And of course PIMI's are waiting for "clarification" from the GB overlords, to ensure they have permission to save their own lives in these private health matters....
30
u/Rhiboflavin
Imagine what it must feel like, to have a sick helpless family member slowly dwindling in front of you while you frantically search for any answer in watchtower garbage.
By the time you find the answer is no. Your family member is 'moving on' and you wasted the few precious days you had with your loved one, all because 'men' decided on what the light says in this current decade. Disgusting.
15
u/Diligent-Swimmer1966
I work in dentistry. We have a procedure we call PRF or platelet rich fibrin where we draw blood, spin up a clot and use it in the socket when we do extractions on high risk or immunocompromised patients to help them heal faster or improve the overall prognosis. Witnesses adamantly have refused this proven therapy and some diabetic patients took months to heal up instead of weeks. I'm curious if those same people will have a different perspective when I see them again.
13
u/Short-Complex-2410
It pisses me off that people have lost their lives due to GB overreach. Recently a new woman in my parents congregation was diagnosed with cancer, I'm grateful she might be able to receive real treatment now. It seems like all lives lost before were in vain. Why didn't this "correction" come sooner? They will never ask.
10
u/Pale-Cod3749
Wow. Thanks for this and it absolutely should be its own post, if not pinned.
It shows all the treatment options that were forgone by unaware, uneducated, obedient JWs facing death or excruciating pain or a longterm terminal illness.
They thought they were obeying Jehovah’s explicit command, only because the GB forced them to obey and forbidden to research anything non on the JW dot con site.
And if this is all about not disrespecting and wasting/improperly throwing out blood, if they’re saying they can remove their blood from their body and store it in bags in a blood bank, in advance of their own surgery, but don’t end up needing it…
What about all the JW blood that’s not able to be used by anyone, according to the GB’s un-thought out new “exception”?
With them adding in their own legally-protective, “blame-shifting” clause of “according to your own conscience” and a lowly, devout, obedient JW realizes that they did this thing that’s kinda unclear whether it’s ok with Jehovah, maybe their conscience will gnaw at them for having ended up “wasting blood” instead of just trusting in Jehovah (like those martyred children sacrificed for their Awake! cover were forced to)?
It’s all such obvious bullshit. I hope they’re lurking in here and getting the message loud and clear that they need to just drop it all and not do this parsing out “spiritual food at the right time” or on Jehovah’s timing and just do the right thing and stop it. Now. Today. Pfft.
9
u/Ancient_Team_7007
This is where that statement — “the list of treatment options continues to grow” — really changes meaning.
They’re not talking about relaxing the ban on blood transfusions. That part hasn’t changed.
What they are doing is widening the category of what counts as “acceptable” by quietly absorbing newer medical techniques into the framework. So instead of saying “transfusion,” they avoid that word instead saying "give back", focusing on alternatives — many of which, in practice, overlap with what people would traditionally associate with transfusion-related care.
It’s a linguistic and doctrinal balancing act:
Keep the core prohibition intact
Acknowledge modern medicine is evolving
Reframe newer therapies as individual conscience decisions
So the headline stays the same, but the application becomes more flexible over time.
That’s why the wording matters so much(they say "clarification" instead of "change"). It’s not a change in doctrine — it’s an expansion of what can exist around the doctrine without appearing to contradict it.
Mind blown!!
9
u/ExWitSurvivor
And all of the hundreds of JW’s who refused these treatments…who would possibly be alive today!!!
5
u/goddess_dix
thanks for sharing this information. for those of us completely uneducated in this area (i.e. me) i was wondering about this specific thing what treatments it opens up for people
4
u/BolognaMorrisIV
I'd caution against celebrating just yet.
From what I'm reading, therapies like CAR-T or Stem Cell transplants still require donor blood and platelets to keep the patient alive during the recovery phase.
While witnesses can now store red blood cells for up to 42 days, the platelets only last 5 to 7 days. It's apparently not possible to bank a month's worth of platelets, so they will inevitably run out during the recovery phase and die without donor transfusions.
We really need somebody with actual medical expertise to go over all of this before we start popping the champagne.
2
u/brooklyn_bethel
I get what you mean, but it only affects countries which offer healthcare for free, so you don't have to do anything to get it. Otherwise if getting a therapy involves any action or money, Jehovah's witnesses are never going to apply for it. The cults teaches them to be useless penniless slobs. The cult teaches them to never care for their health or for themselves in general. The cult teaches and desperately wants them to be poor, uneducated, lazy and dumb. The cult brainwashes them into thinking they are going to live forever after death, so they don't take care of themselves and die from any smallest illness. It's ridiculous how destructive and evil the Watchtower cult is.
2
u/Eginmundis
Great post, useful research 🙏 thx
2
u/Firm-Instance5489
Pimo here, I had a family member that was very close to me die several months ago bc their lymphoma came back. They would’ve had access to much better options for treating relapsed lymphoma if weren’t for the GB. I had to watch them suffer due to ineffective treatments for years, when they could’ve had access to treatments that are clinically proven to be much better and have very high success rates. Clarification my ass, it isn’t clarification when it was pretty damn clear the org was against these treatments previously. How dare the GB not acknowledge any of the lives they negatively affected with this doctrine. I absolutely despise them.
2
u/ClosetedIntellectual
That's pretty cool, actually. I didn't realize that all of those therapies use your blood.