Medical Basis of Jehovah's Non-transfusion Therapy

There are many hazards in blood transfusion. Quote the information of Jehovah's Witnesses in official website:

How safe is blood transfusion?

A thoughtful person will explore the possible benefits and risks of treatment before receiving any important medical treatment. What about blood transfusion? Nowadays, blood transfusion is an important tool in medicine. Many doctors who really care about their patients may not hesitate to donate blood to their patients. Some people even call blood transfusion the grace of life.

Millions of people donate blood or receive blood transfusions. During the period of 1986-87, there were1300,000 blood donors among the 25 million people in Canada. "In the latest year with statistics, the United States alone used 654.38+200,000 to 654.38+400,000 units of blood for blood transfusion." —— new york Times, 1990 February 18.

Dr. Louise J. Keating pointed out: "Blood has always been considered to have magical characteristics. In the first 46 years, doctors and the public thought that the blood supply was safer than the actual situation. " (Cleveland Journal of Clinical Medicine,1May, 989) What was the situation at that time? What's the situation now?

Even 30 years ago, pathologists and blood bank staff knew: "Blood is explosive! Blood can be beneficial or harmful. The mortality rate of blood transfusion is equivalent to that of ether anesthesia or appendectomy. It is said that in 65,438+0,000 to 3,000 or possibly 5,000 blood transfusions, about one person died. In London, it is reported that one person dies for every 65,438+3,000 bottles of blood. " -new york Journal of Medicine, 1960 65438+ 10/5.

Since then, the danger has disappeared, so that blood transfusion is safe now? To tell the truth, blood transfusion causes hundreds of thousands of adverse reactions every year; As a result, many people died. In view of the above comments, you may think of various blood-borne diseases. But before investigating this matter, please consider some little-known risks.

Blood and immunity

At the beginning of the 20th century, scientists had a deeper understanding of the wonderful complexity of blood. They learned that people have different blood types. In blood transfusion, blood type matching between blood donors and patients is extremely important. If a person with type A blood receives type B blood, he may have a serious hemolytic reaction. This can destroy many of his red blood cells and kill him quickly. Although it is common practice to match blood types now, there are still mistakes. People die of hemolysis every year.

Facts show that the problem of cooperation taboo goes far beyond several blood types that hospitals try to cooperate with. Why? Dr Douglas H. Posey, Jr. wrote in Blood Transfusion: Use, Abuse and Danger: "Almost 30 years ago, Sampson described blood transfusion as a relatively dangerous procedure. ..... [Since then] researchers have identified at least 400 other red blood cell antigens and learned their characteristics. This number will undoubtedly continue to increase because the membrane of red blood cells is extremely complicated. " -Journal of American National Medical Association, July 1989.

Now scientists are studying the influence of blood transfusion on human epidemic prevention or immune system. How does this affect you or your relatives who need surgery?

"In every 100 transfusion, about 1 case leads to fever, chills or urticaria. ..... about/kloc-0 per 6 000 red blood cell transfusions will lead to hemolysis. This is a serious immune response, which can occur immediately after receiving blood transfusion or a few days later; This may lead to acute renal failure, shock, intravascular coagulation and even death. " -1988 national institutes of health meeting.

When a doctor transplants a heart, liver or other body organ, the recipient's immune system may realize that it is foreign tissue and reject it. However, blood transfusion is a kind of tissue transplantation. Even correctly matched blood can suppress the body's immune system. At a pathologist's meeting, it was pointed out that there were hundreds of medical papers "indicating that blood transfusion is related to immune response". —— Cases of Bad Blood Transfusion, World Medical News Weekly,198965438+February 1 1.

One of the main tasks of the immune system is to detect and destroy malignant cells. Can suppressing immunity lead to cancer and death? Please pay attention to two reports.

