The numbers here don't make sense-if 4 million people a year have blood transfusions, approx 8 a year would die. Yet the number-182 suspected fatalities in 5 years would indicate several times that many deaths from blood transfusions(would be about 40 total if the 1/500,000 number was correct. How many are known to be a direct cause of blood transfusions? And why the discrepancy, unless currently the practices have improved greatly by 1997?

A very elderly woman died after a blood transfusion-but why was she being transfused?

How many people die every year that don't receive blood transfusions that have been recommended as likely to be lifesaving?

How many JWs die due to this personal conviction?

Are there other religions which believe the same way for the same reasons?



Each year, more than 4 million people undergo blood transfusions, according to the American Association of Blood Banks.

About one in every 500,000 people who receive a blood tranfusion dies as a result, according to a 1997 paper in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology.

Most transfusion-related illnesses and deaths are the result of mismatches, where the donor's blood is not compatible with the patient's blood, or of viral infections carried from the blood of the donor to the recipient.

The risk of receiving infected blood has been greatly reduced in recent years as tests have been introduced for such things as syphilis, hepatitis, HIV and West Nile virus.

However, non-infectious reactions continue to be a risk. Bacterial contamination may result from skin bacteria that get into the bloodstream through the injection site, contaminated injection apparatus or during handling or administration of the blood.

Deaths from bacterial contamination occur about once in every 9 million transfusions, according to medical journals.

Of 182 transfusion-associated fatalities reported between 1986 and 1991, 29 - 16 percent - were caused by bacterial contamination, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The entire article is here:
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/p...29/1033/NEWS01[/quote]