip and knee surgery.

  Despite evidence that erythropoietin and intra- and postoperative blood salvage are expensive
  techniques considered to be non-cost-effective in primary elective total hip and knee arthroplasties in the
  Netherlands, Dutch medical professionals use them frequently to prevent the need for allogeneic transfusion.
  To actually change physicians’ practice, a tailored strategy aimed at barriers that hinder physicians in abandoning
  the use of erythropoietin and perioperative blood salvage was systematically developed. The study aims to examine
  the effectiveness, feasibility and costs of this tailored de-implementation strategy compared to a control strategy.

  Not everybody buys into the bloodless industry's promises. Yes, there are benefits and much good to had with the management and development of blood technology, but I like what this doctor had to say about blood management programs:http://www.hhnmag.com/Magazine/2012/Sep/0912HHN_FEA_Trending
  

  Richard Benjamin, M.D., chief medical officer of the American Red Cross, says he agrees there's reluctance to change long-standing medical tradition when it comes to restricting transfusions. He's also not convinced blood management programs save money.
  To do them properly, he says, hospitals may need to purchase an IT system that can crunch the data and tell administrators who is using the blood and whether the use is appropriate.
  Hospitals also need to add anemia clinics, he says, and even if they are willing to spend the money, the decision to start blood management can take years.
  However, Benjamin says, the reason to start a blood management program should not be based on the bottom line or fear that blood isn't safe. Blood used incorrectly can harm, and blood used correctly can be life-saving, he stresses, and starting a blood management program just to save money is a dangerous approach.
  "There are consultants out there who go to hospitals and say you should be doing patient blood management because it will save you money. Or you should be doing patient blood management because blood is bad, dangerous and kills patients. I don't subscribe to either of those," Benjamin says. "If you do this properly, you can conserve resources, you can treat patients better, the outcomes are likely to be better.

  I wonder if the Netherland's study, and the decision to reduce the use of cell savers and erythropoietin, concluding that they are not cost effective procedures in hip and knee surgery, will have an impact on the bloodless industry.
  Remember that doctor on the Awake magazine, the guy in green scrubs who endorsed bloodless surgery? Peter Earnshaw. He was a UK orthopedic surgeon who explored the use of cell savers in his early research and was intrigued with the possibilities it could offer orthopedic surgery because of the high blood loss often associated with it. He did not, however, see it as something to be used solely and without allogenic blood being used as well. In Earnshaw's opinion, cell savers were useful, but not primarily so.

  
  

  Haemonetics got its start by "gifting" their technology to hospitals and research centers. Now, they may have a difficult time justifying the cost factor for general use. Sure...they can recycle blood, but the supporting infastructure of that recycling has yet to hold up to the claims that it saves money. Time will tell. The "Golden Standard of Care" may cost more gold than it is worth.

  
  

  
  
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  EdenOne

  Interesting article on how JW's Axel Hofmann and Shannon Farmer made 4 millions AUD off public taxpayers with the Western Australian (WA) State authorities to implement a PBM (Patient Blood Management) program.

  Eden
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  Doubting Bro

  wow, this is really interesting. Thanks for all the research.
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Edenone, Dr. Axel Hofmann has always creeped me out a little. Every time I see his photo, I think of James Penton!

  

  I found a recent blog entry addressing those two nefarious JW dudes, Farmer and Hofmann, that critiques their blood restriction activities down under and Farmer's questionable credentials. The blog is written by a Canadian who is actively involved in transfusion medicine. I am glad to see that the story about Farmer and Hofmann has gained attention outside of Australia.

  From Musings on Transfusion Medicine:

  This is turning a blind eye (or protecting one's butt?)
  

  • Australia: NBA downplays Jehovah's Witness not declaring potential conflicts of interest to sit on transfusion guidelines panel (2 June 2014)

  Australia's National Blood Authority (NBA), a well respected government organization that does much valuable work, appointed Shannon Farmer, a Jehovah's Witness, as the key consumer representative on a government panel developing new transfusion guidelines for Australia's hospitals. Nil inappropriate about that except Mr. Farmer didn't declare
  

  • Formally, or otherwise it seems, that he was a Jehovah's Witness.

  • His consultancy work since 2007 to an Austrian business involved in commercial tendering for patient blood management projects around the world.

  • Receiving fees for consulting and lecturing from multinational pharmaceutical companies,e.g., J and J.

  When informed, the NBA said it would review the details. Whether or not possible conflicting interests are of "sufficient conflict" is a moot point.

  Fact is they were not declared and at the time of his appointment Farmer was described as "consumer" and "independent consumer advocate". An NBA spokesperson is quoted as saying, "The NBA believes any potential conflict of interest, real or perceived, should be declared."

  So far as I can tell Shannon Farmer is not a physician nor a PhD researcher, yet:
  

  • He's an Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Surgery, at the University of Western Australia, where he's listed as an author on multi-authored papers about blood.
  • LinkedIn shows he's an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Centre for Population Health Research, Curtin University.
  • He's lectured extensively on bloodless surgery and blood conservation.
  • He's apparently an expert on transfusion medicine.

  Yet it's hard to discover which degrees he has, where he went to school, or any of the normal qualifications of someone who's an author, lecturer, and expert on TM, with university appointments.
  
  And none of the above profiles even hint that he's consulted for years to Austria's 'Medicine and Economics' business involved in commercial patient blood management projects globally.
  
  How can you not know that someone you appoint to panels developing national blood transfusion guidelines is a member of a religion that forbids transfusion and earns big bucks implementing blood management programs internationally? How can you say, when information comes to light, 'These aren't sufficient conflicts'?
  
  Isn't this equivalent to someone being appointed to a government panel on the future of private laboratories in Alberta (Canada, UK, you name it)
  

  • Who is a member of a political party whose policies are pro-private medicine (pro-private everything)?
  • Who consults for (perhaps partially owns) a private laboratory consortium bidding for government contracts?

  Sorry, the non-physician Jehovah's Witness as TM expert and global blood management consultant who advises on transfusion guidelines, didn't declare potential conflicts, makes millions off blood management, and was initially listed as a consumer and consumer advocate doesn't meet thesniff test.
  
  Or...he's a fine fellow, does good work, and the NBA thinks it's okay that he didn't declare potential conflicts, despite their policies, because the conflicts are not serious ones?

  --- Pat Letendre

  Pat also wrote this is in the blog entry that prefaced his comments on the Australian blood Management:

  ...Patient blood management is the flavour of the year as evidenced by the number of papers in TM journals and May's issue of AABB News:

  • 'Patient blood management hits prime time' (Content under 'Departments' in left menu is free)

  According to the CEO message, AABB recently published Standards for a Patient Blood Management Program plus launched a new PBM consulting program. Indeed, no doubt smelling the ka-ching potential, AABB created a new PBM section on its website.
  Perhaps all the blood management consultants aiming to make big bucks should wake up and smell the sheep dung?

  *my comment: "Blood management consultants" AKA JW Hospital Liaison trained people

  
  Pat was referring to the apparent potential of sheep dung to save blood:

  • India: Goat blood enema used to help treat thalassemia patients (8 June 2014)

  The principal investigator said the enemas ensure hemoglobin levels do not go down drastically and research has proved it. Cases existed in which patient blood transfusion needs were reduced to half or even less.