Cancer magazine (1987 February 15) published a research result in the Netherlands: "In patients with colon cancer, we see that blood transfusion has a significant adverse effect on long-term survival. In this group, 48% of patients who received blood transfusion survived for 5 years, and the survival rate of patients who did not receive blood transfusion was 74%. " Doctors in Southern California observed 100 patients undergoing cancer surgery. "In all cases of laryngeal cancer, the recurrence rate of non-blood transfusion patients was 14%, while that of blood transfusion patients was 65%. As for cases of oral cancer, pharyngeal cancer, nasal cancer or sinus cancer, the recurrence rate of non-blood transfusion patients is 365,438+0%, and that of blood transfusion patients is 765,438+0%. " -Annals of Otolaryngology,1March, 989.

Danish scientist Niels Jerne is one of the winners of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Someone asked him why he refused blood transfusion, and he said, "Human blood is like human fingers-no two blood types are exactly the same."

What do these studies show about blood transfusion? Dr. John S Spratt concluded in an article entitled Blood Transfusion and Cancer Surgery: "Cancer surgeons may need to be surgeons without blood." -American Journal of Surgery, September 1986.

Another major task of the epidemic prevention system is to resist infection. Therefore, it is understandable that some studies show that patients receiving blood transfusion are more susceptible to infection. Dr. P.I.Tarter studied colorectal surgery. Among patients who received blood transfusion, 25% were infected, while only 4% of patients who did not receive blood transfusion were infected. He reported: "Blood transfusion before, during or after operation is related to infectious complications. ..... The more blood units you lose, the greater the risk of infection after surgery. " (British Journal of Surgery, June 65438+August 0988) People attending the meeting of American Blood Bank Association from June 65438 to August 0989 were told that about 23% of patients who received blood transfusion during hip replacement surgery were infected, while those who did not receive blood transfusion were not infected at all.

When talking about the influence of blood transfusion, Dr. John A. Collins said: "It would be ironic if there is no evidence that a' therapy' has ever achieved anything of value, but it is later found that it has worsened a major problem faced by patients." -World Journal of Surgery, February 1987.

Away from disease or full of danger

Blood-borne diseases make cautious doctors and many patients very worried. What kind of illness? To tell the truth, you can't limit the disease to one kind; There are indeed many diseases that can be transmitted through blood.

After discussing some well-known diseases, the book Blood Transfusion Technology (1982) further mentions "other infectious diseases related to blood transfusion", such as syphilis, cytomegalovirus infection, malaria and so on. Then the book says, "Several other diseases are also reported to be transmitted through blood transfusion, including herpes, viral infection, infectious mononucleosis (EB virus), toxoplasmosis, trypanosomiasis [African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease], leishmaniasis, brucellosis [wave fever], typhus, filariasis, measles, salmonella disease and Colorado tick fever."

Blood and liver damage, and ...

Washington post explained: "Ironically, the threat caused by blood-borne AIDS has never been as great as that caused by other diseases such as hepatitis." .

Yes, a large number of people died of hepatitis. There is no specific treatment for hepatitis. According to "US News and World Report" (1989 May 1), about 5% of blood transfusion recipients in the United States are infected with hepatitis every year-175,000 people. Half of them become long-term carriers, and at least 1 person in every 5 people develops cirrhosis or liver cancer. It is estimated that 4000 people died. Imagine what kind of headlines you would read if a large jet plane crashed and everyone on board was killed. However, the death of 4,000 people is equivalent to a giant jet plane full of passengers crashing every month, resulting in the death of all passengers!

Doctors have long known that there is a mild hepatitis A spread through unclean food or water. Later, they found that there was a more serious type of blood transmission. At that time, they could not detect the blood infected with this virus. Finally, outstanding scientists learned how to detect the "footprint" of this virus (B). By the early 1970s, blood tests were widely carried out in some countries. It seems that the blood supply is quite safe and the future of blood is bright! But is this a fact?

