Please reach out to Te New Yorker

by Jonathan Drake 23 Replies latest watchtower medical

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  StarTrekAngel

  I would like to see exactly how much of this bloodless medicine really came about as a result of the JW doctrine. I don't deny that it may have an influence but an entire medical field of research is not going to come about just because of you religious belief. Blood has always been a high demand organ with the difference that donating this organ can be done many times over by the same individuals. It seems just natural to me that the medical community was bound to one day come up with a replacement just like they are looking into creating livers and kidneys without a donor. So may be the group had a benefit from it but what needs to be pointed out is that the WT probably saw the way out on this bloodless medicine. They probably have know for sometime of the latent liability they have on the matter and that the only way out is to hope that science will finally catch up to the problem and release them from having to admit they were wrong and killed so many people.

  Can I assume this woman is the wife of David Schaffer?
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  Jonathan Drake

  This is my point exactly:

  these advances have nothing to do with the doctrine of this one religion. At all.

  does anyone honestly think the entire medical field is going to change for one group? No. That didn't happen ok?

  what DID happen, is they found a more cost effective and efficient way to do surgery that was less invasive and safer for the patients, and THIS is the reason why the advancements happened. It has nothing to do with Jehovah's Witnesses. That NEEDS to be the reality being publicized before this nonsense gets them positive media attention leading to indoctrination of innocent idiots.
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  steve2

  Jonathan, you do make valid points. I am not so uninformed as a health professional employed by a major hospital to suggest JW doctrine is the sole factor driving bloodless procedures. That said, some of the earliest trials of bloodless procedures were spurred by blood refusal. As with all new treatments and procedures, the impetus can be quite unassuming and unexpected. But surgical teams note outcomes whilst hospital bean counters are always on the lookout for cheaper, less invasive procedures.

  You do write in an overly-emphatic way assertingthat JWs had absolutely nothing to do with advances in bloodless surgery, whilst JWs themselves are overly-emphatic about their "key" role in advances. The "truth" lies somewhere in between for it is certain they have given bloodless procedures a ready market, but yes, such developments go over and above simplistic accounts of progress in medical practices.
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  Jonathan Drake

  I do not believe the truth lies in the middle at all.

  i would agree that they deserved credit for this if their concern and their intent was in bringing about these changes, or even over concern with invasiveness of procedures or perhaps risk with using blood. BUT NONE OF THIS IS THE CASE.

  the motive of the teaching is nothing more or less than simply following a certain interpretation of their book. That is all. It is very convenient that many medical professionals see blood as over used and in some case risky, and these opinions were only used by Witnesses to further emphasize their beliefs but the belief had nothing to do with any desire to help the medical field in any way.

  The reality is that they selfishly and disgustingly enforced this rule and killed hundreds if not thousands wantonly. They deserve no credit for these developments because they at no point care whether or not they come about whatsoever. Their sole concern is whether their followers are following their cult rules and nothing more. Bloodless development is only a convenient event they can twist the bolster their reputation, when in fact they deserve no credit.

  Their only reasons for denying treatment had nothing to do with anything more than a twisted understanding of scripture. It was not concern over risk or activism for change in procedure. As such they deserve no credit. It's a simple moral equation.

  
  
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  umbertoecho

  I wonder if those who put the article up are aware of the pharmaceuticals behind these pioneering WT publicity stunts.

  We had a two week set of articles in Australia about Farmer and the other chap....can't remember his name.

  The problem is that pharmaceutical companies stand to gain a lot of money from alternative substances that have not been thoroughly observed over the decades of learning and understanding, re the transfusion of blood....how it is gained and how best to store filter, and what ever else the medical industry has discovered. These men made a packet out of their stint, they affected policy over here in Australia and all the while they hid their "religious" views during this crusade. I don't like anyone influencing what I can have or not have, based upon what has to be a biased view.
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  steve2

  Jonathan who said anything about giving JW orgsnization credit for innovations in bloodless procedures? I didn't - or I would immediately apologize if I had.

  I am saying something different:

  Advances in medicine are often initiated by unexpected factors - so, in an indirect way, the unexpected factor - blood refusal - presents a challenge to medical and surgical teams. Those teams deserve the credit.

  Yet when the story is told about the circumstances behind the advances somewhere in that story will be the initiating problem. You cannot repudiate that - but equally it needs to be kept in proportion.

  You are entitled to a strong negative reaction to this because - I agree - JW organization has milked one of the initiating factors for all its worth, obscuring the fact that advances in medical practise occur all the time by a multitude of factors AND more importantly, because the blood refusal doctrine has cost untold lives and is not the wonderful thing JW orgsnization makes it out to be.
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  Jonathan Drake

  When I say credit, I mean to imply these changes came about because of (or in some portion because of) their refusal of blood. I mean it in the sense that they are given credit for initiating an inquiry for change.

  This article I present here, which evidently had appeared elsewhere before now, makes this very argument. In reading your response it appeared to me that you agreed they deserve credit for making the developments necessary - perhaps I misread, but if not I disagree for the reasons I outlined in the closing comments of my previous post. Those being, in summary, that they deserve no credit for something they had no intention or concern or even the slightest inkling to bring about what-so-ever.
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  rebel8

  This is me. Perhaps my role in this discussion is not one of expert but rather one with a harrowing personal experience, so my bias may be at work.

  I researched "bloodless medicine" a bit. As far as I can tell, this was mostly invented by jws. I do not say this as a person offering credit for something good, but perhaps blame instead.

  Yes, there have been advances to prevent more deaths in battle, and after AIDS came to light, more research was done about reducing the use of blood products. Those were the good advances.

  The rest of this woo called "bloodless medicine" largely seems to be techniques not proven effective and safe, yet touted by such disingenuous front groups such as NoBlood.org. They have "expert" shills claiming they have no connection to jws and are genuinely so supportive of these non-evidence-based techniques that they spend their free time promoting them.

  I see these front groups as not different from Narconon, the Scientology group blamed for deaths while preying upon vulnerable people to convert them to a cult.

  Anyways, whenever I tried to identify non-jws supporting "bloodless medicine" I came up empty. FWIW.
  
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  wallsofjericho

  Dr's advance their capabilities with non-blood treatment by working with blood over decades on thousands of patients advancing their knowledge& understanding and through that sinful act develop effective non blood treatments.

  Then JWs praise this as a victory for JWs and the intelligence of their blood prohibition!

  would we praise a thief for stealing so much and becoming so wealthy that he didn't need steal anymore but still had no moral dilemma with stealing???
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  problemaddict 2

  I used the email I could find (earthlink) to write her after the first article hit the NY. I did not get an error message, but I also did not receive a response.