
Hospital patients who refuse transfusion actually do better than other patients - Jan_jw
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22751620
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Jan_jw
The report cites Clinical Professor James Isbister from the Sydney Medical
School, University of Sydney. “Professor Isbister said Jehovah’s Witnesses
were given better treatment by doctors trying to preserve their [the Witness
patients’] blood. As a result they had better survival rates, and shorter
hospital and intensive care stays than people who received blood transfusions
during surgery,” reports the paper.

[http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/surgeons-urged-to-
avoi...](http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/surgeons-urged-to-avoid-
transfusions-20121001-26vgf.html)

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DrScump
I don't see how they could limit the conclusion to just blood transfusions.
JWs tend to live a very healthy lifestyle in general (diet, activity,
community).

~~~
maxerickson
They briefly describe their statistics in the abstract:

 _We used propensity methods to match patient groups and parametric multiphase
hazard methods to assess long-term survival._

Looking at the full text, they matched the Jehovah's Witnesses with patients
that had similar health profiles prior to the procedure.

I am not qualified to say anything about whether what they did has any
validity.

