Is It Worth the Risk?

NEWSWEEK of August 10, 1987, carried a cover spread on “The Face of AIDS​—One Year in the Epidemic.” On 12 pages there were photos of over 300 AIDS victims in the United States. They were just a small fraction of the more than 30,000 in the United States who have died of AIDS to date. Yet, at least 17 of those pictured acquired their AIDS through blood transfusions or blood products as have thousands of others.

Sample causes of AIDS in these cases were: “Exposed to virus-infected blood during surgery,” “Infected by a 1983 transfusion,” “Infected by a transfusion, she infected her husband and a son,” “A blood transfusion gave him AIDS,” “Contracted AIDS from blood transfusion during 1981 surgery,” “Hemophiliac; his young son died of AIDS and his wife has ARC [AIDS Related Complex],” “He got AIDS from a blood transfusion, and he endured three years of pain, paralysis and encroaching blindness.”

One case, a 13-month-old baby, “died, as did his mother, from a contaminated blood transfusion.” A two-year-old girl “had a blood transfusion shortly after birth” and died of AIDS.

In view of these evident risks, why are some authorities still insisting on forcing blood transfusions on adult Jehovah’s Witnesses and their babies? In most cases, there are alternative treatments, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are only too happy to cooperate in any therapy that does not infringe on God’s prohibition against the misuse of blood.​—Leviticus 17:11, 12; Acts 15:28, 29.

[Picture on page 31]

Babies, infected by blood transfusions, have died of AIDS