Soon after, it turned out that thousands of people whose blood had been tested were still suffering from hepatitis. Many people know that their liver has been damaged after experiencing diseases that greatly weaken their physical strength. However, blood is tested; Why is this happening? It turns out that there is another type of hepatitis in the blood, which is called non-A and non-B hepatitis (NANB). In the past ten years, many patients who received blood transfusions have been infected-in Israel, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United States, 8% to 17 of those who received blood transfusions have been infected with this disease.

Then the newspaper published some headlines, such as "the mysterious non-A and non-B hepatitis virus has finally been isolated"; The heat in the blood suddenly rose. Third, the message is, "the elusive pathogen has finally been discovered." Later, in April of 1989, the public learned that there are methods to detect non-A and non-B hepatitis in the medical field, which are now called hepatitis C.

You may wonder if it's too early to be so excited. In fact, Italian researchers reported the discovery of another hepatitis virus; This is a mutant virus, and one third of hepatitis cases may be caused by this virus. Harvard Medical School Health Newsletter (1989165438+10) commented that "some authorities are worried that hepatitis virus is not limited to A, B, C and D; There may be other types. " The New York Times (1990Feb 13) said: "Experts extremely doubt that other viruses can cause hepatitis; If found, it is called hepatitis E and the like. "

Are blood banks facing more long-term research to invent various testing methods to make blood safer? A director of the American Red Cross cited the cost issue and made the following disturbing comment: "We can't keep adding new detection methods to find out every possible infectious disease." -World Medical News Weekly,1May 8, 989.

Even the method of detecting hepatitis B is not foolproof; Many people still get diseases through blood. Furthermore, because of the detection method of hepatitis C, are people satisfied? The Journal of American Medical Association (199065438+1October 5) pointed out that it may take a year for human body to produce detectable disease antibodies. Before that, people infected with hepatitis through blood may be at risk of liver damage and … death.

In fact, the number of these diseases is increasing. You may have read the newspaper headline: "Lyme disease caused by blood transfusion?" The possibility is not high, but experts remain vigilant. "If the test result of Lyme disease is positive, how safe is a person's blood? A group of health officials were asked if they would accept such blood. " Everyone said no, but no one proposed to abandon the blood of such donors. "If some blood in the blood bank is not accepted by the experts themselves, how should the public feel? -The New York Times, 1989.

The second reason for concern is that blood collected in an endemic area may be used far away, and the local public and doctors are ignorant of this danger. Given that people travel more frequently today, including refugees and immigrants, the risk of blood products containing unfamiliar diseases is increasing.

Therefore, the warning given by infectious disease experts should not surprise us: "Blood supply institutions may have to carry out general blood tests to prevent the spread of several diseases that were not considered infectious before, including leukemia, lymphoma, dementia [or Alzheimer's disease]." -transfusion medicine review, 1989, 1.

Although these risks are chilling, there are other risks that cause wider fear.

Aids swept the world.

"According to doctors gathered at the meeting of the National Institutes of Health to discuss blood transfusion, AIDS has changed doctors and patients' views on blood forever, but this is not a bad idea. "-Washington Post,1July 5, 988.

The widespread prevalence of AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) makes people aware of the danger of blood infectious diseases. Millions of people are now infected. The spread of the disease has reached an uncontrollable level. The mortality rate of patients is actually as high as 100%.

AIDS is caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and can be transmitted through blood. 198 1 first noticed the modern AIDS plague. The next year, health experts learned that the virus was likely to spread through blood products. It is now acknowledged that even after the invention of the method for detecting blood containing HIV antibodies, the response of the blood industry is still very slow. The procedure of testing blood of blood donors finally began in 1985 *, but even then, the relevant parties did not apply this procedure to the blood products that have been made.

Chagas disease shows how blood can bring diseases to people in distant places. The Medical Post (1990 65438+ 10/6) reported that "there are 100000 to120000 people infected in Latin America for a long time." Some people call this disease "one of the most important blood transfusion risks in South America". A "killer bug" stung the victim's face while he was sleeping, leaving feces in the wound after he was covered in blood. The victim may carry Chagas disease for many years (during which he may donate blood) and then develop fatal heart complications.

