A man died after turning down a blood transfusion on religious grounds – days before the rules were changed.
Isaac Valdez, 26, suffered a brain haemorrhage after falling during an epileptic seizure in August.
The Jehovah’s Witness, from Waxahachie, Texas, carried a ‘No Blood’ card stating that he did not wish to receive a blood transfusion.
As a result, medics did not perform an operation to drain fluid from his brain.
With doctors still unable to operate, he slipped into a coma and died on August 26.
Just 23 days later, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Governing Body in New York changed its rules on blood transfusions.
They still oppose ‘whole blood’ being injected – but now let individuals decide whether to accept blood components such as plasma and platelets being transfused.
The vast majority of transfusions use only blood components, so would be permitted.
Jehovah’s Witnesses originally refused transfusions due to a bible passage prohibiting the consumption of blood, but blood components are now deemed acceptable.
Isaac’s twin Jacob Valdez has demanded an apology from elders at his brother’s church.
He told BBC: ‘I want to ask them if they could apologise directly, I would like not to have a deflected answer, just straightforward apology.’
Medical experts in the UK welcomed the move, stating that it ended ‘longstanding ambiguity’ for patients and doctors.
A 2016 study published in The Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey journal estimated that around 1,100 Jehovah’s Witnesses die each year as a result of refusing transfusions.
There are around nine million Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, with the 2011 census recording more than 70,000 practicing in the UK.
Paul Gillies, the Jehovah’s Witnesses international spokesperson, said the Governing Body felt it their duty to avoid scriptural ‘overreach’ and only apply what was specifically described in the Bible.
‘The change is basically the application of Bible principles to modern medicine and its methods,’ he told the BBC about the rule change.
In response to calls for the leadership to apologise, he added that many lives had actually been saved because faithful Jehovah’s Witnesses had not been exposed to blood contamination scandals.
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