mermaid33:

bloo:

A side benefit is that there are more and more doctors in this country practicing bloodless medicine which is proven to be safer.

Do you have a link to back up this claim? And please don't give us one to The Watchtower.

Doesn't it just make sense that if you use non-blood alternatives, that you're avoiding the dangers of the use of blood?

I’m not actually familiar with any links to point you to, but I will research that in case someone else ever asks me. I do have some snippets you can look up and verify if you’re really interested:

In a television interview on November 28, 1997, Dr. Edwin Deitch, medical director for the bloodless program at University Hospital, Newark, New Jersey, explained how research into bloodless surgery developed: “Jehovah’s Witnesses . . . went to a lot of effort to try to find people who would operate without blood. Some of the results of those studies found that they did better than was expected, [than] people who got blood.”

Dr. Deitch added: “Blood can turn down the immune system and cause problems with postoperative infection; it can increase the risk of someone having recurring cancer, so blood, although it was good in certain circumstances, turns out to have a bad side.” Of bloodless surgery, Dr. Deitch concluded: “It clearly improves patient outcome with less complications, and [it] costs less. And, therefore, it really is a winner in all circumstances.”

“…the surgical team headed by Dr. Denton Cooley at the Texas Heart Institute decided to try operating on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Because the doctors could not prime the needed heart-lung pump with blood or administer blood during or after surgery, they employed nonblood plasma expanders. Dr. Cooley reports: “We became so impressed with the results on the Jehovah’s Witnesses that we started using the procedure on all our heart patients. We’ve had surprisingly good success and used it in our [heart] transplants as well.” He added: “We have a contract with the Jehovah’s Witnesses not to give a transfusion under any circumstances. The patients bear the risk then, because we don’t even keep blood on hand for them.” The San Diego Union, Sunday, December 27, 1970, p. A-10.

What have been the long-term results of ‘bloodless heart surgery’ on adults and children? Dr. Jerome H. Kay of California wrote: “We have now done approximately 6,000 open-heart operations at the Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Los Angeles. Since we have not been using blood for the majority of patients, it is our impression that the patients do better.” The Journal of the American Medical Association, December 3, 1973, p. 1231. A Canadian study provided specific details, revealing that when nonblood fluids, such as dextran and Ringer’s solution, were used instead of blood “the number of deaths dropped from 11 per cent to 3.8.” The Toronto Star, November 22, 1975, p. A8. This type of surgery has also successfully been done on Jehovah’s Witnesses and children in Norway, Australia, South Africa, France, England and Japan.

Experienced surgeons are aware, however, that general surgical patients account for a greater proportion of the blood used than those undergoing more dramatic operations such as open-heart surgery. What has occurred with Jehovah’s Witnesses requiring more common operations where substantial quantities of blood are normally used?

Under the title “Major Surgery in Jehovah’s Witnesses” a group of New York doctors related a number of cases involving extensive surgery, such as the total removal of cancerous organs, and explained that by employing precise surgical techniques these procedures can be done without blood (oh great, you mean if a surgeon is simply more careful, I can avoid a blood transfusion and greatly reduce my chances of contracting a blood-borne disease? bolded italics mine) . New York State Journal of Medicine, May 1976, pp. 765, 766.

The fact that I believe that it's safer is not the main reason why I'd avoid one, but I've actually had non-witness friends ask how they can get a legal doc to keep in their wallet in order to make sure they're not transfused while unconscious because they're highly concerned about the safety of transfusion.

Apologies to all for high-jacking this amusing thread about political telemarketers.