Why does this matter concern people living on distant continents? Dr. L. K. Altman reported in The New York Times (1May 23rd, 989) the situation of patients with Chagas's disease after receiving blood transfusion, and one of them died. "Other cases may be overlooked because [doctors here] are not familiar with Chagas disease, and they don't know that it can be transmitted through blood transfusion," Altman wrote. Yes, blood can be a tool to spread diseases.

After that, the health department assured the public that the current blood supply was safe. But it was later found that there was a dangerous "window period" of AIDS. It may take several months for a person to produce detectable antibodies after being infected. Because I don't know that I have HIV in my body, I may donate blood, and the blood test result is negative. Such a thing did happen. Some people are infected with AIDS after receiving qualified blood!

AIDS virus

It's worse. The New England Journal of Medicine (June 1989, June 1) reported the so-called "recessive HIV infection". Researchers have confirmed that people can carry HIV for many years without being detected by indirect tests currently used. Some people try to reduce the seriousness of the matter, thinking that these are only very few cases, but these cases prove that "the risk of spreading AIDS through blood and its components cannot be completely eliminated." (Journal of Patient Care,1989165438+1October 30th) The disturbing conclusion is that even if the test result is negative, it is not enough to show that there is no problem with health. How many more people will be infected with AIDS due to blood transfusion?

Next shoe? Or some pairs of shoes?

Many people who live in the building have heard the upstairs residents knocking on the floor with their shoes, so they may be nervously waiting for the sound of their shoes hitting the floor for the second time. In the deadlock involving blood, no one knows how many times fatal shoes will be knocked.

HIV used to be called HIV, but now some experts call it HIV- 1. Why? Because they found another type of HIV-2. This virus can cause symptoms of AIDS, and it is quite popular in some areas. In addition, according to the report of The New York Times (1June 27th, 989), "The AIDS detection methods currently used here can't accurately detect this virus. New research results ... make it more difficult for blood banks to determine that the blood donated by blood donors is safe. "

What about other diseases that are slightly related to HIV? A committee established by the President of the United States said that researchers believe that "one of the viruses is the cause of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma and serious nervous system diseases". This virus already exists among blood donors, so it can be transmitted through blood transfusion. People have the right to know,' How effective are blood banks in screening these other viruses?'

Dr. Knut Lund-Olesen wrote: "Since ... some people in high-risk groups will voluntarily donate blood because of automatic HIV testing, I think there is a reason not to accept blood transfusion. Jehovah's Witnesses refused to accept blood for years. Do they have foresight? " ——Ugeskrift for L？ Ger (Doctor Weekly),1September 26th, 988.

To tell the truth, only time will tell how many blood-borne viruses lurk in the blood supply. Dr Harold T. merriman wrote, "Unknown factors may be more interesting than known factors. It is difficult for us to associate some infectious viruses with long incubation period with blood transfusion. It is more difficult to detect these viruses. There is no doubt that the HTLV virus group is only the first virus. " (transfusion medicine review, July 1989) "It seems that the epidemic of AIDS is not bad enough ... In 1980, researchers pointed out several newly discovered blood transfusion risks to us. We don't need much imagination to foresee that there are other serious viruses that can be spread through allogeneic blood transfusion. "Restricting allogeneic infection: alternative strategies", 1989.

So many "shoes" have been knocked on the floor so far that the US Centers for Disease Control has proposed to implement "national prevention". This means that "health care workers should assume that all patients may be infected with HIV and other blood-borne pathogens." Therefore, both medical staff and the public have good reasons to re-evaluate their views on blood.

We can't assume that all blood will be tested. For example, it is reported that at the beginning of 1989, 80% of the blood in Brazilian blood banks was not controlled by the government and was not tested for HIV.

Image source: HIV: Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.