‘Not Really a Special Case’
UNDER the title, “Vascular Surgery in Jehovah’s Witnesses,” the Journal of the American Medical Association of August 10, 1970, published an interesting article. It was prepared by a team of Houston, Texas, surgeons and which team included heart surgeon Dr. Denton A. Cooley.
The report told of the results of twenty operations for vascular congenital or acquired disease. Among other things it stated: “Patients who belong to the religious sect of Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to undergo any surgical procedure requiring blood transfusion, because it is forbidden by their literal interpretation of Bible passages such as Acts 1[5]:20, 29, which charges those believing in God ‘to abstain from . . . blood.’ The development of a [modern] technique . . . has allowed such patients to undergo open heart surgery without challenging their religious convictions; and since 1964, open heart operations in Jehovah’s Witnesses have been extensively reported. Relatively little information exists, however, on other procedures carried out in members of this faith. . . . In this paper we detail our experience with Jehovah’s Witnesses who underwent vascular procedures without blood.”
“Results in this series of Jehovah’s Witnesses undergoing major vascular surgery compare favorably with results in other patients who received similar operations . . . Replacement of immediate blood loss with 5 percent dextrose in lactated Ringer’s solution and administration of the same fluid during the early postoperative periods was enough to keep the circulation stable. Lactated Ringer’s solution is preferable.”
The patients ranged in age from seventeen months to seventy-six years. Of the twenty operated on, eighteen recovered and returned home after an average hospital stay of one week. One patient, seventy-four years of age, died from complications that set in the third day after the operation, and one fifty-two years old died afterward in a subsequent open-heart operation. But “no complications could be attributed to the nonrestored blood loss after the vascular procedure.”
“Since it is our policy,” the authors went on to say, “to avoid the use of blood transfusions whenever possible in all operations, the patient who is a Jehovah’s Witness does not really represent a special case; and we can comply with his demands without undue concern. We have found that blood transfusion is not a necessary accompaniment to vascular surgery, but indeed has certain disadvantages such as the risk of hepatitis.”