by Lee Elder 30 Replies latest watchtower medical
@ ILTTATT2 - thanks for making the list. I'm sure it was tedious work going through all those papers looking for them.
I started a to do the same but I just didn't have the time. Now I have the time but instead have taken up the bible translation comparison work. :-)
Hi Truthseeker. Orphan Crow here...!
I don't have any records of the numbers of deaths related to blood transfusion refusals.
The numbers are staggering. I have read countless numbers of medical studies that end with the death of a Jehovah's Witness. And you know, I have never thought to keep track of the numbers that I have encountered in the research I have done. There are so many...so many, that are just refered to as "Jehovah's Witness patient". Died after complications. Died from severe hemorrhaging. Died.
They are nameless. But they exist as medical statistics buried inside of decades of research papers and that isn't even touching on the ones that never make it to a medical journal.
And I guess I have just became almost desensitized to the nameless "Jehovah's Witness patient" over and over and over again...mentioned in medical studies, in different languages and different countries all over the world.
Here is something that you can do to get a feel for the extent of how much the Jehovah's Witnesses have been written up in medical journals - go to Google Scholar and type in "Jehovah's Witness blood". You will get "about 24,000 results". Some of the JWs in those studies survived - many didn't. The farther you go back in years...the more they die.
In the opening post, Lee asked for people to enter the data that they knew concerning deaths from blood transfusion refusal.
I have a stat to add to that. My baby. February 1974. Canada.
Except he didn't die. He was supposed to. He lived even though the doctors who chopped and sliced him told me that he was going to die. They gave my baby a 3% chance of living through the night after they had tested their "bloodless" methods on him.
The only reason he is alive today is because he is one tough little son of a bitch.
That bitch is me. :)
Simon. The link keeps disappearing. Can you fix this?
Here it is:
http://ajwrb.org/watchtower-blood-map
The only reason he is alive today is because he is one tough little son of a bitch.
That bitch is me. 
Just like me! I am one little tough son of a bitch but with a kind heart! I am getting tired now. LOL Laugh at life or it will laugh back at you. LOL
Emma Cough 22 died shrewsbury 2007
after delivering her twins she died bleeding from the placental bed
See my post for one more:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/289351/reality-refusing-blood-happened
Lee Elder
I hope you have success with this project ,it is something that has always been at the back of my mind , how many lives have been lost either directly or indirectly , due to the no blood policy of Jehovah`s Witnesses over the years .Many have made speculations before , however to get a more documented /accurate view is certainly welcome.
Good luck
smiddy
stan livedeath: only this week i read--on this site--a figure of 50,000 have died through refusing blood. ive queried that now--and before. one death is one too many----50,000 is just beyond belief.
HI Stan,
Not sure what you read about 50,000 deaths or from where you read it, but not too long ago I presented an estimate of mortality suffered among the JW population between years 1961 and 2012. The number was c. 50,000. This figure is an extrapolation of a good sample size consisting of more than half the number of JWs in New Zealand. As it turned out a review of medical records showed this patient segment suffered a horrendous level of mortality related directly to refusal of red cell transfusion. The number of JWs (the sample) in the regions which medical records were gathered compared with the population of that sample that suffered death due to refusing red cells transfusion is astounding.
For a number of reasons this is a conservative estimate. For examples: 1) Though the estimate of 50,000 is based on the sample size of all JWs living in the New Zealand regions from which records were gathered these medical records did not include all deaths among JWs attributed to refusing red cells transfusion. There is no doubt that mortality occurred due to the same refusal of red cells in other trauma centers in the sample regions, but my estimate does not include this statistically because the documents were not retrieved to evidence those deaths. 2) Though my estimate covers years 1961-2012 the medical document retrieval only covered years 1998-2007, and mortality related to refusing red cell transfusion is arguably less in these latter years due to other medical technological advances. 3) My estimate (50,000) is based on a review of medical records in one of the most advanced medical regions of the world, which means if anything we'd expect mortality due to refusing red cell transfusion to be higher in less developed societies which are far more dependent on older medical means and methods to prevent mortality (not to mention morbidity).
A few years ago there was a rather drawn out discussion on this forum about this extrapolated figure of 50,000. Though the discussion raged on-and-on for many pages it was evident (to me) that the statistical sample vs. population was understood by very few for what each represents. I'm sharing this history for sake of any reader who wants to go back and find the discussion to read over it for themselves and make of it whatever they will. It's there for those who want to see how, at that time, readers here responded to the information. My own view is that nothing in the discussion ever came close to refuting the estimate. For that matter I'd opine there was never anything presented that really challenged the figure of 50,000. Mostly what I read was objections based on misunderstandings about how to use hard numbers for purposes of extrapolation. Perhaps the most significant mistake made by participants in that discussion was confusing sample with population of a sample. But the discussion is there for anyone who wants to go back and find it.
PS: I was encouraged to contact authors of the underlying review of medical records from which my extrapolation was made. The primary author responded to me saying that if anything my estimate was low.
Link to original article: More than 50,000 dead
___
This quote showed up in the Australasian Anaesthsia Blue Book 2011 in an article The Management of Adult Jehovah’s Witnesses in Anaesthesia and Critical Care by ANNE-MARIE WELSH, BSC, MBCHB (HONS), MRCP, FCICM Staff Specialist, Department of Critical Care Medicine, Nambour General Hospital, Nambour.
It is estimated that approximately 1000 Jehovah’s Witnesses die annually worldwide and as many as 100,000 may have died by abstaining from blood transfusions since the blood ban was introduced in 1945.
http://www.anzca.edu.au/resources/college-publications/pdfs/ANZCA%20Blue%20Book%202011%20P6.pdf
I have made several attempts to contact Anne-Marie Welsh to find out where she had accessed those numbers, but I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to contact her. Because this paper was published in Australia, and Australia's health care system is influenced by WT bloodless men, I assumed that the numbers came from the JWs who have been interested in promoting blood management in Australia. But, I could be wrong about that.
