Transfusing blood is eating blood?

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Watchtower’s governing body has for years and years told Jehovah’s Witnesses that transfusion of blood should be equated with eating blood.[1-3]

The Watchtower organization explains it this way[3]:

The Watchtower organization explains the physiology of how the body "eats" transfused blood this way[4]:



It's False

The Watchtower organization's teaching that transfusing blood is eating blood is false.

The problem with this teaching is that, when transfused, blood does not serve as food to the body as does intravenous administrations of nutritional solutions. The failure of transfused blood as a method to feed patients intravenously is documented by scientists as early as 1887.

Dr. William Hunter was a pioneer in the study and development of blood transfusion. He reviewed the research of other scientists and he performed many experiments of his own. His finding on whether transfused blood was useful for feeding patients intravenously is expressed this way[5]:

Intravenous feeding introduces material to the blood stream that is taken up and metabolized as food. But transfusion of blood components such as red cells does not provide material like this. As Dr. Hunter pointed out in 1887,

“[I]t has been abundantly proved that an animal starves as readily with an excess of corpuscles in its body, supplied to it by repeated transfusions, as if no such transfusions had been made.”

The fact is a body does not "eat" its blood supply, even under condition of starvation.

Watchtower’s top leadership wants folks to accept that transfusing blood is equal to IV feeding of a patient. The fact is that if you transfuse a starving person with blood in order to feed them, the patient will starve.[6]

I don’t recall the last time Watchtower’s Governing Body let a fact get in the way of teaching what it wants folks to believe. But then this organization wants Jehovah’s Witnesses to accept what it says as though the voice of God.[7]

Marvin Shilmer
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References:

1. The Watchtower, September 1, 1986, p. 25.

2. Reasoning from the Scriptures, published by Watchtower, 1989, p. 73.

3. The Watchtower, July 1, 1951, p. 415.

4. The Watchtower, December 1, 1967, p. 720.

5. Hunter, The Duration Of Life Of Red Blood Corpuscles After Transfusion, In Its Bearing On The Value Of Transfusion In Man, The British Medical Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1361 (Jan. 29, 1887), pp. 192-200.

6. For more on the question of whether transfusing blood is a means of “eating” blood, see the articles:

◄ Transfusing, Eating — Misrepresentation

7. Voice of God?

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