Hemopure? Correct me please; isnt this a derivative or bovine blood?
Yes, Hemopure is a bovine derived hemoglobin substitute. It is made from cow's blood.
This article is over 120 pages can you list the pages that deal with the JW's and also back up your statement, thanks
Actually, it is over 300 pages long. If you use the search function you can find all the place that Jehovah's Witnesses are mentioned in the document.
But - for a very condensed version of the document, what is happening is that a number of interested and concerned parties got together to talk about the safety and efficiacy of artifical blood and how to proceed with research into it. A meta-analysis of available data (because many of the trials never did submit results - notably, Hemopure was one of the biggest trangressors of not turning in data to the FDA) revealed this:
We conclude, based on analysis of the available data from clinical trials, hemoglobin=based blood substitutes are associated with a significant risk of death and myocardial infarction.
They discuss the safety issues - some say that they can fix the problems with the artifical blood that is causing the higher rates of death and heart attacks - and they discuss what kind of study design is most valid and would have the most benefit. Guniea pigs, monkeys and dogs are discussed as to why or why not they would be the way to proceed with subjects for trials. And, they discuss, several times, whether or not the JWs would be suitable for a sample group.
pg 279 - Dr. Vlahake from Harvard makes this comment:
I wouldn’t necessarily give up on the Jehovah’s Witness population and just share with you a couple of insights in having managed a number of those patients over the 22 years I have been in the specialty our group along with our colleagues in cardiac anesthesia have had a number of these people referred through their own network. This is for those of you who have not had the opportunity to work with Jehovah’s Witness patients. They have a medical liaison network in every city in the US and the headquarters in the religion is the Watchtower Society in Brooklyn. And we have had the senior members of that organization come to our administration and there have been meetings about creating a referral relationship, and the patients who are willing to travel.
And so you could conceivably design a surgical trial and you could pick a handful of surgical specialties where there is a reasonable likelihood of needing a transfusion, and design it regionally at several major centers in the US, engage the Church and the medical liaison people that are part of the Church and to reach out into the community to bring those patients into the system, and then carefully design the clinical trial and then even potentially have a crossover option if it comes down to life-threatening anemia which we’re going to encounter in some of those patients you start to do larger and larger surgeries.
There are other places in the document that refers to the JWs. The arguments are a bit complicated and there is much to be said in the analysis of the text, including who was involved in the discussion and their interests and prior history with the Watchtower, but, what emerges is that the WTS was on the side of Biopure in the discussion - in spite of the very real concerns with safety and efficiacy, the WTS wanted to proceed with trials in the JW population.
What is important to remember in all of this, is that Hemopure would be being tested against the treatment currently done on JWs - the use of volume expanders, not oxygen carriers - and that the Hemopure to that point did not perform as well as current treatment. Volume expanders had been developed back in the 60s by using JW subjects in research facillitated by the Army. (yes...I can back that up...I have the study that shows that...)
As far as backing up my statements goes...the document I linked to does that - I apologize for the density of it - I understand that it is a difficult read.
Atlantis - you are most welcome.